"SLI, The Way It's Meant To Be Played?" Nvidia? [Archive]

duddley

11-13-2007, 03:58 AM

I'm not quite understanding this. Why is the game still not smoothly playable with a single 8800gt or 8800gts?

I paid $380 originally for evga 8800gts and the game played OK, but still was getting FPS drops to as low as 30 at some high intensity points.

So, I then purchased an xfx 8800GT OC considering an average benchmark of 8-10fps above the 8800gts. Installed it, it ran at max fps about 80 and it dips as low as 30.

Is it a requirement to get an SLI setup for the game to look/play any good?
Even if I turn up all the detail, it looks like garbage compared to pics I've seen.

BTW, these FPS are with ALL settings turned down, bloom etc. @ 1280/1024

Current system:
5200+ (@2.8)
8800gt oc
g-skill 800 ram.
7200 sata hd.
600w OCZ psu
vista 32 bit.

Is SLI necessary to play the game and have it look any better then UT99? I just want to play the game how it always looks on videos with 60 fps minimum.

Can people with SLI setups please give me some idea of the difference it makes in UT3? I'm only interested in UT3 playability.

JordanLee

11-13-2007, 04:10 AM

SLI is a waste of money.

Does your motherboard have 2 X16 Speed PCI-E Slots? Most of them have
1 PCI-E X16 Slot and 1 PCI-EX8 slot making both cards run at X8 which slows them down.

duddley

11-13-2007, 04:17 AM

No, I'd have to get another motherboard for it.

What kinda of frames do you get on your 8800gts ssc?

I'm wondering what will help me more, buying a nice Core 2 Duo/quad with a new motherboard, or going SLI with a new mobo.

m4tze

11-13-2007, 04:39 AM

Your system is fine, unless you always have to play any game on earth at highest details with super duper framerates...

duddley

11-13-2007, 05:08 AM

Your system is fine, unless you always have to play any game on earth at highest details with super duper framerates...

I use all low settings and turn off all Bloom/distance effects. What else can I do? The game looks worse then UT2k4 right now, and I'm playing at worse fps.

It would be pretty sad if I have to turn my settings down to 1024/768 or 800/600 to get a solid 60 fps considering I'm using a dual core processor and the latest graphics card out.

KingLollo

11-13-2007, 05:36 AM

Question, you have a dualcore CPU ? (couldnt see that there)

Thats the reason the game doesnt run well, you should upgrade ur CPU to a shiny little C2D.
Friend of mine has a brand new PC with an C2D and an 8800GTS and the demo ran very very very smooth @ 1280 x 1024 and max details.

duddley

11-13-2007, 05:44 AM

Mosh

11-13-2007, 09:23 AM

Yep, you will be way better off with an Intel processor.

I used to be AMD/ATI but now there really was no option than Intel/Nvidia. Intel is eons ahead of AMD all of a sudden.

[TT]BrundleFly

11-13-2007, 09:48 AM

SLI is a waste of money.
Another uninformed half-wit.

If you are running any game at 1920x1200 or 2560x1600, then SLI is pretty much a requirement. It is at the high resolutions that SLI really shows the difference.

In 2008 there will be motherboards released that support 4 video cards. It's being done for a reason, not just to waste money... :mad:

db|mak

11-13-2007, 09:55 AM

I have a Q6600 (C2Q) @ 2.4Ghz (no OC) and a 640MB 8800GTS(also no OC), and I ran the demo at 1920x1200 on max settings and got 60 fps(capped) nearly all the time. It would dip to about 45-50 maybe in intense spots.

oldkawman1

11-13-2007, 10:10 AM

I ran the demo with a single 7900GTX card and the with 7950GT SLI. The SLI setup runs much better. I use 1600x1200 res with quality 3-3.

setup with single 7900GTX card;
unknown brand 7900GTX 650MHz clock
Epox nforce4 ultra board with 2.6GHz AMD dual core Opteron 180
4 GB G.Skill DDR400 @ DDR415
average of about 45 FPS
drops just below 27 at place on bridge in ShangriLa

