Should i upgrade my X1800XT 256mb pci-e?

Camalot · 9 May 2007 at 09:59

Hey guys. Im mainly playing wow atm, but getting into some other games to.

My res is 1440x900 widescreen and im playing with everything on max (no aa or af) Its got good fps mostly over 50. But it is dropping to very low in big places, its in its 20's.

There was one hunting place i was in, in outlands, cant remember the name. The fps was going below 20! It felt slow motion! I thought this card was ace, but its starting to feel a little slow. When im on a flying mount and if i try to look around in a circle, it is VERY chioppy, fps drops below 20 :eek:

Is it worth an upgrade, or could it be my cpu?

Amd64 3200+ Venice clocked at 2.5
2gig of ram

steve258 · 9 May 2007 at 10:09

I could be wrong but I think it's either the CPU or your Internet connection IMO.

I find it hard to believe that X1800XT struggles with WOW.

Have you updated to the newest driver - Catalyst 7.4?

Camalot · 9 May 2007 at 10:16

steve258 said:
I could be wrong but I think it's either the CPU or your Internet connection IMO.

I find it hard to believe that X1800XT struggles with WOW.

Have you updated to the newest driver - Catalyst 7.4?

No dont think so, im using omega drivers for the x1800xt.

My connection is 4mb Virgin Media by the way.

TALON1973 · 9 May 2007 at 10:34

you got other problems there. that card is amazing . i got it myself and game at 1280 x 1024 with all settings max. i have a 3700+ with 2 gig ram.

i'd delete the drivers and reinstall them again.

Camalot · 9 May 2007 at 10:49

TALON1973 said:
you got other problems there. that card is amazing . i got it myself and game at 1280 x 1024 with all settings max. i have a 3700+ with 2 gig ram.

i'd delete the drivers and reinstall them again.

Could it not be ram related? As i run it at DDR266 (133mhz) because of my overclocked cpu. Anything higher wow will crash in under a minute?

Im currently formatting my PC, ill install wow fresh, and try the latest drivers from the ati site.

Normally i just download "drivers only" I dont install anything else.

Tute · 9 May 2007 at 10:54

I was able to max WoW out, 1280x1024 4xAA 16xAF max settings with an X800XT so it's certainly NOT your card. It was paired with an Athlon64 3400 and 1GB RAM.

WoW asks far more of your CPU than it does anything else IMO, but even then anything high-end Socket A or better should handle it fine.

Try reinstalling drivers. Check you haven't enabled 16xAA by accident (this WILL hurt your framerate a fair bit) both in game or in CCC.

The Asgard · 9 May 2007 at 11:05

Definately some other problem. I was playing at 1920x1200 in WOW with that card. Pretty sure 2xAA too.

steve258 · 9 May 2007 at 11:06

Camalot said:
Could it not be ram related? As i run it at DDR266 (133mhz) because of my overclocked cpu. Anything higher wow will crash in under a minute?

What RAM do you have? What specification? Run CPU-Z to find out the the specifications and the actual speed it is running at.

RAM speed increases with your overclock so if you set it at 133Mhz (3:2 FSB:RAM ratio) it will increase to 166Mhz at 250FSB (2.5Ghz CPU).

TALON1973 · 9 May 2007 at 11:13

Camalot said:
Could it not be ram related? As i run it at DDR266 (133mhz) because of my overclocked cpu. Anything higher wow will crash in under a minute?

Im currently formatting my PC, ill install wow fresh, and try the latest drivers from the ati site.

Normally i just download "drivers only" I dont install anything else.

clock it back to normal and put the ram back to normal as well. then try it again

Camalot · 9 May 2007 at 11:20

Its 2gig of geil value pc3200.

And i havent enabled aa or af by accident, i had ati tray tools for that and always had it set to "performance"

With the divider and overclock, the current ram frequence is 166.7mhz. Which is fine since its 200mhz memory.

Do you guys use ATI Tray tools to set the aa and af etc?

