• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

underperforming X1800XT??

johnny5

johnny5

johnny5

Associate
Joined
6 Jul 2006
Posts
5
hey up :)

recently purchased a Connect3D 1800XT 256 edition and am wondering if it is not working as it should, or if i have issues elsewhere...

let's start with spec:

Athlon 64 3500+
1gig Ram
SATA HD
Asus A8N-VM
17" TFT (1280x1024)
550W PSU

I stepped up from a 128mb X700 gfx card so was expecting to see a huge performance increase. now, in HL2, everything looks beautiful maxed out with just a few stutters now and again. when i turn the settings up to high on FEAR it all goes bad. i experience less than 10fps and the HD light is constantly on, grinding away. totally unplayable. the same with BF2 although not as bad but still under 20fps.

when installing the card i noticed that the PCI-E aux power cable needs to be fed from PSU to HD to gfx card. i just plugged in an existing expansion cable from the PSU into the back of the gfx because the supplied PCI-E extension will not fit with SATA HD's.

I ran 3DMark05 and scored around 8000 which i've heard is ok for this spec. Am i just expecting too much performance i wonder or do i have some serious bottlenecks...

All feedback appreciated,

Cheers
 
Last edited:
Fear is a really badly coded game and along with bf2 really benifits from 2gig of ram. That aside those fps are still low, in bf2 fully maxed out at 1280x1024 I usually see around 80-100fps on most maps.
 
As said above, hard drive chugging is a major clue telling you you the game is having to use the swap file cause it's ran out of ram. Turn some of the settings down or buy more ram. Some of the settings in Fear do kill performance though, like soft shadows IIRC.
 
Should point out that even with 2 Gig ram you will still get the occasional stuttering from FEAR (due to HD accessing). Or at least I do with the following

opteron 146 @2.9
x1800xt 512
2 Gig ram
SATA HD

It aint well coded. Most games will run fine with your 1 Gig. Off hand I can only think of FEAR and black + white 2 that really need 2 Gig

EDIT: dont have BF2 so I cant coment.
 
Last edited:
thanks for all the replies :)

it seems to be textures that slow the games right down. can get away with medium textures and everything else on high. moment the textures go up everything goes bad. so the card is running great, need more ram.

arse, more money :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom