Help With Graphics Please

[Nerazzurri]

Will doubling my current RAM from 1 to 2GB more or less guarantee me an improvement in frame rate?

At the moment I'm getting between 15 and 30 FPS, the 15 being maybe on the bridge leaving port (light harbour traffic enabled) and the 30 looking at a ship through the scope.

It's definately playable but you can tell it's struggling.

I can't up my video card anymore because I have an old PCI bus.

My system specs are in my signature, and anyone wants more technical info I can post that.

Thanks for any help.

[Mush Martin]

Well your basically screwed..............:rotfl:
Just kidding.

its pretty close to my set up
but I have a 2.4 chip and a
better card.

I dont have any trouble running
upper end graphics at all
try maybe shutting off what
background programs you can
when playing and set graphics
settings down to 75 or 50 %
and see if it smooths it out.

Im not any kind of hardware expert
so further help will have to come from
elsewhere but I hope it helps a bit.
M

[edit]Normally when I do develop those symptoms
my heat exchanger needs cleaning out.
also I do have 2gb ram so there may be an improvement
rams pretty cheap and it will help with it for sure
but my not solve all issues

[Nerazzurri]

Originally Posted by Mush Martin

Well your basically screwed..............:rotfl:
Just kidding.

its pretty close to my set up
but I have a 2.4 chip and a
better card.

I dont have any trouble running
upper end graphics at all
try maybe shutting off what
background programs you can
when playing and set graphics
settings down to 75 or 50 %
and see if it smooths it out.

Im not any kind of hardware expert
so further help will have to come from
elsewhere but I hope it helps a bit.
M

[edit]Normally when I do develop those symptoms
my heat exchanger needs cleaning out.

Don't joke my heart sank when I read the first line! LOL Although you are certainly correct to a degree anyway, because my computer is bit dated now.

I've tried shutting off my anti-virus stuff, dropping the graphic effects in the game menu and giving the game a higher priority in the task manager; none of that seems to make much difference.

EDIT - ah, OK. I priced 2gb at £50. I'm not sure about heat exchangers but I'll check it out. Thanks mate.

[Mush Martin]

I would take the time to look at the heat exchanger then
are there any smokers in your house?
M

[Mush Martin]

Stuff like reduced harbour traffic will help too as the game has less to render

[Nerazzurri]

No, no smokers; just me and the dog (maybe I should check his pockets, see if he's a secret smoker:hmm: )

[Mush Martin]

a word of caution on that one of the best tips I ever got in two and half
million kilometres in the taxi is

"Never Pet a burning dog"

[Mush Martin]

One more thing. your computer was current when the
game engine was made. dont lose hope.

[Dutchie-one]

Hello Mate, I had the same problem 5200 videocart and 1 gig ram after updated to 2 gig every thing goes fine .
I hope this helped ?

Dutchie-one

PS. no AGP bus ?

[Nerazzurri]

No, no AGP, just PCI. Thanks for the re-assurance on the RAM.

One thing I've just decided to try first is running Rivatuner to see if that makes any difference.

I'll let you know.

[Nerazzurri]

Riva tuner made no difference. Tried to unblock some pipelines but there wasn't any, forcing the driver, and over clocking by about 20% made no difference either. :hmm:

New RAM it is then.

[Jonathan]

I have your answer for you.

Upgrading to one gig of ram will help, but not dramatically solve your problem. Your problem is with the graphics card, both in the low bus of the PCI regular slot and of the GPU...graphics processing units. Game speed is dependent upon three factors, sometimes four: processor speed, RAM speed, hard drive speed (RPM), and FSB. If one of these is slow, it can pull down game performance. If one or two are slow, then game performance really suffers. The best thing that you could do would be to upgrade to a better GPU graphics card, but finding a newer one that will run in a regular PCI slot is going to be difficult. I suggest save up and go for the totally new upgrade of Motherboard, RAM, processor, and Graphics card, but this is not the answer for everyone...or their wallets. Mine included. If you want to look for a new graphics card, try www.newegg.com

[i_b_spectre]

For what it's worth, I have occasional "slide shows" while playing SH3. I'm running an AMD XP2800, 1.5GB of DDR, and an ATI 9800 Pro AIW card, so I'm falling steadily off the capability end of the scale. Still, most of time, SH3 is quite playable with reasonably smooth frame rates. For awhile I was getting an occasional crash-computer-reboot thing, so I tried the usual memtest diagnostic and the only thing that turned up was an acknowledged anomoly related to AMD processors (according to the memtest forum). I was at a loss as to anything to be done until my daughter mentioned an idea. When frame rates get choppy, I hit the Windows key (same effect as Alt-Tab) to drop SH3 to the task bar. I let it set maybe 5-10 seconds, then click on the SH3/GWX to re-expand it, and it seems to settle out and run smoothly. Since I've been doing this, I haven't had a single crash-to-forced-reboot event. I'd thought about buying a more powerful video card like the XP1950 Pro, but I think I'd be better off waiting until I can do a full system upgrade rather than trying a band aid approach that will leave me bottlenecked by the CPU. Oh, in case you haven't tried it yet, run dxdiag and set the Sound Acceleration slider down to either the lowest (unaccelerated) or the one just above it (Basic acceleration). It's surprising that sound settings can have such a profound effect on video performance, but it's true.

[Nerazzurri]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

I have your answer for you.

Upgrading to one gig of ram will help, but not dramatically solve your problem. Your problem is with the graphics card, both in the low bus of the PCI regular slot and of the GPU...graphics processing units. Game speed is dependent upon three factors, sometimes four: processor speed, RAM speed, hard drive speed (RPM), and FSB. If one of these is slow, it can pull down game performance. If one or two are slow, then game performance really suffers. The best thing that you could do would be to upgrade to a better GPU graphics card, but finding a newer one that will run in a regular PCI slot is going to be difficult. I suggest save up and go for the totally new upgrade of Motherboard, RAM, processor, and Graphics card, but this is not the answer for everyone...or their wallets. Mine included. If you want to look for a new graphics card, try www.newegg.com

My system is in my signature. I think the Pentium 4 is ok, so is the 2.8ghz, definately need to up the RAM to 2gb. The card - I'm afraid I'm stuck with it. I'd rather get a new system than spend serious money on this one. I've only had the card a few months; it was the best compromise I could make. I needed Directx 9c; in addition I have only a PCI fit on the board. So that was the best I could do.

That's why I was trying to get something extra out the card before buying RAM. But it looks like I'll need to.

Thanks for your reply mate.

[Nerazzurri]

Originally Posted by i_b_spectre

For what it's worth, I have occasional "slide shows" while playing SH3. I'm running an AMD XP2800, 1.5GB of DDR, and an ATI 9800 Pro AIW card, so I'm falling steadily off the capability end of the scale. Still, most of time, SH3 is quite playable with reasonably smooth frame rates. For awhile I was getting an occasional crash-computer-reboot thing, so I tried the usual memtest diagnostic and the only thing that turned up was an acknowledged anomoly related to AMD processors (according to the memtest forum). I was at a loss as to anything to be done until my daughter mentioned an idea. When frame rates get choppy, I hit the Windows key (same effect as Alt-Tab) to drop SH3 to the task bar. I let it set maybe 5-10 seconds, then click on the SH3/GWX to re-expand it, and it seems to settle out and run smoothly. Since I've been doing this, I haven't had a single crash-to-forced-reboot event. I'd thought about buying a more powerful video card like the XP1950 Pro, but I think I'd be better off waiting until I can do a full system upgrade rather than trying a band aid approach that will leave me bottlenecked by the CPU. Oh, in case you haven't tried it yet, run dxdiag and set the Sound Acceleration slider down to either the lowest (unaccelerated) or the one just above it (Basic acceleration). It's surprising that sound settings can have such a profound effect on video performance, but it's true.

I will definately try the dxdiag and let you know how I get on. Thanks mate.