View Full Version : I'm back with a new PC and a few questions
Hey guys.
I've been away for a while now. Just got back and I have a new PC. Here are my specs.
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (Dual Core or w/e) 2.01 GHz
2.00 GB of DDR2 RAM
Geforce 6200TC 256mg PCI Express
Its alot nicer than the one I had which had aged quite a bit. It runs smoothly and quickly and the only thing I don't like about it, is the NVIDEA gfx card. I've downloaded the newest Gray Wolves mod, which now runs smooth as silk at a steady 30 fps. With only a few hiccups, which is the reason why I'm posting.
It seems whenever I fire my deckgun, the game drops fps like they are bell bottom jeans, no one wants em. Its only a second or two but just enough to notice, and just enough to get on your nervous as you can imagine. I am about to look on NVIDEA to make sure I have the latest driver, but just thoughted I'd post here as well since you guys usually know more about it than the guys at NVIDEA would.
Anyways I'm glad to be back and am very happy with my new Alienware computer. Silent Hunter is now better than ever, and with the new GWs its even better than it was. Congrats guys on the job well done!
I think the thing slowing your fps down is the smoke effect from the cannon.Smoke is a huge FPS slower in pretty much all games.I have a 6600GT and when I don't have naything better to do I use the pizza trainer with unlimited ammo and no loading and plant myself with the mission editor in the middle of water with 3-4 corvettes or armed trawlers (sometimes PT boats) and shoot the hell out of them.But I can't fire more than about 7-8 consecutive "automaitc" shots because the smoke gets to me...only for a few secs,but like you said it's kind of annoying.
But the fire effect from the cannon might also cause this,but I that's a low possibility.
Also,one other thing that could be causing this would be sound ,but your CPU is pretty fast so I don't think sound could be a problem for it.
And like Gizzmoe said ,the card is low-end these days so you should consider getting a better one.
Gizzmoe
08-29-06, 01:42 AM
The 6200TC is a low-end card (only costs about $40), I wouldnīt be surprised if that card is the cause of the problem.
Your telling me a 256mg PCI Ex card is a low end card? I literaly just got this computer why would they put a $40 gfx card in it.
Its the Geforce 6200TC.
What a complete and utter waste of $1093. Screwed yet again by NVIDIA.
Your telling me a 256mg PCI Ex card is a low end card? I literaly just got this computer why would they put a $40 gfx card in it.
Its the Geforce 6200TC.
What a complete and utter waste of $1093. Screwed yet again by NVIDIA.
The card ram doesn't really count so much .And wether it is PCI-EX or AGP again isn't that much of a factor.
You weren't really screwed by NVIDIA,but by the guys you bought the computer from.This is a wiedly used "tactic" -you rarely see buyable ready-made computers with good cards (there's this computer shop in my town -it's got loads of cool systems with 3600 + procesors,5.1 sound systems ,wireless keyboard and optical mouse /2 gb's of ram and the GPU is a radeon 9200SE .
Gizzmoe
08-29-06, 09:05 AM
Your telling me a 256mg PCI Ex card is a low end card?
The amount of the memory doesnīt say anything about the speed of the card. It doesnīt even have 256MB btw, only 128MB, the other 128MB it takes from the computer memory ("shared-memory").
I literaly just got this computer why would they put a $40 gfx card in it.
Because youīve ordered it!
Screwed yet again by NVIDIA.
No, you screwed yourself by not knowing what you were buying.
For $1093 you could have gotten a system with a dual-core CPU and good video card. Alienware PCīs are way overpriced, you pay a premium for their name and a fancy computer case that no one really needs.
Yes Dutch...I'm sorry, but your card is a low end one even if it has 256 mb on it. This is called marketing. You should have asked for a more powerful video card. This doesn't mean that you cannor play sh3. I's sure there are some tweakings related to that smoke gun. Even my 6600GT has frame drops when i move the external camera close to oil burning on the sea.
Gizzmoe...well said.
