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Hey guys, I posted this on the b.net forums. But quite frankly I expect most of the more seasoned computer experts to be here. Anyhow, I am just going to paste what I put there. If anyone can lead me in the right direction to fixing this issue, let me know! It would be REALLY appreciated. Also ideas/theories also very very appreciated as well, of course.
Hey there I just purchased an Nvidia GTX 260, my current system specs are: GPU: Nvidia GTX 260 216 core Proc: Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 @ 2.20GHZ Mobo: Fatality FP-IN9 SLI (Though I am not running in SLI mode..) Memory: DDR2 3072 Gig Single channel 400MHZ Dram Freq PSU: 500 Watts And currently I have mixed feelings about picking up this new card. I suppose I have a few questions and they are regarding this game: 1) Is it normal to expect a slight drop in Frames when I select a new unit? 2) I was under the impression from the benchmarks of these clients that picking up this card would effectively allow me to play this game smoothly in Ultra. Currently in ultra I experience extreme choppiness when moving my screen, and with full Ultra I catch myself experiencing 30 frames at the start of a match, and nothing even remotely competitively playable during a long match (I would imagine, I haven't tried to push it personally.) 3) The EVGA precision graphics tuner allows me to tweak the capabilities and use of this card, I have it set currently to core clock 700, shader 1500, memory clock 1250, and fan 85%. Should I not be using these in the beta? Is Blizzard taking any steps to smooth out the interface between the graphics cards and their game in any way? 4) Is the latest driver from Nvidias website the way to go currently for the beta? I see that there were some posts regarding previous drivers and such, I cant seem to dig them up to see if I am using the latest driver, and by doing so I am hurting the performance of my new card. 5) From looking at these computer specs, can anyone give me a ballpark idea of where I should see smooth play? Constant 60 frames. 6) If you hink this video card can achieve ultra capabilties, would you consider the 3GB DDR2 Ram, or the Processor more volatile towards my performance? I can deal with getting a socket 775 Dual Core "high end (in terms of the socket itself)" for like 100 dollars, but I can't swing a whole new motherboard and processor of the 1156 socket. I am sorry this is so lengthy. But I am building and gearing this computer towards your game. It's the only entertainment I have on my computer aside from Hulu, so getting answers directly from here are a pretty big deal to me. Also let me add that currently with those specs I am forced to run everything at either it's lowest setting between the two, medium, or off to achieve a smooth experience. And like I said, everything ultra currently means 30 FPS at start, and extreme chop. between moving the screen from it's start point. In this case if it were a processor, I would most likely be looking at a newegg purchase of a dual core. Like so: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010340343 1051707842 1302820275&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&Subcategory=343&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=
Anyway.. like I said. I just purchased this card, very disappointing to see this problem repeat itself of low frames after making a decent sized purchase.
 
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I haven't played because I haven't finished building my comp, but I have done a bit of research. It does appear SC2 utilizes the CPU quite a bit, and it appears it could be your limiting factor. According to the benchmarks at Tom's Hardware, they recommend at least 3 cores running at at least 2.8 Ghz for optimal play. You're just over the minimum of 2 cores @ 2.0 Ghz
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Look at your system Windows score. It will tell you where your choke is.
400mhz ram is pretty low and processor also seems a bit low.
I went from 533mhz ram to 800 and it was night and day.
Attack whatever your windows has as the lowest. Windows Vista and 7 will require 1 extra ram for what you really want- just for the OS.
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My computer with a 4890 had some chop when I moved the screen for maybe 10 games. The chop pretty much would get stuck for .5-.75 seconds and was extremely worrying to me. I would suggest keep playing and after many games, if it still chops, you might have a problem. I'm not sure why you have to play a bunch of games for the card to "warm up" to the game, but I think it might have to for ultra settings.
Btw mine plays perfectly now.
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Yeahhhh I guess I'm looking at a Proc purchase... I knew it was too good to be true "replace and upgrade video card, all troubles will pass," should know better than that, haha.
Good news is even with the CPU choking me I still see a substantial upgrade in frames, especially on my old settings!
Thanks for the heads up.
Also my poor mobo can only support DDR2 RAM! /sigh.
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ram speed doesnt make that much difference, ram amount makes more difference, as long as you're on ddr2 you're fine, upgrading ram speed wont give you more than 1-2% speed boost
i suspect your cpu is not good enough to run a gtx 260 card to its full potential... its a core 2 duo but its one of the low cache versions... you're on socket 775 though, you should be able to grab a core quad for relatively not much money and it will be much better
anyway, i didnt think a gtx 260 could run sc2 on ultra... im not sure about this though, i can run on med-high and have a way worse card
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On May 05 2010 13:29 Joey.rumz wrote:
Also my poor mobo can only support DDR2 RAM! /sigh.
ddr2 is good enough, getting ddr3 is not worth it at all
http://xtreview.com/images/DDR3-1600 SDRAM/quake4.PNG
when upgrading you have to replace the slowest parts (bottleneck), ram is the fastest part, relatively speaking
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Dominican Republic825 Posts
i think u should upgrade your CPU, and later on your MEMORY 400Mhz 1single channel? common! we are on 2010 not in 2002 lol
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On May 05 2010 13:11 LonelyMargarita wrote:I haven't played because I haven't finished building my comp, but I have done a bit of research. It does appear SC2 utilizes the CPU quite a bit, and it appears it could be your limiting factor. According to the benchmarks at Tom's Hardware, they recommend at least 3 cores running at at least 2.8 Ghz for optimal play. You're just over the minimum of 2 cores @ 2.0 Ghz
It is funny how they say 20 FPS is playable. You gonna get raped in multiplayer and singleplayer is going to be so shitty. "Oh it is an RTS you dont need good FPS, but if it was a 1st person shooter.." LOL?
edit: forgot about OP hehe.
