[Dark RevenantX]

I have the following specs:
AMD Athlon 2400+ XP
Sapphire Radeon 9600 (128mb) Atlantis
512mb ram
Simple Audigy 2
AGP Motherboard

I get a well below-average framerate in just about every game for my system.  For example, where I should be running NFS:MW at 40+fps at a medium-low detail setting at a measly 800x600 resolution and with no AA, I get 20-30fps, sometimes down to 15fps, and the occasional ditch to 0fps.  I only get 40+fps at the menu screen.
What's really odd, though, is the fact that the game runs BETTER when I activate reflections!  Makes NO sense!
I have ordered an AGP Sapphire Radeon X800GT (256mb) (as a result of the AGP, it only has eight pipelines, but I don't care because I got it for $186 including tax and shipping) and I hope that I can get much better looks, while at the same or mabey better performance with it.

I KNOW the problem is not a heat issue because my computer wasn't working hot at all even without the case fan running!

I have two questions:
1.  What is the ultimate cause of the slower-than-normal fps and what should I next invest in (I'm really thinking RAM because it sometimes takes forever to load things up)
2.  How would my new video card affect the quality and overall performance of my computer?  Was it even a good idea to get?

[Black Wolf]

Yeah, go some ram. 512 is good, 1 gig is much, much better.

[IceFire]

I have two questions:
1.  What is the ultimate cause of the slower-than-normal fps and what should I next invest in (I'm really thinking RAM because it sometimes takes forever to load things up)
2.  How would my new video card affect the quality and overall performance of my computer?  Was it even a good idea to get?

1) The biggest causes of lower than normal FPS in games and sometimes bad image quality is caused by drivers.  This is fortunately a cheap solution but unfortuantely a complicated one depending on your computer competency.  There are a variety of things to deal with...and some things you can Google on but here's some things.

- When installing new video drivers you need to uinstall the old ones, restart, run a driver cleaner (http://www.drivercleaner.net/), restart, and install the new driver
- The same procedure applies to your motherboard drivers, make sure you install motherboard drivers and not leave things with the generic Windows drivers, you may want to check on updates
- Background software can cause of performance loss as can spyware, make sure you have a Spyware cleaner (http://www.lavasoft.com)
- Learn howto tweak Windows XP so that useless software is turned off and important stuff remains (http://www.tweakxp.com/)
- All of this stuff takes work but I've seen Pentium III's run rings around Pentium 4's because the guy with the PIII knew howto tweak and keep his system clean of crap and the other guy had a bazillion pieces of software running in the background chewing at CPU cycles so you can understand how important this is

2) In 2D applications like Windows it won't really impact performance much.  Your current card is already pretty good at giving whatever gains you're going to get in a 2D environment (the difference between a 9600 and a X800 is small...even with a X1800 its small).  Now...when Windows Vista comes out it'll play a larger component.  In 3D applications and video you'll see a faster more capable video card producing better image quality, higher FPS (in 3D aps), and letting you turn on features not possible before.  Also keep in mind that your video card is capped by your CPU's speed as well...so if you're playing a game that is CPU dependant then you can probably turn up the image quality for almost no FPS impact but the FPS will not go any higher with a faster video card.  The opposite can be true...where a fast CPU and a slow video card will mean that you can get high FPS but low image quality.

[Dark RevenantX]

Thanks!

NFS:MW in particular is not all that CPU sucking, revealed because my framerate skyrockets at low detail and low resolution, but drops when the high details are pushed up.  The framerate is absolutely smashed by high resolution.  My performance is literally 4x better in 640x480 than 1280x1020.

I hope the mobo drivers will help.

[Thor]

i have a similar Radeon 9600XT and i see decent framerates in NFS:MW, but occaisionally my pc also slows to an unplayable chug.  I think its just the sad fact that our pcs are getting older and games are getting prettier. 

My rig {and the upgrades i wanna make}

P4 3ghz
MSI Mobo with some intel chipset i don't remeber
1Gb of Corsair ram {make the leap to 2Gb (i do of AE and Video Editing)}
360Gb of HDD
Radeon 9600XT {something newer...maybe the X800XL or even a nicer nvidia...mmm....7800gtx...mmm <drools>}
Audgity 2zs
Matrox X100 video render card, the pride and joy of my editing heart

currently debating if a smaller up grade and a notebook, or just an all new desktop...hard choice.

[CP5670]

I think it's just that the 9600 has become old. Most modern games are completely video card dependent and will run fairly well on otherwise older hardware as long as the video card is something newer.