HunterICX
08-29-06, 11:49 AM
:nope: its not an Low End
in Nvidia Terms they call it an Mainstream card :know:
its an good card for people that just want an desktop computer to work with it and play some games that dont ask a lot of system requirements.
then the Nvidia has an Perfomance section.
these are the workhorses. they give the perfomance u need to run games that ask some System requirements
for example the Series Nvidia has are separated in 2 parts
Example the FX series
FX 5100 to 5500 = Mainstream
FX 5600 to 5900 = Performance
I have an Geforce FX5700LE TD 256Mb Performance card and I have it from Start 2005.
in GW 1.1 mod I can run the game with an Average FPS of 30 in port&large convoys 50 Fps in open seas
Hunter Out.....
Gizzmoe
08-29-06, 12:37 PM
FX 5100 to 5500 = Mainstream
FX 5600 to 5900 = Performance
I have an Geforce FX5700LE TD 256Mb Performance card and I have it from Start 2005.
No Nvidia card with a LE suffix deserves to be called "Performance card"! ;) A 5200 Ultra is actually often faster than a 5700LE, which according to Nvidiaīs marketing logic shouldnīt be the case.
HunterICX
08-29-06, 01:03 PM
Right Gizz....
Well at least the FX5700 let me enjoy SH3, the 5500 I had before raped my Sh3 gameplay..choppiness Owned my Game....and after the 4th patrol...my 5500 Burned...my screen went Black out. so the guaranty gave me the FX5700LE TD. So I thanks SH3 for burning my 5500 :P
also it isnt an very bad card...I could play the Game BF2 on Medium quality (textures, models etc etc) with the Dynamic thingies low. it was choppy when I joined the game but after 2 minutes my system catched up and the game runned smoothly
and Just to add...I run SH3 +GW1.1 on my 2,8Ghz, 512 DDR ram, 256 FX5700LE card. and my System isnt an Pre-Ready Comp that u buy...the shop build in all the parts i ordered and it costed my about 700 €.... now..the beauty of it..its a lot easier to upgrade an Put Together Comp then an Pre-ready comp if i,m right
Now hold on a second. I get around 30 fps in convoy, in one right now, and about 45 in open sea and about 35 in port, so apparently its pretty powerful to hold up against all the addons of GWs.
Aparently the card is a bit more powerful than you guys are giving it credit for, not trying to disagree or start a flame war.
On that note, can anyone help me update my drivers? I went to the NVIDIA site and went to update it, but there are two GeForce sections one is like "Geforce and TNT2" and another is "Geforce 7". I would assume that I go to Geforce and TNT2 but I don't want to download it and screw up my computer if it is indeed the wrong driver. Can anyone shed any light on that?
Gizzmoe
08-29-06, 11:24 PM
Now hold on a second. I get around 30 fps in convoy, in one right now, and about 45 in open sea and about 35 in port, so apparently its pretty powerful to hold up against all the addons of GWs.
35fps in port??? But certainly not at daytime with good visibility and while standing at the bridge... :)
Aparently the card is a bit more powerful than you guys are giving it credit for, not trying to disagree or start a flame war.
The card is certainly good enough for SH3, though you canīt really use nice (and for me essential) features like 4x Antialiasing and 8x Anisotropic filtering.
On that note, can anyone help me update my drivers? I went to the NVIDIA site and went to update it, but there are two GeForce sections one is like "Geforce and TNT2" and another is "Geforce 7". I would assume that I go to Geforce and TNT2 but I don't want to download it and screw up my computer if it is indeed the wrong driver. Can anyone shed any light on that?
You need the "Geforce and TNT2" driver.
Now hold on a second. I get around 30 fps in convoy, in one right now, and about 45 in open sea and about 35 in port, so apparently its pretty powerful to hold up against all the addons of GWs.
Aparently the card is a bit more powerful than you guys are giving it credit for, not trying to disagree or start a flame war.
On that note, can anyone help me update my drivers? I went to the NVIDIA site and went to update it, but there are two GeForce sections one is like "Geforce and TNT2" and another is "Geforce 7". I would assume that I go to Geforce and TNT2 but I don't want to download it and screw up my computer if it is indeed the wrong driver. Can anyone shed any light on that?