SLI setup with 7950GT cards;
XFX 7950 GT 570MHz clock
DFI Infinity nforce4 SLI board with 2.4GHz AMD dual core Opteron 180
2 GB value ram DDR400
average of about 60 FPS
drops just below 40 at place on bridge in ShangriLa
almost always at 60-62 FPS, may be limited by the ini max setpoint of 62

Even with the lower CPU and GPU clocks, the 7950GT SLI setup runs at least 40% better than the single 7900GTX

I was not able to play very well at the lower FPS. Playing at higher FPS is like night and day difference in how well I play.

oldkawman1

11-13-2007, 10:45 AM

I'm not quite understanding this. Why is the game still not smoothly playable with a single 8800gt or 8800gts?

Current system:
5200+ (@2.8)
8800gt oc
g-skill 800 ram.
7200 sata hd.
600w OCZ psu
vista 32 bit.

You do not state how much ram you have, needs to be at least 2Gb.
You are running a 32 bit OS, too bad, 64 bit is better performance.
Did you try the beta driver, 169.04?
Do you have the AMD dual core optimizer installed?
According to benchmarks you should be running the game perfect with that card.

db|mak

11-13-2007, 12:26 PM

oldkawman makes some good points. I'm pretty sure those drivers make a big difference.

kray28

11-13-2007, 12:31 PM

SLI is not a waste of money if you run high res, or want to run your games at native LCD resolution (1920x1200+).

It's more like getting what you pay for....does it cost more, yes? Does it deliver more? Definitely.

It's also nice to be able to turn on AA and AF and max out texture res and detail and see very little perf hit, while getting awesome image quality. Single cards will usually have to scale back on that. Even if the game doesn't support SLI, you can usually force SLI AA on almost anything, and get high levels of AA and better image quality even though one card does all the rendering. This is usually great for older engine games like Source....playing HL2: Episode 2 with 32x AA is quite nice.

Devil_Spawn

11-13-2007, 02:32 PM

Yeah, I've got a 5200+ and x2 processor over-clocked to 2.8Ghz. I'm starting to think that getting a C2D will REALLY help my fps. I don't know where AMD screwed up, but the difference between the two companies dual-core processors for this game is amazing.
not really, oc'd to 2.8ghz....

try removing the overclock, and also install the amd dual core optimiser

you should get 60-100fps constant on demo max

Black_wolf

11-13-2007, 06:44 PM

how much memory does your graphic card have? from what I have experienced memory is very important

because I have a 8600GTS with 1024mb Ram and I run the UT3 beta demo at highest settings and res. at 1400*900. with 40 FPS/sec(If you have the real game and there are more graphic settings than the demo, then just forget what I just said)

but anyway...
your 8800 should be handling it better than mine!
BTW...I think some of the screens are ingame renderet but are manipulated a bit after...dunno but I think so...

d8tahead

11-14-2007, 03:07 AM

DHJudas

11-14-2007, 03:19 AM

Probably close to the low-medium quality settings averagine 45fps is my guess with that.... making sure physics is set lowest possible.

L'enculeur

11-14-2007, 05:49 AM

Yeah, I've got a 5200+ and x2 processor over-clocked to 2.8Ghz. I'm starting to think that getting a C2D will REALLY help my fps. I don't know where AMD screwed up, but the difference between the two companies dual-core processors for this game is amazing.Hahaha, you are really dumb if you think getting a C2D will give you much more fps. It will give you +5fps average, don't even hope to get anything more than that. An X2 at 2.8Ghz is just a little under the power of a C2D E6600 by the way. At least wait for the AMD Phenom X2 which should be out very soon.

A 8800GT is the second most powerful card for now so if it runs GoW like sh*t, then either you have some kind of problem or else they didn't optimised the game for **** on PC. It's often what happen when it was mostly a game for console and it's even worse if it's only Microsoft instead of Epic who transfered it to PC.

