gilgamesh2112

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Jul 25, 2007
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18,510
I recently purchased a 7600gt xfx agp card to put a breath of life into my old system. I did some research before the purchase and it seemed that it would be an improvement over my old 9600 pro.

So far this is not the case. Before the installation I played several games and marked fps and settings. Then once I installed I went back to the games to compare fps (same level/maps, # of players, servers.. etc.). Much to my dismay there was no gain, not even fractional gains and in most cases there was an overall lose. I figured due to the instillation on non-reformatted drive there was confliction between the old card some how and the new card. Long story short I reinstalled (all things updated with the same version drivers as before the reformat) and went back into the games, I'm in tears by this point when I'm now 20+ fps under my old card in every game. I go through every possible setting to make sure nothing was limiting, frame syncing, somehow AA got turned on something, even with settings on lowest possible I only just barley get above fps on the 9600. I turn system off for 24 hours to give the system time to cool and settle, no change.

I don't know what the problem could be, and I'm about ready to just put the 9600 pro in, which still preforms the same I tested, and try and return the 7600.

I did fps recording in; Oblivion, Cod2, Cs 1.6/S, UT 2004, F.E.A.R., BF2 & Titan Quest.

I'm running a; p4 2.4 (Northwood), Asus P4PE, 512MB low latency Corsair memory, Maxtor diamondmax 9.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I apologize if I put this in the wrong spot this is my first post and this seemed applicable to place in the graphics section. I realize the system is one bottle neck after another but just getting back to being near even with the 9600 would be nice.

Thanks in advance for your patients and help.
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
There are several possible problems. First, the 7600GT consumes more power then the 9600pro. If your PSU is old and doesn't have a lot of Amps on the 12V rail, you should consider getting a new one. You don't need anything crazy, 20A and 350W-400W should be fine.

Another problem could be with your CPU. 2.4GHz Northwood isn't the fastest thing in the world. (big problems if it runs on the 400MHz FSB) Try overclocking your CPU and see if the FPS go up. If they do raise, get a faster chip.

The other possible bottleneck is the 512MBs of ram. If you are running WinXP, this isn't a lot. You should consider getting 1GB running in dual channel mode at least.
 

gilgamesh2112

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Jul 25, 2007
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18,510
The psu was the first thing I checked before I bought the card, it gets the recommended for the card... unless it's running below specs which is possible (6 years old).

the cpu/ram solutions seem likely, but it doesn't explain the drop in fps after the windows installation which is what has me stumped. I've tried the reinstall, clean and repaired several times, to no avail. I'm using 2k just a by the by.

But thank you for the solutions I'm going to try the over clock, the chip is near its Viking Funereal might as well set it ablaze before it smolders out. But the memory I can't justify on my budget, 1gig of compatible for my mobo is the same as quality 2gb ddr2 memory.

Again thank you and anyone else who might have any solutions or links to articles about similar problems is also in my deepest gratitude.

 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
You're right, it doesn't explain the drop in frames. Either the card is bad, or it isn't receiving enough power. (have you checked to make sure it isn't some weird AGP thing like its in 1X mode because you forgot to install the chipset drivers, etc?) See if you can barrow a friends PSU and see if that helps.

BTW, I wouldn't try to burn up the CPU. Don't worry about upping the voltage, just bump the FSB up. (I would think it should be able to handle going from 200MHz to 225MHz without causing any grief.) This would put you at 2.7GHz, and if its a CPU problem will provide more FPS.

I know the 9600pro is a dx9 card, are you sure it was rendering with dx9? Perhaps the 7600GT was using a higher SM?
 

gilgamesh2112

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Jul 25, 2007
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18,510
I won't do anything rash, but thank you for the word of caution. You kept pushing the psu issue, which I thought was a non-issue, apparently the intake fan on the psu died inside the case. The way it was designed the fan blades lock shut when the fan isn't spinning. So it was over-heating... and I guess as it was heating up it wasn't able to supply adequate but enough power to run the video card. I put on another identical power supply and my frames are now twice if not more then with the 9600. I think the decline of the frames can be contributed to when I installed it was pulling power to fully power the hd, dvd..etc so it heated it up quickly and probably damaged it more so then it was only able to supply even less but just barley above operating level... or something like that.

Thank you 47454b, with your guidance we have solved this issue. My many thanks, I may be about as useful as an electrical storm around electronics but I'm around. Be well this fine day, for mine has been improved infinitely with your presence.