Bottlenecked??

[Crimsonghost]

I just upgraded my old faithful 9800pro (128mb) to a 1950pro (256mb) to try to squeeze a few more dying breaths out of my aging AGP system. Unfortunately I haven't seen the increase in fps that I thought I would, in fact, it doesn't seem like it's an improvement at all.

Here's my specs:

Asus P4PE
2.53mhz CPU
1 GB Crucial Ram
80G Maxtor & 300G Seabyte
Soundblaster Live
HP 740b DVD-RW
Antec Server box w/ 400w PS

So far I've only tried out World of Warcraft, since that's the only game I have installed right now, but I haven't seen any increase in frame rate in the usually laggy areas. I know I need to try some other games that used to be system hogs, (like Oblivion) but I just installed the card the other day and haven't really had time yet. So here's my questions:

1. Am I severely bottlenecked because my MB is 2x/4x AGP and can't get the full advantage/speed outta my new 8x card?
2. Is my crickety old CPU bottlenecking my card?
3. Does my power supply need to be bigger? The manual recommends 450w, but I seem to be running fine w/ 400w and not having any crashes, tearing, glitches, etc.??
4. Did I waste $150 on a new card that I should have saved or put into a new MB/CPU?

Any help is greatly appreciated
Bill

 

[marvelous211]

That thing is ooooooold. You won't see your frame rates rising but you can play higher resolutions.

You are definitely bottlenecked.

You should go get a board and cpu and return that card. You can easily get a much faster system for like $100.

edit: Did you try overclocking your CPU and see if it helps some?

 

[cyberjock]

I'm thinking you wasted $150 on a new card that you should have spent money on MB/CPU. It's not your P/S though. If it were it would either burn out, or your system would be unstable. Since the problem is performance wise it's not related. The only exception is if your video card comes up with a warning that it doesn't have enough power and won't run at full speed.

 

[kpo6969]

Try another 1GB of ram.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/graphicsmemory.mspx

http://www.xbitlabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13222

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105

If you use XP currently, eventually you'll have to make the switch

 

[jijeewu]

Those cpus are garbage. I had a 2.8 and it was slower than a 1.86ghz Pentium M.

 

[KyleSTL]

The AGP 4x is the bottleneck, you're not going to get any more out of that system with that board. What made you decide on a X1950? Return before it's too late, and you wasted that money. Time for an investment (new system).

 

[emp]

Pay the restocking fee for the X1950 Pro, sell (or burn) your system and build a new one for maybe $500-600.

 

[Crimsonghost]

/sigh

Thanks for all the comments/suggestions.

It's pretty clear even a top of the line AGP card won't save this system, I need alot of upgrades. I was hoping I could get by with just upgrading the card, mainly to save money, since it's very tight right now. Not sure if I can swing a new system or not

Time to do some research

 

[cleeve]

Guys...

World of Warcraft? That's an MMO, and it's very easy on the videocard.

Any lagging you see in that game is usually caused by server traffic. Hell, even your old 9800 is sufficient for that title.

You want to see what your X1950 pro can do, try playing something that doesn't rely on network speed - like Oblivion - on both cards.

The result will be night & day. You will see a COLOSSAL increase in performance between those two cards.

Your 2.4 Ghz isn't cutting edge and will limit you some, but it's not so slow that you won't see a HUGE difference between a 9800 and X1950 PRO, to be sure...

 

[cleeve]

I've played pretty much every game available with a 1GB windows XP machine, and it works JUUST FINE.

Loading times between levels is a little longer, and that's the biggest problem with 1GB. But it's still more than sufficient.


Here's a test I did on an old system with 1GB of RAM, an AthlonXP 2500+, and it shows a colossal difference between the 9700 PRO (pretty much the same speed as a 9800 PRO) and X1950 PRO:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/10/agp-platform-analysis/

 

[blade85]

what cleeve said.

 

[ryanthesav]

dude why...ask first...WTF

 

[KyleSTL]

Correct me if I'm wrong, cleeve, but you performed those test in the article with a MB that supported AGP 8x, right? And the whole time the board was set to AGP 8x mode, right? Could his 4x be a contributing factor at least, although I do agree with you in stating his performance complaints are related to network lag. Isn't a x1950pro extreme overkill for the bus bandwidth?

 

[cleeve]

In the tests I've done, there isn't a perceptible difference in 4x or 8x AGP...

Any small difference still would not explain this fellow's experience where an X1950 PRO is giveing no better than a 9800 PRO. The difference should be colossal.

However, network latency FOR SURE will bottleneck an MMOs...