Should my 5800 Ultra be this SLOW?

[chupacabras]

I recently got my hands on a Leadtek A300 5800 Ultra, and I cant keep a constant 30 frames in Unreal 2. (checked with fraps) Often frames drop to single digits as well. All settings in Unreal 2 are on high, except character detail, and Intellisample is on performance, while D3D mipmapping quality is on blend. Needless to say, i'm a little disappointed, any ideas what it could be? I'm using the 43.45 Detonator FX's, but have also tried the 44.65 betas. Other than raising my 3dmark score, I didnt notice any differences with them.. and if i had to say, I think were even slower..

I'm running the game with 4XAA and 8XAF with texture sharpening on. AGP aperature size is 64mb, and i'm running VIA's Hyperion 4.45. Unreal2 isnt the only thing a little slow, is dawn ultra supposed to be choppy on this card? Also, I tried the ATI animusic demo, which is choppy as well.

I get about 4000 3dmark2003 with the 43.45 and 5000 with the beta 43.65s. I also get ~13,000 in 2001.

I know 256 isnt that much ram, but I doubt that's the problem. My friend running his 9500pro gets 90 fps. BTW system was freshly formatted after I got the card, so it was wiped just a few days ago. Also, my case is very well ventilated, with multiple case fans, and temps shouldnt be an issue, since i've been running the case open.

My system:
Athlon XP@2150mhz
256MB DDR@180mhz
Leadtek A300
MSI KT3 Ultra2
420W Thermaltake PS
Windows XP pro.
Any ideas? Thanks.

[Tsunami]

No it definatly shouldn't be that slow i have a ti4600 at the moment and i run everything on high with 2XAA and 8XAF and i had around 30 fps so a 5800 ultra should be about 60fps
all i can think of is that Vsync must be on

[yoladude]

why r u doing BETA 43.65s or whatever when the 44.03s are already out??? they're supposed to improve performance in fx-based cards a lot. go to nvidia and download it; cant hurt, anyways.

[chupacabras]

That was a typo, i meant the 44.65 betas. I just tried the 44.03's and still much of the same problem. Vsync off, everything on high in game, in settings on "high performance" in the display, with highest quality mip mapping, 4xAA/8xAF.

On the third mission, the terraforming bioplanet, on the surface i get around 40-50fps with no one but me around. When there's combat with other characters, up close the frames drop to about 20 or less.

[Uttar]

Did you try and see the different in FPS with 2x AA? You could be hitting your 128MB lvideo memory imit, causing a drastic performance hit if there's a LOT of textures...


Uttar

[Dazz]

I don't know 8x AA & 8x AF is a real performance killer!!!

[chupacabras]

Running 4xAA/8xAF, not 8xAA.
(running 44.03 now)

With 2xAA/8xAF same performance. 50ish when no ones shooting, dropping to 20 under combat, and under 10 when there's combat and rather large explosions. All detail settings in Unreal2 are on the highest quality, and it doesnt seem to make much of a difference setting the display to high performance or high quality.

I'll try it with AA off and AF off, on 'quality' mode now.
------

Wow something's definitely not right. with AA off and AF off, and image quality in the display properties on 'quality', it idles at around 60ish, but when the combat starts it has the same problem: 20is fps under combat and 10ish when there's an explosion. :confused:

What could be wrong?

For reference i tried another game.. GTA3, at 1024 like everything else.

Again highest quality, but no AA and no AF, the game's 120fps max, and drops to 65fps at its lowest point, most of the time saying around 90fps. Are these numbers normal?

[Geforce4ti4200]

13k marks is sad, I get that with a ti4200 and a slower cpu than yours. also ut2003 is cpu intensive, meaning the problem is not with your video card, the video card is waiting for the cpu. Your cpu is performing like my old 1GHz tbird. Maybe your os, ram or mobo is messed up? can you link me to your score of 13k?

[EMunEeE]

Originally posted by Geforce4ti4200
13k marks is sad, I get that with a ti4200 and a slower cpu than yours. also ut2003 is cpu intensive, meaning the problem is not with your video card, the video card is waiting for the cpu. Your cpu is performing like my old 1GHz tbird. Maybe your os, ram or mobo is messed up? can you link me to your score of 13k?

Well anyone can hit 13K with any GF4 and higher generatio card with a fat FSB:rolleyes:

The 5800 should be that slow with 4XAA and 8xAF...its crippled by its 128bit bus.

[The Baron]

it's the RAM, stupid. running XP with 256 is not a great idea, and trying to run games like U2 with 256 is just a really really bad idea.

[saturnotaku]

Originally posted by The Baron
it's the RAM, stupid. running XP with 256 is not a great idea, and trying to run games like U2 with 256 is just a really really bad idea.

I hear that. A friend of mine has a Ti4600 and when he upgraded to 512 from 256, he saw at least a 30% increase in his UT2003 performance.

