Not too sure about my new GTX-285 :(
 

I just installed my GTX-285 last night but I'm not sure I am really that happy with it. Maybe I just have no idea what I'm doing and could use some help with the settings. I replaced my MSI HD4850 with the GTX-285. This is all an Windows XP 32bit.

First, I got a lower score with Passmark than I did with the HD4850? But I got a little higher score with 3D Mark

It seems like the HD4850 just looked better while playing, the detail seems lower and the colors don't seem as good.

I did notice a improvement playing Crysis, the Crysis benchmark went up a solid 20FPS over my 4850. However in Crysis Warhead I get all kinds of artifacts now that I never had before. These are really bad, think I need to reinstall......again!

Noticed no improvement with FSX. Yes I know FSX is CPU dependent. With my I7-920 I'm only using about 17% of my CPU and I still cant max out the settings with all the traffic off. The framde rate is locked at 17fps.

The Witcher runs about the same.

Grid shows a little improvement.

X-Plane won't even start now, no surprise, X-Plane is garbage if you ask me.

Company of Heroes runs a little better, but when I run the benchmark now its locked at 60fps. It would go way above that with my 4850. However, when actually playing the game I see an improvement in fps. It stays locked at 60fps during the CofH benchmark and will not go above or below that 60fps mark? Wonder why that is?

Grand Theft Auto 4 runs better. I can crank it up fairly well and get 45-50fps but drops to 25 or so while its raining.

On the Nvidia control panel, what should I do with that? Some of the settings are confusing, I need to read up on that a little more. Does the "Allow Physix" cause a drop in performance?

Maybe I was just expecting too much out of it. I thought it would blow away my HD4850.

I only got to play with it for about 4 hours last night so its too early to make a final judgment. Any help is greatly appreciated. :D

Re: Not too sure about my new GTX-285 :(
 

I would imagine you would see a similar increase to what I saw going from an 8800GTS 320 to a Radeon 4770. Performance has increased anywhere from 50-100% in my games. Maybe at your res, the 285 cant really stretch out its legs?

Though with getting lower scores and artifacting there could be a problem with the card itself. I know cpus can downclock if they start getting too hot I'd imagine a video can as well. You didn't remove and reseat the heatsink for some reason did you?

Re: Not too sure about my new GTX-285 :(
 

No absolutely not, I never touched the heatsink. My CPU and GPU temps are good. I have the fan set at 65% on the GPU and never rose above 70 while playing Crysis. I have a watt meter plugged into my wall with my entire computer plugged into the watt meter and it never rose above 400watts. I have a 650watt PSU.

Re: Not too sure about my new GTX-285 :(
 

Did you use driver cleaner etc to get rid of all the old ATI drivers. And what Nvidia driver version you running?

Re: Not too sure about my new GTX-285 :(
 

Very strange. I'd try removing and reloading the drivers just for the heck of it. I'm sure you did, but just to make sure you did completely remove the ATI drivers right?

Re: Not too sure about my new GTX-285 :(
 

Yes I used driver sweeper to do this, well... I uninstalled the ATI drivers and the CCC the usual way. I rebooted in safe mode, used driver sweeper, restarted the system normally. I did get a error message that said something like "unable to load MOM.???????????. I looked that up and it was from the ATI drivers. I redid the safeboot and driver sweeper, rebooted normally and checked that I had removed the ATI drivers and CCC. I never got that error message again. Then, I installed the nvidia drivers, rebooted played around a little and rebooted again, then I ran some of the benchmarks and played some games.

Thanks! :)

Re: Not too sure about my new GTX-285 :(
 

The artifcating leads me to think its a hardware issue. Did you buy this from a big box? If so just exchange it.

If it was shipped you didnt notice and indents or damage to the shipping box did you?

Re: Not too sure about my new GTX-285 :(
 

I got it from newegg. Everything is in really good shape. It was double boxed and the outside box looked really good. I hope its not hardware.. The only artifacts I get is in Crysis Warhead. The first Crysis runs good. I have everything set to High and get acceptable frame rates with not goofy graphics errors.

Re: Not too sure about my new GTX-285 :(
 

Wow u got an core i7cpu and gtx 285 and u complain ? i dont get it thats about the best u can get today.

Re: Not too sure about my new GTX-285 :(
 

There is obviously some kind of problem... that's why he's posting about it... :confused:

musman, your OS may actually be hurting you pretty bad here. With a 1Gb video card you're probably left with less than 3Gb of available system memory in a 32bit OS.

If I were you I'd definitely start switching to Windows 7 or Vista for your gaming and general usage.

I see in your specs that you have Windows 7 installed already. Have you tried using that at all?

To be 100% sure that it isn't a driver\OS problem I'd reinstall Windows 7 (or Vista) x64 from scratch.

Also, you should overclock that CPU. An i7 920 is good, but if a game isn't multithreaded it isn't anything special. If you push it to 3.6Ghz or more you'll see a large performance increase. 4Ghz+ is possible with a good air cooler on an i7 920.

Re: Not too sure about my new GTX-285 :(
 

You know, you may have something there! I never checked my RAM after I installed this card. It was down to 2.5Gb with my 4850. Ill check it when I get home.

Check my out my post about my RAM issue:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=132131

I had to set the "memory low Gap" in the bios from 1536 to 1024. now I am seeing 3.0Gb of RAM, however, doing that really screwed up GTA4. All the graphics were turning black and there were all kinds of weird stuff going on.

I have not really tried many games in Windows 7 yet. I just don't want to install everything then half to reinstall it all when the official W7 comes out.

Re: Not too sure about my new GTX-285 :(
 

CaptNKILL: You are right about the I-7 not being that great if the game cant use more than one or two cores. I have a decent system for overclocking, but I really have no idea how to do it. I have looked at the bios many times but have no idea what most of that stuff is....I'm a noob :cool: