New videocard and RAM - not much better performance in one game

[NickThissen]

Hi,

This is a bit of a longshot, but I figured asking can't hurt

I recently bought a new videocard (ATI HD5770), and two more GB or ram (total 4GB now) in an effort to improve the performance of my games. The game I play mostly is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.

With my old system (2GB ram and an ATI 1950 XTX or something), I had all the game settings on the lowest possible, at a resolution of something like 11xx * 800 (can't really remember, but it was between 1024*768 and 1280*960). With this, on the smallest levels, performance was just about ok. On larger levels, the performance wasn't good enough for me. I barely got 20/30 FPS which is much too low for my liking in a first person shooter.

So, I upgraded my system, but unfortunately the performance of MW2 is still pretty bad. I am using the same resolution and the only difference is that I'm using medium quality textures instead of low (although setting them to low doesn't help much either). On the largest levels, I still find I have too little frames per second.

At first I was thinking maybe the drivers weren't right or some other settings were screwing with the performance. I was also starting to think the new videocard wasn't all that much better than my old one (even though my old one is over 4 years old).

However, a few days ago I got DiRT 2 (rally racing game), and the performance on that game is simply spectacular. I can play it at Full-HD resolution (1920x1080) every setting on High. If I weren't controlling the cars I would say I was watching a full-hd live stream video.

I am completely puzzled now... What could be causing this? Is DiRT2 simply a much better made game, can it display much better graphics with similar hardware? Is MW2 such a badly made game that it can't handle 1280x960 resolution with everything on low...?


What I'm wondering is, is it possible that there is something wrong that causes MW2's performance to be much worse than other games? Or is it simply due to the difference in games? At the moment I don't have any other games installed (due to having to format to a 64-bit windows), but I should try that sometime soon so that I can compare some other games...

I just find it strange, friends with similar setups are playing MW2 on full-hd resolution with everything maxed out, just like I can play DiRT2, but I cannot get more than 30FPS in MW2 on the lowest settings...

[FireXtol]

It sounds like your CPU might be bottlenecking.

What are the other specs of your system?

[NickThissen]

Yeah I thought that too, but if that's the case how can DiRT2 give me such great performance? Maybe it relies much lies on the CPU or something.. Is that possible?

I have an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400, also > 4 years old I think. I am thinking of overclocking it, but I'm not sure how much that will help and if it's worth the 'risk'.

[FireXtol]

Maybe try to update your graphics drivers, update the chipset drivers, and possibly reinstall the game.

I don't see that CPU being much of a bottleneck.

[NickThissen]

Since I formatted recently I've downloaded the latest graphics of the videocard and I had to reinstall the game anyway, so that can't be the problem. What do you mean by the chipset drivers however..? The drivers of the CPU? I don't think I've ever updated those, at least not manually (I think windows 7 is pretty good at figuring out which drivers I need, I've only ever updated the videocard drivers). I can't even find any drivers for the CPU..?

[FireXtol]

Not the CPU, the motherboard. You need to know the maker and model of your motherboard typically, as that's the easiest way to figure out the chipset used.

CPU-Z might be helpful.

[NickThissen]

I've got an Asus P5W DH Deluxe motherboard. I've no idea what I should get for drivers... I can only find drivers for specific parts like the audio card and a bios update.

[TheBigB]

When you go to the Other or Misc category on the ASUS site you might find an INF update.
That is the chipset driver.

Also, did you try running a couple of maps in private match mode?
I play MW2 a lot, but I admit the connection method is poorly designed.
It should not influence the framerate at all, but as said it's poorly designed.

[NickThissen]

I can't find anything of the sort. And yeah I know MW2 is laggy as hell but that shouldn't influence the FPS.

[TheBigB]

Nvm. chipset drivers are integrated in Windows 7.
What you could try is updating the BIOS.

[Lord Orwell]

i mentioned in the PM to try rolling back your driver to an older one. I had to do this as the latest driver for that card is buggy as a driver can possibly be. I was getting pathetic performance... in one game as well. It's evidently a well-known issue and i was warned about it by the salesman. The most recent driver and possibly the one right before it screw up on some games. I am using the reference driver that came on my install cd and while it's actually slower in some areas i don't have to worry about lost random framerates.

