My post-build Qs!

JoyPadJedi · 14 Mar 2006 at 14:37

Right, so it's all finished, jd, dank dank doo, etc.

There's always questions though, and I have a few if that's alright!

Brief spec:

X2 4400
ASUS A8N32 Deluxe
Lian Li PC-7 (2x12cm)
Corsair XMS 3500LL
2 x 7800GTX (SLI)
Tagan TG580U15
Stock cooling and clocking
ViewSonic VX922

Temperatures:

Currently idle CPU and MB temps are 40 degrees and around 46 for both while playing HL: Lost Coast on maximum settings. GPUs are at about 55 degrees full load. Sound okay?

SLI:

The load balancing bar you can enable only ever seems to show the one vertical bar down the left of the screen - never the horizontal one. Guild Wars, AOE3 and HL2 are the games I've tried - plus 3Dmark06 - always just one bar. ?? I use the correct profiles for each game too.

Memory:

I know the A8N Premium BIOS needed to be tweaked in order to use the 3500LL at its rated speeds, etc but does the same apply to my A8N32?

Image tearing:

Is the general consensus these days to just live with it? I know in the past there have been tweaks to combat it in some games, but short of taking a 50% performance hit with vsync, is there any cure?

Also if anyone with a similar setup can offer me some tips on things I might run into down the line, it'd be great!

semi-pro waster · 14 Mar 2006 at 14:40

Temperatures are fine for both the CPU and graphics cards.

As to the rest I'm not too sure but I'd have thought that running VSync wouldn't affect such a powerful system too badly?

JoyPadJedi · 15 Mar 2006 at 09:27

It seems to chop my HL2 framerate in half with VS on @ 12x10, 4xAA 8xAF and full details , I'm not sure but I think it's 30-40fps with VS on. What's a good tool for displaying framerate etc in games? Guild Wars is about the only game that's silky smooth with VS on. Seems bizarre for such a high-end system.

BigDom · 15 Mar 2006 at 13:12

From memory VSynch should only give you a hard cap on Framrates ( at least I'm sure that's how it used to work ) so if your framerate is below Vsynch shouldn't matter.

AFAIK there is only one bar in the load balancing graphic, at least that's all I get on my SLI system.

The frame capture program.. *scratches head trying to remember it's name* has a frame rate overlay option built in which works well.

thefranklin · 15 Mar 2006 at 15:24

fraps is the program

JoyPadJedi · 15 Mar 2006 at 23:08

Cheers.

Going back to tearing and SLI - I just experimented by turning off SLI completely, then I ran HL2 with the same detail, seemed similar in performance - maybe a stutter every so often, and tearing was there still. But then I turned vsync on - it was completely smooth, instead of jerky as with SLI. What's going on here?

BigDom · 15 Mar 2006 at 23:21

HL probably doesn't work well with SLI...

Some games work well with it, some work poorly, some plain don't work.

JoyPadJedi · 15 Mar 2006 at 23:26

I just tried Guild Wars - same story - works much better with SLI turned off. Not impressed with SLI so far...unless there a problem with one of the cards or the PCEe.

BigDom · 15 Mar 2006 at 23:31

JoyPadJedi said:
I just tried Guild Wars - same story - works much better with SLI turned off. Not impressed with SLI so far...unless there a problem with one of the cards or the PCEe.

Have to say whilst doing SLI on Project Red Alert was interesting I wasn't that impressed either. Defaintly sticking to single card myself ( although may consider Crossfire if the opertunity arose as it has a better technical implementation).