[TT]BrundleFly

11-14-2007, 10:03 AM

Hahaha, you are really dumb
Always nice to see someone willing to help out here with a positive reply...

Although it's exactly the arrogant type of crap I'd expect from a french kebecker.... trash... :mad:

DHJudas

11-14-2007, 12:02 PM

no comment

LeNotre

11-15-2007, 10:06 AM

I think i'm having the same kinda problems, my comp just isnt keepin up with the action! there's such a lag! I've got a Intel dualcore running @ 2.13ghz (x2) and an Nvidia GeForce 7300GS, so why the hell is still so slow!? any suggestions?
oh and no matter how high or low the settings are on UT3 still slow screen refresh rate or something... Any help would be grateful

CrysAk

11-15-2007, 10:22 AM

you running vista or XP? heard vista needs better system specs to perform the same as XP ...

at the end of the day , you get what you pay for, so if you got an OK machine.. expect OK performance. sinse when has 30FPS been bad anyways, your machines doin alright

got to remmber this is a NEW game with top of the line graphics compared to everything else that has been before it.. so ofcourse your gonna need a good machine to run it in all its glory

(hense why i just ditched my PC of 4 yrs + desk fan for a SLI 8800GT512, quad pro, 4 gig machine and fancy gamer keyboard/mouse (g5vr2, g15v2) cost me an arm and a leg but gotta be done unfortunatly :( ...)

LeNotre

11-15-2007, 01:18 PM

Tarantella

11-15-2007, 04:06 PM

(hense why i just ditched my PC of 4 yrs + desk fan for a SLI 8800GT512, quad pro, 4 gig machine and fancy gamer keyboard/mouse (g5vr2, g15v2) cost me an arm and a leg but gotta be done unfortunatly :( ...)

Spending in excess of £750 just to play a game isnt an option for a lot of people though and for many that will be the case for a while yet.

oldkawman1

11-15-2007, 04:53 PM

hey guys, i have an SLi setup, but its not all that great as i have a bit of an older pc..

i haven't played the demo, as my internet isnt all that great, but before i think about buying the game and running it, i want to get an oppinion / idea of how the game will run on my machine.

--System Spec's--
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (soc. 939)

RAM: 1GB DDR400 (2 512MB sticks in dual layer)

GFX: 2 BFG Geforce 6600'sGT oc's PCI-E ( Running in SLi, with 2 16x slots) each one is 128MB, so a total of 256MB

PSU: MadDog: SurePower 500W
DISPLAY: 19' Viewsonic LCD (not sure what model number, but native res is 1280 / 1024 )
MOBO: abit an8 32x

what do you guys think i can expect from this setup?
im not expecting anything great, because i know its an outdated system for this kinda game

You would benefit greatly from a dual core processor and another 1Gb ram. Look for one with 1MB cache each core. The Opteron 175 or 180 is a good choice, only choices available, I use the 180 myself. My memory usage during the game is ~1.3Gb and I never notice the HD access although it shows a 30% usage during the game.

The game is real GPU intensive and wants lots of fast video ram. Your cards are right at the min spec for playing. I doubt you would want to play with those cards, even in SLI, at best you may be at 800x600 with min details. As you can see from this set of benchmarks,
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_sli2007.html
your card is almost at the bottom of the SLI chart with 37. To run UT3 at 1280x1024 you need to have at least 70-90.

It's usually less expensive and better performance buying a better more expensive card than 2 less expensive lower performing cards.The 8800GT with 512MB is the only card to buy, that's why they are sold out. If you can wait for the stock to replenish, that's the card to buy. Here is another nice review;
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3128&p=2

oldkawman1

11-15-2007, 04:57 PM

i'm on XP, but i'm getting fps of max 15 and as low as 8! my pc's only just coming up2 it's first birthday and there's hardly anything on it. just dont know whats wrong with the poor girl! lol
it's nearly impossible to play with such a low fps! so what do i do?!

