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.

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

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

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.