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GTX 260 - disappointing so far.

Soldato
Joined
8 Nov 2006
Posts
9,237
So, I got my GTX 260 today. Now, while most things ran pretty well on my 4850 at 1920x1200, I just wanted a bit of extra grunt in my games. In particular Crysis and Crysis Warhead.

Thing is, even at stock the GTX should beat the 4850, not only cause it should have mroe grunt, but there is also the larger frame buffer and extra badwidth.

So why is this GTX typically slower than, or equal to my 4850?

Take Crysis for example - on the first level ther is that section where you come out of this little valley and look out over the bay. On my 4850 with all settings on high I would be getting around 29 FPS, almost constant. With the GTX 260 the FPS jumps between 25 and 29, though usually around 29 FPS.

On very high with the 4850 I'd get around 20 FPS, and with the GTX 260 I get around the same.

Another game that I though would benefit from the extra memory and bandwidth is Oblivion with Qarls installed. Exactly the same, if not slightly worse performance.

GRAW 2 runs about the same, though maybe a couple of FPS faster. Far Cry 2 runs a couple of FPS faster - maybe a 10% diff. UT 3 hardly any faster.

I originally tried the 182.08 drivers, but after finding they weren't giving me what I thought I should get, I uninstalled, ran driversweeper to remove all traces of ATI and Nvidia drivers and have tried the 182.48 beta's and still no better.

With the 4850 getting 30 fps on the section I mentioned in Crysis, I expected the 260 to be at least 10 to 20 percent. I certainly didn't expect it to run worse.

Any suggestions?

Edit: Oh yeah, this is with my Q6600 at 3GHz. Ocing that a little further to 3.2 made 0 diff in Crysis.
 
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Wow, that is strange. I was going to suggest a driver issue but it looks like you've covered that base. Have you tried a complete driver clean and reinstall?
 
Wow, that is strange. I was going to suggest a driver issue but it looks like you've covered that base. Have you tried a complete driver clean and reinstall?

Yeah, thats what I did after first trying the latest WHQL drivers. When it wasn't running as I though it should I uninstalled, ran driver sweeper, then installed the lastest beta's - thats with restarting when needed of course.
 
Sorry I can't make any suggestions to help but I must say that there is something wrong somewhere.

I went from a 4870 512 to a GTX260 and I admit I have overclocked the GTX (so was the 4870) I have seen a noticable boost in fraerates in all games I play.
 
Well, even if you don't have any suggestions, it's good to hear that you noticed a diff between those two - at least I know I wasn't simply expecting to much and that there is something wrong. Just wish I knew what :(
 
Maybe the cpu can be overclocked further to counter any bottleneck there may be at that end. The GTX will scale very well with cpu speed.
 
Overclocking the cpu past 3.2ghz will make no difference at all, but I think maybe trying the 180.48 or 180.70 forceware drivers. I had the newer installed but found the earlier ones ran a bit better, I had a more stable framerate. And at that point you're talking about in crysis, I get around 45-50 fps with settings of 1440 x 900, 2xAA, a lot of ingame settings on low, but shaders, shadows, texture and details on high. If I take off AA and set 1920 x 1200 res, the performance does fall off slightly but not down to your framerates.
 
+1

When I went from an 8800gt to a 4870 performance gains seemed minimal. This was after cleaning drivers.

One fresh install later a few weeks down the line and then I really saw some improvement.

I could not agree with this more. Drivercleaner and Sweeper DO NOT always work correctly. I had the same issue recently and the only thing that cured it was a complete wipe of the HD and a fresh install of XP. MY FPS jumped massively as a result. It may sound daunting but it really really isnt.
 
Surprising, I can't see it being an issue but have you tested the PCI-E interface throughput? You can test it with CUDA tools. You should get at least 2GB/S might flag up a problem for you
 
I would be reinstalling windows


This, if all else fails.


Going back a few years, but when I changed from an ATI card to a Nvidia one, had to re-install windows to totally get rid of the ATI drivers.
 
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