[NickThissen]

Thanks, I'll try that tonight. I don't know which driver I had on the install cd, but you say I need to go at least 2 versions back?

[Lord Orwell]

i am saying two because i know from personal experience the latest is buggy and i was told the one before that has bugs in catalyst control center.
edit: here's our chance. Supposedly a new driver is coming out tomorrow the 25th.

[Jenner]

Man, I'd recommend switching to an nVidia card. I'm running an old system (AMD X2 4400+, 3Gb RAM and BFG GeForce 8800 GTS) and I can run MW2 it at some pretty high levels at high FPS. There's gotta be something messed up either in your driver layer or something causing the game to bottleneck.

Then again, what FPS at what screen resolution are you aiming for?

[NickThissen]

Yeah, somehow I doubt switching from ATI to nVidia in the same price range will suddenly give me 50 more FPS.

I'm not aiming for some particular value, but I'm sure I must be able to do better than 1024x768, everything at low, while not getting more than 20 FPS at times.

[Lord Orwell]

Man, I'd recommend switching to an nVidia card. I'm running an old system (AMD X2 4400+, 3Gb RAM and BFG GeForce 8800 GTS) and I can run MW2 it at some pretty high levels at high FPS. There's gotta be something messed up either in your driver layer or something causing the game to bottleneck.

Then again, what FPS at what screen resolution are you aiming for?

i just switched from nvidia to ati. I have the exact same card he does. There's an issue with the driver. Most games are great. I play games at some pretty silly resolutions (3 monitors).
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
the 5770 is about 33% faster than your card at stock speeds. And i don't doubt this chart. I've owned a few cards on it and my numbers pretty much match theirs.

[NickThissen]

I've just downloaded the new driver (10.8) and will install it soon. I probably won't have a chance to try it soon but when I do I'll let you know whether it helped...


EDIT
I just read here that:

make sure you're not sharing a +12V rail with anything else from the PSU to the Video card.

Does that mean the power cables running from video card to psu shouldn't be shared by anything else? I think right now I just 'extended' the cable that is already connected to the hard drive. So I have like this:

If you know what I mean...

Is that bad? Is it not getting enough power maybe? How can I check this? I don't think I had any 'empty' cables left, and I can't get to the PSU without completely ripping apart the case...


EDIT
I don't think it's the HDD it's sharing, I think it's the DVD drive. Or DVD writer. I'm not sure, either of those

[Jenner]

Try playing it with the DVD unplugged. See if you get performance. It's most likely the driver though.

Yea, good video cards are hungry beasts. Most use a 6-pin dual 12V connector (for core and on-card fan). There is an adapter that takes two Molex connectors but it's better to just upgrade your PSU to one that can better handle it.

I know nVidia drivers have a screen which will tell you if there's a power shortfall to your card; or if it's getting power at all. I dunno about catalyst but I suspect they do as well. Buggy drivers are the reason I'll never get another ATI again. Last ATI card I had, I needed to write my own resolution profile to get it to work at 1280 x 800 (my monitor's native resolution).

[Lord Orwell]

there isnt really a power issue with ati cards in general. they use much less power than nvidia. there are nvidia cards out there that can use 1000 watts under load, and that's a single card.

[NickThissen]

Well I tried it with the new drivers but didn't see any difference.

I might try to re-wire the power supply cable so that it doesn't share with the dvd drive...

[FireXtol]

there are nvidia cards out there that can use 1000 watts under load, and that's a single card.

[Lord Orwell]

dont take my word for it.
http://revision3.com/tekzilla/gfxcards2010

[TheBigB]

I've got a couple of gaming rigs in the basement

Show off...

[FireXtol]

dont take my word for it.
http://revision3.com/tekzilla/gfxcards2010

"Dual 480 .. 700 watts" then later... "dual 480's you'll need 100 watts". This guy keeps changing his mind! So which is it?

Besides, you said "that's a single card", he's referring to two cards.

A 1000w PSU would likely run at least three 480s.

[Lord Orwell]

they just released a new driver again.