So, I wanna know what's at fault, my rig or these games?

faster23rd

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Hello, everyone! It's been almost a year since I last asked the community here, and I have received some really helpful suggestions, since then I have made some upgrades to my rig. Niceties aside, I have this frustrating problem with some of my games which tend to significantly slow down when I pump up the graphics. See, my rig runs on a GT 440 GDDR5, Pentium Dual-Core E6600 and two gigs of RAM. It may be not much for some of you fellas, but back here in my not-so-fun Philippines (being a student doesn't help too), these specs are above considerable. I have played a lot of games on my rig and after upgrading the GPU and CPU, I can play SOME of my games beautifully. The exceptions are CoD 4 Modern Warfare, NFS: Undercover and CoD MW2. I have looked at the system requirements of these games and at face-value, my rig could handle them as easy as pie. Still, I have noticeable amounts of lag when I max the graphics. I don't know what's happening, though I suspect that my RAM could be bottleneck-ing the performance of my rig. But there are other games I play like Dead Space 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction and Dawn of War 2, that runs full well, even with the graphics set to high. So, I wanna know what's at fault, my rig or these games?

Sensible help is really, really appreciated.
Thank you, community. :]
 

DM186

Splendid
Not the games. Some games use more resources than others do. So The questions I ask are, do you monitor your temps? Do you run win 7, vista, or XP? What is your PSU brand and how many watts is it?

You said you upgraded your CPU and GPU. Is it upgraded to the GT 440 and the Pentium Dual-core or you have upgraded from that to something different? Please answer the questions and repost. Thanks
 
cod 4 should max out on that card with 60 fps minimum that will drop in multiplayer so your looking at high settings...
if your getting poor fps then look at the drivers and maybe add a couple of hundred mhz to your cpu via an oc if you have the cooling... other than that make sure your games are the only thing along with your av that is running... use gamebooster to do this...
 

faster23rd

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Thanks. I see. Well, I run win 7 and no, I don't monitor my temps. My PSU is a Morr-Logic, stock from when my PC was bought, and I don't know it's wattage. I could open up my casing and read the PSU's wattage but I don't know how to get readings for my temps.

Yes, I've upgraded my PC to my current specs.
 

faster23rd

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Thanks. Well, I don't think that I have the proper cooling, plus I reckon myself to be noob when it comes to overclocking so I try not tread in those waters. Hmmm. What's this gamebooster you mentioned, sir?
 

faster23rd

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Thanks, HEXiT! I've installed Game Booster and the games I'm running now are doing better, I even kicked up a few notches on the graphics settings without any problems. I've got a question though, what benefit would knowing my GPU usage bring?
 

DM186

Splendid
Hey I will link you to some stuff that will help you do all the things above. If you watch your usage for example: you are playing a game and your GPU is using a lot less that would tell you that you have a problem.

I linked you to MSI Afterburner and it's user manual. It does everything listed above plus it also does a lot more. I also linked you to what HEXiT suggested. Plus all the others are Temps monitors.

The MSI Kombustor is a benchmarking program to put your GPU under a test to see if it is doing good or not. The game booster is cool I use it on most of my games but there are games you can't use it on. Good luck to you.

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/images/Afterburner%20User%20Manual.pdf

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

http://www.ozone3d.net/msi_kombustor/

http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/
 

faster23rd

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Thanks for these and the tips, DM186! I'll get them as soon as I can and take a look at the readings. I'll keep the community posted to any new developments or troubles that I might come across.
 

faster23rd

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Over the past days, I've been running Gamebooster and the host of other programs that was recommended to me. I ran benchmarks on Kombustor and checked stats on Afterburner. I didn't find anything worrying. While running Kombustor's stability test on 1280x1024 resolution with the AA off, my GPU puts out an average of 30 fps at 99% usage and around 70-80 celsius. Recently I've been playing games like Fallout New Vegas, FEAR 2, Dawn of War 2 and Counter-Strike Source on high settings with negligible instances of lag. Just tonight, I installed NFS Undercover and ran it on high settings, 4x AA and Trilinear AF, but the lag becomes unacceptable to game with. The thing is, my screen resolution is only 1028x768.

I guess this is the real question on this thread. I would gladly appreciate help.
 

DM186

Splendid
^+1
Yes do what HEXiT is saying to do and I am glad that you are able to run those programs and watch you stuff just sorry that your lag was not found by using the programs so now we have to look at settings.