How is this game, by the way? I'm thinking of picking it up.

I have ordered an AGP Sapphire Radeon X800GT (256mb) (as a result of the AGP, it only has eight pipelines, but I don't care because I got it for $186 including tax and shipping) and I hope that I can get much better looks, while at the same or mabey better performance with it.

That actually wasn't such a good deal; you can currently get an AGP X850XT from Microcenter for $200 after a rebate. It's still a big jump from a 9600 though.

[Dark RevenantX]

Unfortunatly for Microcenter, the X800GT card will arrive at my house tomorrow.

It's amazing what reprioritizing your applications can do for your performance!  10 more fps and a much higher reflection detail setting!

[ZmaN]

umm dude, the x800gt has eight pipelines, weather its an AGP ir PCI Express card...  The X800GTO has 12 Pipelines, the GTO2 has flashing abilities to go to 16 pipes....

theres ur technology lesson for the day 

[Descenterace]

To clarify, the number of pixel or vertex pipelines is totally independent of the bus type.

[Dark RevenantX]

It was the only affordable AGP X800 card I could get so I lacked choice.

Also, I HAVE IT NOW!!! YAY... er, no.....

My power supply is only 115 watts.  I am suprised my computer is even running WITHOUT it!
The card is so strapped for power that it doesn't even try to send a signal to my monitor!!!
Now, I must spend another thirty US dollars to get a nice power supply with the wattage in the 300s.

Also, how do pixel pipelines actually help you?

[CP5670]

You may want to look at the $36 Fortron 400W on Newegg, which for that price is an extremely solid PS.

The pixel pipes are basically one way of increasingly the fillrate and can be thought of as individual cores on the GPU. In general the actual performance will increase linearly with pixel pipes if the resolution is high enough.

[Descenterace]

Vertex pipelines: Number of vertex shaders that can run simultaneously.
Pixel pipelines: Number of fragment shaders that can run simultaneously.

Performance gain from adding more pipelines is linear, within a category. Doubling the number of vertex pipelines will speed up the card's handling of geometry, but in fragment-shader-intensive games you won't see much of a change. Doubling the number of pixel pipelines would yield a substantial framerate increase in most modern games, since they make extremely heavy use of per-pixel processing and lighting techniques.

ATI is going the way of providing general pipelines that can do both pixel and vertex processing as necessary, or at least they would appear to be moving in that direction judging by the Xbox 360. nVidia will likely follow.

[Dark RevenantX]

Oh, poo.  The card is dead!  At least the 400W power supply I got at Frys will power the replacement that should come by Friday.

[WMCoolmon]

It was the only affordable AGP X800 card I could get so I lacked choice.

Also, I HAVE IT NOW!!! YAY... er, no.....

My power supply is only 115 watts.  I am suprised my computer is even running WITHOUT it!
The card is so strapped for power that it doesn't even try to send a signal to my monitor!!!
Now, I must spend another thirty US dollars to get a nice power supply with the wattage in the 300s.

Also, how do pixel pipelines actually help you?

That sounds absurdly small...are you using a microATX case? You will need a different size PSU if that's the case.

Even my mATX case came with a PSU of at least 200w, maybe even 250w.

[CP5670]

It might just be old. My 1998 Compaq case has a 150W power supply in it. Interestingly, my 1990 Mac has an awesome 230W unit.

ATI is going the way of providing general pipelines that can do both pixel and vertex processing as necessary, or at least they would appear to be moving in that direction judging by the Xbox 360. nVidia will likely follow.

It looks like the term "pixel pipeline" will become somewhat ambiguous even earlier, probably this month. The current rumors are that the R580 has 16 texture mapping units and 48 pixel shader units, while the G71 has 32 TMUs and 24 shader units, so you can't really compare the number of pixel pipelines. I'm probably going to get that G71 if the availability is good, since my current SLI setup has some annoying limitations.

[Dark RevenantX]

Obviously, the new power supply increased my performance.

If the replacement doesn't arrive on Friday and comes on Monday or later I'l shoot myself!

[Polpolion]

Yeah, go some ram. 512 is good, 1 gig is much, much better.

uh-oh... I only have 256mb of ram. ):

[Kosh]

Ever since I installed WinXP Service Pack 2 I noticed my computer is suddenly much slower.


Like it studders when playing Starcraft and Winamp at the same time.

[CP5670]

It probably added another background service that runs by default. I never bothered with SP2 and am still on SP1.

[Kosh]

I have heard of SP2 causing major performance issues, but I am not sure what to do about it short of reformatting my computer.