Upgraded my graphics card but don't notice any difference!

[ally0007]

Hi folks,
I recently started dabbling in PC games, having reached retirement. I'm no IT buff, but I figured (despite my tight budget) that upgrading my graphics card would bring some noticeable improvements in gaming experience, especially after reading somewhere that my old card was inadequate by today's standards.

My old card was: Sapphire ATI AMD Radeon HD6450 Caicos 512MB DDR5 (silent)
The new card is: MSI GeForce GTX 750 1GB DDR5

The second card cost me twice as much as the first, but I don't see any difference whatsoever in quality of the graphics while gaming (with the likes of Assassin's Creed IV and The Pirate: Caribbean Hunt). Am I missing something? Or should I return/resell the second card? Any advice or insights would be much appreciated.

TIA!

 

[jimthenagual]

That should be a massive upgrade. But perhaps your CPU, or some other component is bottlenecking your system? Can you list your full system specs?

 

[ally0007]

Yes, thanks. According to Speccy:

Operating System
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1

CPU
Intel Core i3 2100 @ 3.10GHz 39 °C
Sandy Bridge 32nm Technology

RAM
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 665MHz (9-9-9-24)

Motherboard
Hewlett-Packard 1495 (SOCKET 0)

Graphics
HP LA1956x (1280x1024@60Hz)
1023MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 (MSI) 29 °C

Storage
119GB SAMSUNG SSD PM830 2.5" 7mm 128GB ATA Device (SSD)
465GB Seagate ST500DM002-1BD142 ATA Device (SATA) 27 °C

>>>>PS: I did download and install the Nvidia driver for the GeForce GTX 750 card.

 

[rcald2000]

ally0007 Your display is only 1280 x 1024 (4:3 ratio) resolution. Your monitor isn't capable of displaying high definition, therefore you don't have the resolution to showcase your 10 fold GPU performance improvement (http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Radeon-HD-6450-vs-Nvidia-GTX-750-Ti/m7821vs2187).

My suggestion: Upgrade to a 1920 x 1080 resolution monitor (1920 x 1200 is fine as well). Make sure the monitor is 24", not 23". Since you mentioned that you're retirement age, if your vision is less than stellar, then you may want to consider a 27" 1920 x 1080, which some people prefer for reading small text on webpages with more ease.

 

[RobCrezz]

To get better graphics you need to manually increase the detail settings in the game. the upgrade is so you can still get a smooth frame rate with increased detail.

 

[rcald2000]

Addendum: I also recommend that before you upgrade your display, that you enable the FPS counter from within Steam (Steam [menu] -> settings -> In-Game -> In game FPS counter). That way, you'll be able to witness the Frames Per Second that you're currently achieving in your games, with your current resolution; 1280 x 1024. When you upgrade to HD, there will be 58% more pixels demanding resources from your GPU, therefore you'll notice a FPS drop. The drop won't be an issue, since the games you're playing aren't particularly demanding. If your FPS is capped at 60 in game, then you'll simply need to go into the game menu and turn off v-sync. You can re-enable it later if you wish.

One last thing: I noticed that your i3-2100's HD 2000 integrated graphics, are relatively close in performance to your old HD 4650 GPU. Are you certain that your monitor is plugged into your GTX 750 Ti, and not your motherboard's integrated ports?

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Radeon-HD-6450-vs-Intel-HD-2000-Desktop-11-GHz/m7821vsm7697

 

[ally0007]

AddendumI noticed that your i3-2100's HD 2000 integrated graphics, are relatively close in performance to your old HD 4650 GPU. Are you certain that your monitor is plugged into your GTX 750 Ti, and not your motherboard's integrated ports?

Yes, the monitor's VGA plug is plugged into the graphics card.

Thank you (ditto to RobCrezz & jimthenagual) for the suggestions. Perhaps I'll look for a monitor such as you suggested when funds are less tight. My current monitor is 18". The physical size seems adequate for my purposes, but no doubt the increased resolution would be desirable.

I will play around with the settings, as was suggested.

Perhaps I should have stuck with the original CPU integrated graphics, because when I bought the first graphics card, I didn't notice any change either, which tallies with what you said about the integrated graphics performance being similar to the first card. The main reason I upgraded a second time, was that there is a lot of lag (voice/vision synch) when playing the intro to Assassin's Creed IV. I thought it was an indication that the first graphics card wasn't up to the job.

Can you (or anyone) suggest a free game (or suchlike) that would definitely require something like the GTX 750 card I currently have installed? I'd like to run it (a) with the GTX 750, and then (b) with the lesser card (Radeon HD6450).

Thanks again...

 

[RobCrezz]

best way is to run a benchmark.

Download Unigine Valley, run it on both cards using the same settings, and youll see a difference in FPS. The 750 should run it much smoother with a higher frame rate.

 

[ally0007]

best way is to run a benchmark. Download Unigine Valley, run it on both cards using the same settings, and youll see a difference in FPS. The 750 should run it much smoother with a higher frame rate.

Thank you for the tip! Nice program. I just ran the test on the GTX 750 and got:
25 - 108.2 fps (avg: 60.3 fps)... Score 2522
That was on the program's 'high' graphics quality setting.
I have yet to test the older card and the integrated graphics.

PS - I noticed the Nvidia control panel has 3D settings, which looks interesting to me; I've just ordered some red+blue glasses.

I also want to investigate VR, using a headset that'll utilize my android phone's 5.7" screen.