That is why you should try what HEXiT said to do and thanks for letting us know the up date. Good luck to you.
 

faster23rd

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Thanks a lot for sticking with this thread, guys.

Anyway, I did what HEXiT advised and turned off my AA and toned down my graphics, except for my resolution which was maxxed. Still, my rig struggles and cannot put out even 30 fps. This afternoon, I installed Modern Warfare 2 and let the game decide the settings. I got max resolution, 2x AA and textures set to high. When playing, my rig continues to struggle as my framerates rarely reach 30. I tone down the settings and it's all the same, my framerates barely reach 30.

Next, I installed Call of Duty 4- Modern Warfare. Once again, I let the game decide the settings and I ended up with max settings. With CoD 4, I noticed that my framerates sink between 17-5 when I go out in the open and when there are multiple actors or effects on screen.

Finally, I ran Fallout New Vegas on max resolution, 2x AA, and high to medium textures. The result were good-looking framerates that goes at around 40-50 fps.

I remember DM 186 saying that some games use more resources than others. Is this it?

Whew. This is really a confusing lot.
 
do yourself a favor and run ccleaners reg cleaner. i have looked at the specs for your card and it is entry level gaming grade. it has more shaders than the 88gt but has lower bit rate smaller texture fill rate and lower memory bandwidth. all of which means your likely to get 96gt performance or there abouts...
the problem is you dont seem to be getting it.
theres a couple of reasons for this. background processes which you have already take care of. poor hdd performnce, to much or to little page file.
hdd performance can be increased by defragging with an app like ultimate defrag. using its auto option you can move your most used files to the front of the disk and move your archives and avis to the back slower portion of the disk... you can also remove any extra partitions that you may have as each 1 will slow disp perfomance by 10% each...
your page file must be set to 1.5 times your physical memory so for your its should be no bigger or smaller than 3 gigs.
on your desktop go into your games icons and select compatibility mode if you have it and select disable visual themes. this will turn off aero when you play games saving some resources.
you can also set your games to run dx9 only instead of dx10 when the game sees you have dx10 enabled hardware.

finally oc your cpu and gpu i know you dont know how but a little reading can put you on the right track and the other sections of the forum will help you get a stable oc on both gfx and cpu... i heard the 440 will oc quite well and give upwards of 10%-20% extra. the cpu should easily do 3.0ghz )with reasonable cooling) as the e6600 was a good overclocker for its time. if all else fails switch back to xp as it will use a little less resorces and will lock your games to dx9... problem is you wont be able to play games that require dx10 minimum but in reality your pc wouldnt play them properly anyway...


 

faster23rd

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Thanks. I'm not familiar with that ccleaners that you mentioned, but I'll see to it that everything you suggested will be done.

About overclocking my CPU, it already goes at 3.06 gHz at normal clock speeds, so I guess overclocking it isn't desirable anymore. For my GPU, would I be able to OC reliably with just my card's stock fan cooler?
 

DM186

Splendid
I will link you to some ccleaners. And I will link you to a game booster and see if that helps. I hope it is a simple fix. You could try some more ram. I will link you to memtest 86+ that way you can check out your ram.

http://www.piriform.com/

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Security/Secure-cleaning/Driver-Sweeper.shtml

http://download.cnet.com/Driver-Sweeper/3000-2094_4-75219868.html

http://performersoft.com/dr.php?brand=Updated&gclid=CKmppoaHna8CFUZgTAodTzOD4Q

http://www.memtest.org/

This one is the game booster.
http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html


This is totally of subjuct. I have 2 half brothers and a half sister who are half Phillippino and white and I know a little of degallow I can't write or spell in that dialect
 

faster23rd

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Thanks, DM186. On a side note, I've installed the first Assassin's creed and I'm getting nice framerates at max reso, 2x AA and high textures.

This is totally of subjuct. I have 2 half brothers and a half sister who are half Phillippino and white and I know a little of degallow I can't write or spell in that dialect

Nice. :)) Where are you and your half-siblings from anyway, DM186?
 

DM186

Splendid


We all live in the US. When I was in the Air force I was stationed at Clark AFB for one year before they closed it down. Anyway I can't give any more info about me. It is the rules on here and we can't be talking about our personal lives here either, sorry :D

So I wish you good will and nice talking with you. :hello:
 

faster23rd

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Wow, cool. :D Thanks for the links and it's been nice talking to you too. I've been in the process of overclocking my GPU and I'm seeing some success, although there are still some adjustments and tests to make. Once I'm done OCing and cleaning my regs, I'll go back here to update the community.