Archbishop: Graphics card upgrade "knackers" performance

Fenris_Wolf · 01-30-08, 04:16 AM

A weird problem indeed. :hmm:

Have you tried changing the BIOS settings of your motherboard? If not, then go ahead. Particularly there should be a "aperture size" or something similar (it's called that for AGP slots but no idea about PCI). It governs the bandwidth between your GPU and motherboard. See if you can increase it. Also the latency of the PCI slot is worth tweaking with but within safe limits.

Second thing to try before you give up: Get firmware updates for your motherboard's BIOS and, somewhat less importantly, your GPU's BIOS. That might be the problem (or a part of it) because older motherboards and their graphics interface were designed with slower hardware in mind. So that might do the trick.

Some game settings like reducing the texture size used in SH3's game engine might help. Because a PCI interface's main difference is that there is much less bandwidth available (rate of flow of data) as compared to AGP or PCI-E.

Lastly, see how the game's FPS are when out at sea far away from a harbor. If distance to a habor makes a difference then increasing the task priority for sh3.exe in the task manager might help. Increase it to "high priority".

Is the problem occuring with GWX 1.03 or GWX 2.0?

Have you tried running the stock game?

Another thing to check: Is there greatly increased harddisk activity while playing?

What resolution are you running the game at? Higher resolutions need higher rate of flow of data and any bottle necks significantly hamper FPS performance. So running another game at 800x600 and running GWX at 1280x1024 is going to have significantly different FPS numbers.

01-30-08, 04:16 AM	#4
Fenris_Wolf Sparky Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 155 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	A weird problem indeed. :hmm: Have you tried changing the BIOS settings of your motherboard? If not, then go ahead. Particularly there should be a "aperture size" or something similar (it's called that for AGP slots but no idea about PCI). It governs the bandwidth between your GPU and motherboard. See if you can increase it. Also the latency of the PCI slot is worth tweaking with but within safe limits. Second thing to try before you give up: Get firmware updates for your motherboard's BIOS and, somewhat less importantly, your GPU's BIOS. That might be the problem (or a part of it) because older motherboards and their graphics interface were designed with slower hardware in mind. So that might do the trick. Some game settings like reducing the texture size used in SH3's game engine might help. Because a PCI interface's main difference is that there is much less bandwidth available (rate of flow of data) as compared to AGP or PCI-E. Lastly, see how the game's FPS are when out at sea far away from a harbor. If distance to a habor makes a difference then increasing the task priority for sh3.exe in the task manager might help. Increase it to "high priority". Is the problem occuring with GWX 1.03 or GWX 2.0? Have you tried running the stock game? Another thing to check: Is there greatly increased harddisk activity while playing? What resolution are you running the game at? Higher resolutions need higher rate of flow of data and any bottle necks significantly hamper FPS performance. So running another game at 800x600 and running GWX at 1280x1024 is going to have significantly different FPS numbers. __________________ NO HOOCHIE WOOCHIE - NO LIFE!