low fps on GeForce 9600 GT

[Cheezes]

Very weird. You guys should not be having those problems with those stats. I first ran the UT3 demo on an old P4 3.0ghz with a superclocked 7800GS Agp card and had no issues keeping a decent frame rate. Granted UT does like a dual core processor it's not like the HyperThreaded P4 was a piece of junk. Especially with a card like that something else must be going on. I was about to say it must be Vista when I say you had the same issue on XP. Perhaps the CPU is overheating. The absolute chaos that takes place in some UT3 matches can put a pounding on a CPU compared to the relative calm palm tree surroundings of Crysis. Also see if you can get any newer driver from Nvidia's site. The ones on the CD may be outdated.

[Andeh]

Intel P4 3.0 GHz
2048 MB DDR2 (PC2-4300)
NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT 512 MB (drivers from CD!!)(from Gigabyte!)
OS:Windows Vista Ultimate (xp is also on 18 frames at some places but i think vista drops it lower!!)

First rule of thumb: Never use drivers that come on a CD with the graphics card. Always use the latest drivers from the nvidia website.

Second rule of thumb: Don't run Vista on less than 3-4gig of RAM, ESPECIALLY if it isnt at least PC2-6400.

Its pretty simple what the problem is. Your CPU is outdated, and is causing a serious bottleneck in your system. Thats really all there is to it.

I would also seriously recommend running XP over Vista, untill you get a better CPU and some more/better RAM.

[D-Hunter]

First rule of thumb: Never use drivers that come on a CD with the graphics card. Always use the latest drivers from the nvidia website.

Second rule of thumb: Don't run Vista on less than 3-4gig of RAM, ESPECIALLY if it isnt at least PC2-6400.

Its pretty simple what the problem is. Your CPU is outdated, and is causing a serious bottleneck in your system. Thats really all there is to it.

I would also seriously recommend running XP over Vista, untill you get a better CPU and some more/better RAM.

People need to stop blaming the CPU. I have the same processor he has, clocked at 2.8GHz and a 7600GT, and I get 35-45fps on the highest settings on large maps with 11 bots. It's obviously a software/driver problem.

[Tomeis]

Ok well, I was looking in the nvidia control panel and found an option that says "Maximum pre-rendered frames". The description says "Maximum pre-rendered frame rates limits the number of frames the CPU can prepare before the frames are processed by the GPU. Increasing this value can result in smoother gameplay at lower frame rates."

The default for this option is "3". You can set it from "0" through "8". I set it to "8" and in the places I used to get 25 FPS (When it was set at "3"), I now get 35 FPS. Not only that, but a noticed a general increase in FPS. (I only have this option set for UT3, because I don't need it for other games)

It works for me, so I guess I'm happy now. I used to have to play with texture detail at 5, and world detail at 1. Now I can easily get world detail to 4 and still get above 30 FPS. When I had my 8600GT and the newest drivers for it, this option was NOT available. It seems like a 9-series-only option.

I only get low frame rates on the bigger maps in warfare, and vehicle CTF. On the smaller maps in deathmatch, TDM, and CTF, my FPS never drops below 50 at the highest settings

Also, the funny thing is, the drivers that came on the CD with my graphics card are pretty much the most recent ones. There's only two drivers for the 9 series: one that adds support for the 9600GT, and another that adds support for the 9800GX2. Really, there's nothing much that these drivers do except let me use the card lol

[Andeh]

i see, so in your case, your CPU was the limiting factor. and your CPU is light years better than a P4

[PhenomFX]

Your CPU is P4 which means is big piece of utter ****, it died long time ago in 2006, the AMD Athlon 64 dominated the market from 2004 to mid 2006 until intel released C2D.
P4 is weak,useless and weak cpu, change it to C2D and you gonna get really gaming capable,powerful machine, not the junk you have.

[IDK]

You guys see this thread?
http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=586465

oldkawman1 can you rehash about 512 L2 cache again???

[martinblank]

It's your processor, hands down. UT3 is one of the most CPU-dependant games out there, even more so than Crysis. Not only is your CPU single core, but it's also a Pentium 4, which sucks big time. As already said, the P4 sucked when it was mainstream, and was ripped apart by the Athlon 64. Now the Athlon64 is ripped apart by the C2D.

[Devil_Spawn]

get a new processor. problem solved. the graphics card is easily powerful enough for the game

[Silver900]

and second my PC also makes weird noises it only does that when its closed when i open it the weird noises stop or when i push it and if i release it it justs go again making that annoying noises what can i do about this !!

rig

P4
2048 MB DDR2 RAM
card GeForce 9600 GT
OS Windows XP Home Edition

[D-Hunter]

A Pentium 4, while being a piece of ****, should have no problem pulling off an average 40fps. I have a 2.8GHz P4, as stated earlier, and I get much better performance with all the setting cranked up. Look around for INI fixes and updated drivers, you don't need to buy a new processor yet for UT3.

[oldkawman1]

You guys see this thread?
http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=586465

oldkawman1 can you rehash about 512 L2 cache again???

Here is the link to the very technical review on the 65nm AM2 chips. You may just want to skip to the end and read the conclusion.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/...-ee-page1.html

The AM2 65nm process EE chips just plain suck when it come to memory and cache intensive usage like games and databases.

For synthetic benchmarks, cache size is not an advantage, but is real applications, like games, cache is critical. The 512Kb cache versions of AMD chips tend to have a bad time with UT3 compared to the 1Mb cache chips. This seems to be very obvious for AM2 platform users.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/...ter/page8.html

This following shows a performance advantage of at least 10% for the 1Mb cache Windsor vs a 512Kb cache Brisbane with same clock in UT2004.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_20...=914&chart=422

Here is another showing the 4800+ with 1MB cache per core outperforming the 5000+(BLACK) with 512Kb per core. They even point out the fact that the 4800+ was less expensive;

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/...4800-5000.html

There are other benchmarks and reviews out there, not hard to find, just google.

[Purpleknight]

Hey, I have a question about the 9600 GT Graphic Card. It needs 400W of Power Supply? Because last day I see a crappy 300W in my power supply . Well I got a 400W one, but I heard that changing the power supply might burn your motherboard.

Thanks for reading. See ya!

[Devil_Spawn]

Hey, I have a question about the 9600 GT Graphic Card. It needs 400W of Power Supply? Because last day I see a crappy 300W in my power supply . Well I got a 400W one, but I heard that changing the power supply might burn your motherboard.

Thanks for reading. See ya!

who on earth told you that

[causa45]

ut3 has been made for dual core systems, a pentium 4 is not enough for a good framerate in ut3