Sounds like maybe you have on board graphics? Is it a cheap one? Post your specs. No mater what cpu you have, on board graphics will kill your performance.

LeNotre

11-15-2007, 06:00 PM

how do i check my on board graphics then? sorry your speaking to a technical dunce...

Phopojijo

11-15-2007, 07:40 PM

Yep, you will be way better off with an Intel processor.

I used to be AMD/ATI but now there really was no option than Intel/Nvidia. Intel is eons ahead of AMD all of a sudden.Because they never needed to be, they just paid vendors to not sell AMD parts.

When the AMD lawsuit came in, AMD's market-share jumped from like 2% to 11% in the span of like -- 2 months. I know Intel is an Epic sponsor, and I'm sorry for bringing it up; that's the truth behind it though... simply submitting a lawsuit making your market-share nearly sextuple, has to say something.

That being said, now that Intel cares their Israeli branch put out some REALLY nice chips. From Yonah to Conroe/Merom... Penryn... beyond. Intel America seemed to really have some struggles with their engineers (hence why they fired like -- 1000 of them on Conroe launch)

ScottUT

11-16-2007, 01:46 AM

I think i'm having the same kinda problems, my comp just isnt keepin up with the action! there's such a lag! I've got a Intel dualcore running @ 2.13ghz (x2) and an Nvidia GeForce 6400, so why the hell is still so slow!? any suggestions?
oh and no matter how high or low the settings are on UT3 still slow screen refresh rate or something... Any help would be grateful

Its your video card.
Its a lower end budget line of the 6 series. It probably performs like a 5600.
I play on
2.8ghz p4 HyperThread
1gig ram
7800gs agp (pci-e version runs much better)
and I get around 30 fps+ average.

LeNotre

11-16-2007, 07:01 AM

sorry my graphics card is a nvidia geforce 7300 GS, which is probably still low end but surely i must be able to get better fps than 10-14?

rdy

11-16-2007, 07:52 AM

while reading the comments it made click for me why my fps are only 60 ^^

baaad monitor *g* my TF get's only 60 fps on 1950* res

stupid me :Dback to the roots old CRC Monitor and 800*600 high frames (i hope) *g*

oldkawman1

11-17-2007, 10:44 PM

I think i'm having the same kinda problems, my comp just isnt keepin up with the action! there's such a lag! I've got a Intel dualcore running @ 2.13ghz (x2) and an Nvidia GeForce 6400, so why the hell is still so slow!? any suggestions?
oh and no matter how high or low the settings are on UT3 still slow screen refresh rate or something... Any help would be grateful

The 6400 card is only one up from the very minimum card required, figure 640x480 at 1-1 settings.

The cpu does not matter with a poor card like that. Is the vid AGP, PCIE or is it perhaps on board graphics? How much memory does it have? What exact intel chip are you running? what type and how much memory do you have? What resolution are you running at?

oldkawman1

11-17-2007, 10:51 PM

how do i check my on board graphics then? sorry your speaking to a technical dunce...

does you video cable attach to one of the slots in the lower back of the case? Or does it attach to the motherboard itself at the rear plug panel? You can also open the case and look if there is a video card in it? Is it by any chance a dell, HP, or compaq?

LeNotre

11-19-2007, 01:03 PM

cheers 4 the help oldkawman1. Here's exactly what i've got on my one year old computer.
It's a Mesh by the way.
Intel CoreT 2 Duo E6400 Dual Core Processor (2.13GHz, 2MB)
Windows XP Home Ed
ASUS P5NSLI NVidia nForce 570 SLI Mainboard - Pentium D/CoreT 2 Duo
2048MB DDR2 533MHz Memory (2x 1024MB)
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer
2X 256MB nVidia GeForce 7300 GS - nVidia SLI Configuration

I've literally just copied that straight off my order confirmation from the PC when i got it last year. I've not touched the insides ever. so what the problem with it??

