Aion CPU or Grafix dependent?

[tydalwave]

System: Asus Rampage Formula
Q6600 @3.6 1.37v
Megahelems CPU Cooler ( Push-Pull Antec 3-speed )
2x 3870's ( Crossfire )
2x 500GB HHD's in Raid-0

I average just over 100 running around with max setting although no AA ( AA kills the 3870 ) or Bloom
What gets me is when I'm in the city or recently on an Abyss raid, my FPS seem to average around 13-15.
My Q6600 is at its limit and my 3870's are as well. Any recommendations?

 

[fulle]

How's your HDD activity when the FPS plummets? The problem might be neither CPU or Graphics card related, but a hard drive bottleneck!
*Earlier in the forums we were talking about similar issues in Warcraft, and one of the posters pointed out that in WoW, since it needs to constantly cache from the hard drive, that any background programs that use the hard drive (like ripping a DVD), will crush your FPS.

You also didn't list the amount of RAM you have.... if you had say 2GB, and ran out, then it'd start writiing to the page file, which is really freaking slow....

I have a hard time believing that Aion actually maxes out your Q6600 when you go into a raid. Why do you think that the Q6600 and 3870's are "at their limit"? Did you have a system monitor running that told you that you were maxing the CPU, or are you just making assumptions?

 

[tydalwave]

I'm not sure about the HDD activity. ( I will however note: that when I boot up and get to the HDD screen, it says one of the 500gigs has a (error ) but I havent been able to reformat lately )
I run 8 gigs DDR21066 @ 1066 5-5-5-12.
And by "at their limit" I mean that I cannot overclock them anymore. ( although I can "Play" at 3.825, I do experience some crashing that I believe is the CPUs fault )

Any ideas for checking the HHD's performace through windows ( I run two monitors so can monitor while in game )

another note, I run 1900x1200 for res in game and in Windows. Thanks again for your reply Fulle.

 

[Captainhero]

I find the same issue with nearly all mmo's, if you are in a main city like pandemonium it can be laggy due to the volume of players in the same area and the same for raids. Soon as im in a fort raid with approx a hundred people it gets all stuttery. I think its a combination of server load and also graphics horsepower. I have a 4870 with all settings turned to max and aa etc but when I raid I have to drop the video settings to medium and turn off aa etc, and this sorts out the lag issues.

 

[obsidian86]

it uses a modified cryengine so make a guess

 

[fulle]

yeah, it is cryengine... but more of a modified Farcry cryengine, not Crysis.... I've heard of people running high settings on 8800GTs and such, so crossfire 3870s should be sufficient. They might be running out of memory, though... and if so, captainhero's suggestion of reducing the settings (like turning off AA) would be the solution.

Sorry, Tydal, I'm sort of a noob when it comes to diagnostic tools. If it was my system, I'd probably just end up on the Performance Tab of Task Manager, staring at the PF usage. I'm sure there's a better way....

 

[tydalwave]

Thank you for the replies

Yes, dropping the settings seems to help, albeit very little. I pulled all the sliders left and still average very very low. I played DAOC for 7 years and the studdering seemed to happen even in that game when massive amound of people are around.

One thing nice that I just discovered in Aion is "Shift-F12" which turns off all PC models around you, FPS skyrocket after that. So I'm guessing my gfx horsepower, or lack there of, is to blame. I think it's time to retire my ol' gals though, get that 5870. I ran the 3870 until the 4870 came out then just crossfired, so my wife wouldnt complain too much. Waiting two generations to upgrade gfx seems to have worked out fine.

I'm an overclocker/benchmarker for fun and look fwd to beating my personal best of 18787 in 3DMark06 ( I know it is old, but it was free! ).

Thanks again guys.


edit: massive AMOUNT not amound