The card is not essentially everything.Having 2GB or RAM and a good CPU will make the models/textures load faster (by actually not loading them,but keeping them in memory) and thus having more FPS.
About the drivers,use th GF-TNT version.Also had the same problem after getting my new card didn't know which one to dwld but it is that one.GF7 is for another series of cards.
:nope: its not an Low End
in Nvidia Terms they call it an Mainstream card :know:
its an good card for people that just want an desktop computer to work with it and play some games that dont ask a lot of system requirements.
then the Nvidia has an Perfomance section.
these are the workhorses. they give the perfomance u need to run games that ask some System requirements
for example the Series Nvidia has are separated in 2 parts
Example the FX series
FX 5100 to 5500 = Mainstream
FX 5600 to 5900 = Performance
I have an Geforce FX5700LE TD 256Mb Performance card and I have it from Start 2005.
in GW 1.1 mod I can run the game with an Average FPS of 30 in port&large convoys 50 Fps in open seas
Hunter Out.....
Hunter...the classification you make here was valid two years ago...but not today, that's for sure. Today, not even a 6600GT is a performance series anymore.
:nope: its not an Low End
in Nvidia Terms they call it an Mainstream card :know:
its an good card for people that just want an desktop computer to work with it and play some games that dont ask a lot of system requirements.
then the Nvidia has an Perfomance section.
these are the workhorses. they give the perfomance u need to run games that ask some System requirements
for example the Series Nvidia has are separated in 2 parts
Example the FX series
FX 5100 to 5500 = Mainstream
FX 5600 to 5900 = Performance
I have an Geforce FX5700LE TD 256Mb Performance card and I have it from Start 2005.
in GW 1.1 mod I can run the game with an Average FPS of 30 in port&large convoys 50 Fps in open seas
Hunter Out.....
Hunter...the classification you make here was valid two years ago...but not today, that's for sure. Today, not even a 6600GT is a performance series anymore.
You sure?The 6600GT is at the top of it's series,only a bit behind the 6800.The 7*** cards are taknig charge now but the ol' 6600GT still packs a big punch.
The 7*** cards are Performance. I know the 6600GT still rocks, I'm using one, but it's a mainstream card.
Gizzmoe
08-30-06, 03:00 AM
The 7*** cards are Performance.
Not all of them. Some cards of that series are slow for todays standards, like some of the 7300 and 7600 cards.
I know the 6600GT still rocks, I'm using one, but it's a mainstream card.
Yep.
HunterICX
08-30-06, 04:27 AM
Its a bit weird what Nvidia is doing
Like how does an customer knows an difference between an Mainstream and an Perfomance
and the shop isnt going to help because most of the time they are lying pricks.
I have an PC that always crashed in the summer...Weird I thought. well NOT! I opened the Case looked at my Fans....holy s***! the shop put them the wrong way. the Case Fan was blowing into the Case while it should blow the hot air inside out of the case:x. since then my Temperature is Stable and only increase with 15šc while i,m playing.
but back to Nvidia
Nvidia should mark it on there Series
example:
like 6600GT (M)
and 7800GT (P)
but still I always check the Nvidia Site when I,m going to buy an new one to see the Specs.
Nvidia has a numbering system where the first number denotes the current line (7 being the newest) and the second number generally indicates the ranking within that line.
6200 is fairly low in the 6 line, whereas a 6800 is near the top.
In addition there are suffix labels, such as LE, GT, Ultra etc. that further indicate the ranking of the card within a certain model. Unfortunately there is also some overlap, so (just an example) a 6600 Ultra is better than a 6800LE.
I have a 6800 Ultra, which makes it the top of the 6 line. Now a 7200, just because the numbers are higher and it's newer, is nowhere near as good as my graphics card.
The ATI system is similar, but they are now up to their tenth X(10) series, as they generally follow suit with direct x versions. To confuse things further they sometimes have the same acronyms at the end of a card, but thay mean different things, so what is high end for nvidia may be low end for ATI.