Format complete, installed latest display drivers from ATI site, currently installing wow again.

Tute · 9 May 2007 at 11:24

Why are you running on a divider if it's PC3200?

Setting it to 166MHz is going to really starve the whole machine of bandwidth.

Camalot · 9 May 2007 at 11:33

Tute said:
Why are you running on a divider if it's PC3200?

Setting it to 166MHz is going to really starve the whole machine of bandwidth.

Because the cpu is clocked from 2.0 to 2.5. If its left at ddr400 the ram wont be able to clock that far. Its only value ram.

And its set at what it is, because the next divider up crashes wow within a minute.

Or am i doing something wrong

steve258 · 9 May 2007 at 11:35

Camalot said:
Its 2gig of geil value pc3200.

And i havent enabled aa or af by accident, i had ati tray tools for that and always had it set to "performance"

With the divider and overclock, the current ram frequence is 166.7mhz. Which is fine since its 200mhz memory.

Do you guys use ATI Tray tools to set the aa and af etc?

Format complete, installed latest display drivers from ATI site, currently installing wow again.

Yes I only install the display driver and WDM driver (bundled together with CCC under 1 install file). I use ATI tray tool for all overclocks and AA/AF settings cuz I find that manual AA/AF settings in catalyst control centre doesn't work (observed in test drive unlimited).

What are the divider options in your BIOS? In fact what mobo do you have? With PC3200 RAM you can set 166Mhz option if you hav it (FSB:RAM 5:4 ratio) to bring your RAM back upto rated 200Mhz DDR400.

Camalot · 9 May 2007 at 11:40

steve258 said:
Yes I only install the display driver and WDM driver (bundled together with CCC under 1 install file). I use ATI tray tool for all overclocks and AA/AF settings cuz I find that manual AA/AF settings in catalyst control centre doesn't work (observed in test drive unlimited).

What are the divider options in your BIOS? In fact what mobo do you have? With PC3200 RAM you can set 166Mhz option if you hav it (FSB:RAM 5:4 ratio) to bring your RAM back upto rated 200Mhz DDR400.

ASROCK Duel SATA2.

I tried the 166mhz option, and wow will crash within 1minute. Not sure why. Thats why i used the next one down.

TALON1973 · 9 May 2007 at 11:40

i have the exact same ram as you . never tried underclocking ram . i knew it wouldn't overclock . i know nothing about dividers so never tried it. manage to squeeze 3 % on the cpu before it freeze up . not really worth the effort .

if underclocking ram gets me benefits i might try it. would need pointers tho

blakka · 9 May 2007 at 11:44

I don't think it's the card. I have the same card and I can play F.E.A.R on full settings with no probs.

fastwunz · 9 May 2007 at 12:02

yep - not card - sounds rammy to me

The Asgard · 9 May 2007 at 12:14

fastwunz said:
yep - not card - sounds rammy to me

Why does it sound like Ram?

If you want to test stability use Orthos.

I suspect its a driver issue or you have something running in the background. Have a look in task manager and see whats running.

If you have a spare old hard disk you could try a fresh install of XP to see if thats sorts out your problems. HD's are very cheap on the MM if you dont have one.

Try reinstalling the graphics card drivers first though. By preference uninstall and clean before reinstalling. Use something like Driver Cleaner Professional

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745

Camalot · 9 May 2007 at 13:57

Fresh install now. Wow seems a little better. Still getting lag.

Sitting in Shadowmoon Valley with 40fps. Can drop to 30, and goes up to 60-70 when i fly.

I also upp'd my divider from 133 to 166, but cpuz still says my freqency is 166.7mhz.

My grfx fan always seems to be spinning like its life depends on it as well when i load up wow. Its getting sooo annoying.

Killajaz · 9 May 2007 at 17:35

100% it is not the card.
One of my close friends plays WOW every day, even when I come by and he has a 1800XT 256mb and 3800 X2 clocked at 2.1ghz and 1gb value ram. We have never seen a slow down, even when in the 40 vs 40 madness maps.