1- No it is not normal. Make sure you installed chipset drivers and have last nvidia drivers
2- Your CPU cant handle ultra settings neither your graphic card (although the real bottleneck here is the CPU). Lower graphics settings to medium and you should be fine.
3- what are the stock settings? If you raise clocks too much you can actually loose performance... i recommend you leave it stock and leave the cooler at 85% as SC2 have some kind of problem with overheating
4- Go to nvidia control panel, click help, system information. first line is driver version. You can get last version at nvidia website just go to "download driver". You only lose notably performance if the combination of current installed driver + your graphic card has some kinda of problem. usually last driver = better.
5- Medium settings
6- i think you would have to get some 4 core 3GHZ+ CPU and maybe graphic card too.. since you cant afford new mobo + processor your best bet is really medium quality. Try to mess around the graphic configs, see what drops FPS and what does not. It takes some time but you can get better image than just clicking predefined settings
sorry for my english btw...
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i just bought the same card :O
new processor (quad core Q8400 2.66ghz) and mobo coming tomorrow though, so haven't connected anything yet... i'll let you know how it runs!
this thread should answer all your questions about sc2 hardware:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=113094
according to the OP in that thread, your processor is only capable of running the game at medium quality, so that's prolly what's bottlenecking you.
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please
dear
god
fix that link
the format my eyesss
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On May 05 2010 13:38 LG)Sabbath wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2010 13:29 Joey.rumz wrote:
Also my poor mobo can only support DDR2 RAM! /sigh. ddr2 is good enough, getting ddr3 is not worth it at all http://xtreview.com/images/DDR3-1600 SDRAM/quake4.PNGwhen upgrading you have to replace the slowest parts (bottleneck), ram is the fastest part, relatively speaking
You only need RAM to = or exceed the possible bandwidth of your cpu. In other words mainly faster bits of ram is only necessary for those who over clock as their blk and fsb have been adjusted it may exceed the ram they used and thus ram becomes a bottleneck in performance. Else means little, why do you think dell and other oem's only ship to your the bare minimum i mean i don't think they ever really sold a DDR2 past the FSB of the mobo they used. I mean if you use FSB 333.3 667 is enough, 400 ddr2 800 is enough etc etc. It gets a bit more complex in finding bandwidth when modren cpus, the amd line up and the i3 i5 i7 as the memory controller is no longer where it used to be and is now integrated into the cpu. but you get the jist.
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Okay so for instance, my FSB is 1333 on this mobo.. so jumping ram from 400 to an 800 wouldn't be a bad choice?
As well as picking up a new CPU for the time being. That I could swing for around 200 dollars total and can handle that.
Like I said, new mobo and proc, a little more expensive, would need ram as well.. Can't handle that.
What do you guys think?
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overclock. you need at least 2.6ghz c2d to hover around 60fps in ultra according to the legion bench. the tom's bench was really conservative in terms of fps estimates, i wouldn't trust it to replicate normal playing conditions.
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no you confuse it 1333 is the fsb socket limitations meaning the cpu that it's likely to be compatible with. 1333 is acutlly 333 or 667 ddr2 ram, fsb 1600 equates to a FSB of 400
/by 4 if you didn't notice.
That fsb relates to cpu limitations such like a E8600 which is FSB 1600 is likely to have a small performance drop without overclocking the socket compared to a mobo that is fsb 1600
I assume your Dram isn't actually 400mhz becuase that's awfully low for a ddr2 it would mean it's running at 200mhz, well the cpu you're using has a bus speed of 800 meaning you really do only need half that or 400 mhz to be running cheeky.
I think clarifing memory just confused you
upgrading your cpu would be the most beneficial then your ram.
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On May 05 2010 14:34 semantics wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2010 13:38 LG)Sabbath wrote:On May 05 2010 13:29 Joey.rumz wrote:
Also my poor mobo can only support DDR2 RAM! /sigh. ddr2 is good enough, getting ddr3 is not worth it at all http://xtreview.com/images/DDR3-1600 SDRAM/quake4.PNGwhen upgrading you have to replace the slowest parts (bottleneck), ram is the fastest part, relatively speaking You only need RAM to = or exceed the possible bandwidth of your cpu. In other words mainly faster bits of ram is only necessary for those who over clock as their blk and fsb have been adjusted it may exceed the ram they used and thus ram becomes a bottleneck in performance. Else means little, why do you think dell and other oem's only ship to your the bare minimum i mean i don't think they ever really sold a DDR2 past the FSB of the mobo they used. I mean if you use FSB 333.3 667 is enough, 400 ddr2 800 is enough etc etc. It gets a bit more complex in finding bandwidth when modren cpus, the amd line up and the i3 i5 i7 as the memory controller is no longer where it used to be and is now integrated into the cpu. but you get the jist.
thats good but you cant run ddr-1 on an i5 mobo so you are just not going to have a noticeable performance hit, even if you run the shittiest ram that you can find for your mobo... we're talking 1-2% difference in speed, tops
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EPT