I hope this helps some people choose a graphics card, but the best thing I suggest you do is do some research.
HunterICX
08-30-06, 05:47 AM
:doh: then what does LE means ? Last Edition?
Gizzmoe
08-30-06, 05:53 AM
:doh: then what does LE means ? Last Edition?
No, "Lame Edition". :)
HunterICX
08-30-06, 06:02 AM
:x Gizzmoe.....You...you....
Sh** better not to insult you because I prefer not to be banned :rotfl:
Gizzmoe
08-30-06, 06:28 AM
No, itīs basically true! :) LE stands for "Light Edition". They are sometimes heavily crippled versions of the original with a much lower GPU and memory speed and often less pixel pipelines.
HunterICX
08-30-06, 09:08 AM
:x God dammit...the Shop really ripped me off
I ordered an FX5700 Standart one....I payed 145€ for that...and they give me an Piece of ****....:damn: the first gave me the 5500....I,m like Okey....(my last card was an Geforce 2 64Mb) ....so it was an change...that one burned...got an replacement..finally...the Good one and the LE version..never knew what that meaned.........So I really got f*cked in the ass by that Shop......
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!! I NEVER NEVER GOING TO ACCEPT any other Card that isnt EXACT THE SAME as what I have Ordered!
Gizzmoe
08-30-06, 09:35 AM
So I really got f*cked in the ass by that Shop......
Pretty hard actually. The 5700 is clocked 425/300, the LE 250/200.
HunterICX
08-30-06, 09:36 AM
:x
give me my Shotgun!
FIREWALL
08-30-06, 01:18 PM
Thanks guys!!!:D Ilearned more here quickly, than any where else. I have a Ge Force 5600 . My system doesnt read any letters on it. Where to look? Rest is P4 3.2CPU ,2gigs ram dualDDR ,Gigabyte 856PE MB. I'd like to upgrade vid card with a $150.00 budget. All advice appreciated.
Gizzmoe
08-30-06, 01:43 PM
I'd like to upgrade vid card with a $150.00 budget. All advice appreciated.
Geforce 7600GS, 256MB, $132.99 after $20.00 Mail-In Rebate:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130036
Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 18 Amps.
Review:
http://www.gamepyre.com/reviewsd.html?aid=700&p=1
FIREWALL
08-30-06, 04:46 PM
Thanks Gizzmoe ,your the best. I always see on all forums your advice is well researched. I'm going to jump on that card after the 1st. of the month. Ihave a ULTRA Xconnect 550 power supply. I hope that works. I'll let you know it works out. Thanks again.:D :up:
Hey thanks for all the help guys, I'm downloading the driver as we speak.
I understand for you guys that the prettiness of the game is a must and hey I don't blame you I like it to look "good" as well. But I guess my priorities are differnt. I would perfer the game to run smooth as silk rather than look pretty and chug. i'm more of a functionality person rather than a quality person, but hey to each his own.
shegeek72
08-30-06, 11:52 PM
I'd like to upgrade vid card with a $150.00 budget. All advice appreciated.
Geforce 7600GS, 256MB, $132.99 after $20.00 Mail-In Rebate:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130036
Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 18 Amps.
Review:
http://www.gamepyre.com/reviewsd.html?aid=700&p=1
Tiger Direct has it for $104.99 after rebate and the 512mb version for $129.99 after rebate. Probably less after the 1st of the month. :yep:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/category_tlc.asp?CatId=28&CMP
The 7600GS, 256mb has passive cooling (no fan).
--
http://users4.ev1.net/%7Etaragem/sh3_dark_gw3c.jpg
Gizzmoe
08-31-06, 12:02 AM
Tiger Direct has it for $104.99 after rebate and the 512mb version for $129.99 after rebate. Probably less after the 1st of the month. :yep:
He canīt use them, they are PCI-Express cards. The 256MB AGP version there costs $139.99, so Tiger Direct slightly more expensive than Newegg.
shegeek72
08-31-06, 12:47 AM
He canīt use them, they are PCI-Express cards. The 256MB AGP version there costs $139.99, so Tiger Direct slightly more expensive than Newegg.