[Kruno]

Originally posted by The Baron
it's the RAM, stupid. running XP with 256 is not a great idea, and trying to run games like U2 with 256 is just a really really bad idea.

I stripped my 768MB ram down to 128 and my performance nose dived by 6fps in UT2003 and this is worst case scenario. Not only that but I had it downclocked to 133MHz from 160MHz.

I was still running at an average of 75fps in Face3 map with 5 bots.

[chupacabras]

Originally posted by The Baron
it's the RAM, stupid. running XP with 256 is not a great idea, and trying to run games like U2 with 256 is just a really really bad idea.

Other than the attitude, the advice is appreciated. How much ram would be good? The reason I'm thinking it wasnt the ram is because my friend on this nforce2 with 256megs, a r9500pro and a slower 2100+ cpu doesnt stutter, just when the level initally loads. And he definitely gets more than 40-50 fps idle.

[Tsunami]

not so sure it's jut the ram because when i had only 128 my games started slow at about 15 fps 5 mins later i was speeding at 50fps (this was in medal of honour allie assault spearhead

[chupacabras]

Originally posted by Geforce4ti4200
13k marks is sad, I get that with a ti4200 and a slower cpu than yours. also ut2003 is cpu intensive, meaning the problem is not with your video card, the video card is waiting for the cpu. Your cpu is performing like my old 1GHz tbird. Maybe your os, ram or mobo is messed up? can you link me to your score of 13k?

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6663439

[Sea Dragon]

I'm kind of doubtful it's the RAM, either - 256 should be fine.

I'd probably try reinstalling Unreal 2, and bringing your system and memory back to regular clock speeds to see what happens.

[Kev1]

That with my current setup using a GF3, running UT2003 at
1024 x 768, 32 bit color, no AA or AF, I get over 110 fps flyby and 80 fps botmatch, with game details maxed and physics at normal :rolleyes: It never feels like its slowing down, even in Invasion with 100 monsters after me :)

Doom 3 is going to force a video card upgrade, and I'm beginning to hope the NV40 or R4XX is out by then.

GF3's are still pretty awesome cards :D

[Bubba]

Chup- Try bumping that AGP aperture size up to 128 if possible, or at least toy around with the aperture settings to see if you get better performance. It may be meaningless, but is probably worth a shot. Like the others said, another 256mb of ram would help for sure- across the board. Good luck.

Kev- Right on. GF3s still rock. I'm not saavy enough to know the details, but I'm under the impression that Unreal 2 and Unreal Tourney 2003 use different engines (or different versions of same engine?)

[The Baron]

U2 and UT2003 use just about the same engine.

In this day and age, if you're complaining about your computer being slow and you only have 256 megs of RAM, wake up. I was using 256 megs back in 1999, and it was good for a while. It ain't 1999 anymore, and RAM is dirt cheap. Don't run with less than 256. Take the "recommended" requirement for a game and double it--then you know you're peachy. In this case, I doubt it's your videocard, or your processor, or your motherboard. Only your RAM looks suspect.

UT2003 is highly limited by the CPU where U2 is not at all, Kiler. In fact, you cannot make the video card the bottleneck unless you A. use a custom map or B. have a really crappy videocard. Hell, even my GF3 wasn't the bottleneck to getting 50FPS until I set the texture detail to more than its 64 megs could handle.

[gokickrocks]

are you running 4x or 4xS AA?

if its 4xS AA and 8xAF, the 5800 comes to a crawl...at least in bf1942...its like watching a slide show

[jAkUp]

get 512mb of ram, bump up agp ag to 128 for sure...

i get 30-50fps in u2 all settings high at 1600x1200

[Kev1]

Have it set at 128. I have mine at 256 because I have 512 megs of ram. I read that agp aperture size should be half your system ram. I do not know if what I read is completely accurate, but having 256 agp aperture size in my system works very well :thumbsup:

Since you have 256 megs memory, 128 meg agp aperture size should be fine :)

[jAkUp]

i just read im maximum pc that 256mb is overkill... and 128 works the best as long as you have 256mb of system ram or higher.

[The Baron]

And it's been proven that AGP aperture doesn't really do crap past 64 megs (except some compatibility issues). Just don't make me find the article, I'm lazy right now. Set it to 128 or 256 and don't worry about it.

[yoladude]

Originally posted by Sea Dragon
I'm kind of doubtful it's the RAM, either - 256 should be fine.

I'd probably try reinstalling Unreal 2, and bringing your system and memory back to regular clock speeds to see what happens.

not with windows xp, it isn't fine. right now, my system cache is at about 140 megs, more than half of 256. and i have 270 megs available. i have 512 megs total.
when i was running 256, windows would barely leave me anything. the result was that my hard drive would have to work harder and swap off the hard drive to load textures evey now and then, and plus, loading times were a bitch. 512 megs solved all of this.

my advice is to upgrade to 512 megs...shouldnt cost u (depending on the quality u like) more than fifty bucks. i got a 256 pc2100 stick for less than thirty bucks. made all the difference.