Tarantella

11-19-2007, 02:07 PM

cheers 4 the help oldkawman1. Here's exactly what i've got, the compeuter as i got it.
It's a Mesh by the way.
Intel CoreT 2 Duo E6400 Dual Core Processor (2.13GHz, 2MB)
Windows XP Home Ed
ASUS P5NSLI NVidia nForce 570 SLI Mainboard - Pentium D/CoreT 2 Duo
2048MB DDR2 533MHz Memory (2x 1024MB)
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer
2X 256MB nVidia GeForce 7300 GS - nVidia SLI Configuration

I've literally just copied that straight off my order confirmation from the PC when i got it last year. I've not touched the insides ever. so what the problem with it??

If anyone tried to sell me a comp with 2 x 7300gs in sli I would quietly put the phone down and walk away. :D

"Cough!"

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=859&model2=722&chart=295

FreakyNipples69

11-20-2007, 11:51 PM

It's pretty sad how much power this game needs to run smoothly. I have the following

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13ghz
Vista x64
4 gigs of ram
BFG Tech 8800 GTS

Anything I have ever played so far I can run at max settings at 1360x768 resolution, even the Crysis demo. Yet UT3 runs like dog crap even with low settings and a lower resolution. I can't even play. I'm sure Vista isn't helping, I'm going to install XP again and see if I can get it to play smoother that way. If not I guess a second card and SLI mode is needed.

karmatized

11-20-2007, 11:53 PM

naw man your big problem is you got the 8800 GTS, with that card i would bring your settings down to 3 or 4

gtx or ultra will give you a 5 playable.

to get a consistant gameplay on 5 sli is the way to go.

Crysis is worse dude, but im also playing at a much higher resolution

FreakyNipples69

11-20-2007, 11:59 PM

I restarted my computer and it runs a lot smoother.

karmatized

11-21-2007, 02:03 AM

ha. oh well sometimes its something simple

LeNotre

11-21-2007, 11:03 AM

i'm not really asking for super high graphics i just want a decent fps so i can play the damn thing. i'm getting 10fps avarage during games and it just doesnt keep up with the action.

Cobalt71

11-21-2007, 11:57 AM

Yep, you will be way better off with an Intel processor.

I disagree, no offense. I believe your specs are more than enough, and I really don't see changing you cpu to an intel c2d would change that significantly. What settings are u running at? I know this is obvious but tweaking the game I think is the only way to improve performance.

I honestly believe that graphics are more dependant on gpu power than cpu. So if your gpu can't hack it, I don't really know what will, sadly. Running SLI would be an option tho, that is if u have the money.

I just hope there will be a patch out that adress certain issues in the game, and I don't mean only performance wise. Hopefully nvidia will release some good drivers too, who knows?

Cobalt71

11-21-2007, 12:07 PM

... and an Nvidia GeForce 6400, so why the hell is still so slow!? any suggestions?

I would throw out that old graphics card and invest in a 8800 card instead, I think thats your bottleneck right there.

Enraged Bacon

11-21-2007, 12:25 PM

I think its the cpu, he used to have a 8800gts, which is what i have now. I have a core 2 duo and 2 gb of ddr2-800 memory and i get 60fps with no slow down at 1440x900 everything max with no AA. A 8800gt should have no problems with this game.

LeNotre

11-22-2007, 11:06 AM

i've got an Nvidia GeForce 7300GS not 6400, that was a mistake. and what is gpu?? and how do i find out mine!?

Tarantella

11-22-2007, 04:12 PM

i've got an Nvidia GeForce 7300GS not 6400, that was a mistake. and what is gpu?? and how do i find out mine!?

gpu is an acronym for graphics processing unit the details of yours being here

http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce_7300.html

Check out and compare the details with the series 8 cards and the 8800gt in particular.

Then check out the latest ATI cards

http://ati.amd.com/uk/products/radeonhd3800/index.html

http://ati.amd.com/uk/products/hdseries.html

Lot of choice for a replacement there remembering you dont have to have 2 cards to run games.