Ah. It might've been an anomaly, but I ordered an ATI 9800 pro from Newegg because they had the best price and all I got was the bare card. No box, no install / SW disk, no documentation. There was no way to tell the card was new. :hmm:
--
http://users4.ev1.net/%7Etaragem/sh3_dark_gw3c.jpg
Gizzmoe
08-31-06, 12:58 AM
And you didnīt ask them why theyīd sent you a bare card??? :) Maybe it was a refurbished or OEM card and if it was they most likely mentioned that in the product description.
Gizzmoe
08-31-06, 01:24 AM
I understand for you guys that the prettiness of the game is a must and hey I don't blame you I like it to look "good" as well. But I guess my priorities are differnt. I would perfer the game to run smooth as silk rather than look pretty and chug.
Itīs not Either/Or. With todays mid-range cards you can have both quality and speed.
HunterICX
08-31-06, 04:13 AM
what I mostly do with games when I bought them
Is trying to get the game run smooth and look good as posible.
whats the point of an game that you run at HIGH graphics and runs like hell....Choppy choppy choppy...for me thats unplayable...
if you see in my screenshots it looks good (thx to GW) and it runs smoothly.
only on TC while in Convoys or ports it runs a little choppy
also PC's are getting more advanced...you cant just change an graphic card anymore like CLICK and run it...you have to see if the Motherboard supports it and you have an Power Supply that feeds the card.
sometimes Be happy what you got. if it runs the game smoothly and looks good...enjoy it :rock:
because whats the point of having an 2000 costing State of the art system just to play the game at MAX graphics possible...its an waste of money.
Gizzmoe
08-31-06, 04:53 AM
also PC's are getting more advanced...you cant just change an graphic card anymore like CLICK and run it...you have to see if the Motherboard supports it and you have an Power Supply that feeds the card.
The thing about the power supply is indeed relatively new, though that situation exists for a few years already. A video card upgrade was basically never "click and run it", even 15+ years ago your had to check if you Mainboard can support it. First we had ISA (8 or 16 bit), then EISA, VLB, several specifications of PCI and AGP and nowadays PCI-Express, which also comes in different flavours. Times havenīt changed very much in that regard.
shegeek72
08-31-06, 06:34 AM
what I mostly do with games when I bought them
Is trying to get the game run smooth and look good as posible.
whats the point of an game that you run at HIGH graphics and runs like hell....Choppy choppy choppy...for me thats unplayable...
if you see in my screenshots it looks good (thx to GW) and it runs smoothly.
only on TC while in Convoys or ports it runs a little choppy
also PC's are getting more advanced...you cant just change an graphic card anymore like CLICK and run it...you have to see if the Motherboard supports it and you have an Power Supply that feeds the card.
sometimes Be happy what you got. if it runs the game smoothly and looks good...enjoy it :rock:
because whats the point of having an 2000 costing State of the art system just to play the game at MAX graphics possible...its an waste of money.
In a way, yes. Though high-end graphics are going to make your whole system look good (colors will be richer), run faster and is useful for other things like video, graphics and making that new LCD monitor (that are damn cheap now) look good. :yep:
--
http://users4.ev1.net/%7Etaragem/sh3_dark_gw3c.jpg
shegeek72
08-31-06, 06:41 AM
And you didnīt ask them why theyīd sent you a bare card??? :) Maybe it was a refurbished or OEM card and if it was they most likely mentioned that in the product description.
From what I recall, the ad didn't say it was refurbished. Plus, I was doing a major puter upgrade (MB/CPU/another HD), was having some problems and was just happy the card worked after I plugged it in. :-?
--
http://users4.ev1.net/%7Etaragem/sh3_dark_gw3c.jpg
vBulletin® v3.8.11, Copyright ©2000-2025, vBulletin Solutions Inc.