I can't run farcry 2 max setting without low frame rates.

What resolution is your monitor?

Ooh sorry I forgot that. I'm running 1650x1050

That sounds about right. I just ran FC2 with 1 GPU to see how it would play. I got between 30-40FPS with my system with 1 GPU. With 2, I get much higher FPS. FC2 scales very well with multiple GPUs.

Here are my system specs below.

Ooh that does sound like a GPU issue since your system is way better than mine and you're still dipping 30-40fps with only 1 gpu.

If you overclocked your CPU you could get much higher FPS. I don't like the feel of the game with 1 GPU when playing on maxed settings. Try turning down the AA to see if that helps.

Yeah, OC that CPU. The e5200 OCs very nicely. You should be able to get up to 3.3-3.5 ghz on just the stock cooler with only a minor increase in voltage. With a good air cooler it can supposedly approach 4 ghz.

I have a GTX275 (and a Core i7 admittedly) and I get greater than 40FPS almost everywhere. Try switching to DX9 and see if there is a dramatic performance increase. I have seen this before where DX10 played like absolute rubbish even on low but in DX9 it was smooth. Overclocking is not going to fix that kind of performance, it's abnormal and could be a driver bug.

I also brought it down to DX9 with the settings to high instead of ultra high. No anti aliasing. It's a bit better, but I still dip into lower 30's which makes it sore for the eyes.

Oh wow, that's a big jump. I don't really know how to overclock cpu's though. Is it just like overclocking a video card with software? I read an article about having to change the settings in bios. I'm just not too sure about upping voltages.

Yea my AA is off. With it on it's unplayable.

55c sounds low under load even for a stock gtx 260 it should be higher on an SC version you on a cpu bottleneck for sure

Yea I was wondering about the same thing. I checked with both Riva Tuner and Everest and they both give me the same GPU Idle temp. I don't think Everest will give me the load temp though.

Could there be something wrong with my Video card? I've never heard of a video card running too cold.

Just for reference my old 9500GT was also around 55c underload. It would hit 61c underload if I overclocked it. I had a 4870 that would hit 98celsius underload. Traded that in and got another one that would hit 88celsius underload. This GTX I have right now runs so cold.

Farcry 2 is a heavily CPU bound game
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6200616/p-6.html

Although this review does not showcase the fact well, you might want to try anandtech as they did a review that compared CPUs for the same graphics card. As far as I remember, the differences were huge between the various CPUs, especially on i7. Farcry2 loves HT on quad core.

On the rig in my sig, I can run farcry 2 at ultra 4x AA at 1920x1080 with above 60FPS most of the times with occasional drop to 40s. Nothing too serious.

Now, either get a new CPU or overclock your existing one.. There are many guides available.... Google is your friend henceforth.

Also, are you getting satisfactory perfromance in other games such as GRID. That game is more GPU bound than CPU. You may also try burnout paradise, world in conflict (CPU bound), or batman AA (GPU bound)... and report back...

I'm not sure if I can overclock my CPU. I went into Bios and there isn't any option for me to change any of the FSB. It doesn't even show Voltage in there. I made a post about it in the overclocking section.

I play burnout paradise on max and it runs great. Batman? Same thing, it runs very well. I haven't tried world in conflict though. Games like crysis and farcry run mediocre on my system whereas the call of duty series run almost perfect.

Thats what I figured. The games that run fine on your system are all gfx bound. Crysis needs both good CPU and a decent card thats why it runs mediocre... Call of duty is gfx card bound........

I am afraid there is Only one solution now......... Upgrade the CPU......... Either by overclocking or buying new...

On a side note, I am pretty confident that world in conflict wont run any better on your system.... You may as well try it....

World in Conflict seemed to run much better on my i7 920(2.66GHz) even at stock settings versus my E6750(2.66GHz). The extra two cores made a difference for me. There is a section in the Overclocking Forum to guide you through overclocking. If you don't want to, or can't go down that path, a new CPU is the next logical step.

Your GPU is most likely fine. I sold my 4850 to my brother for a huge loss so he could have one in his PC. He paired it with an Athlon X2 3800+(2.0GHz). The frame rates are low and the GPU is barely used. The CPU is severely limiting the GPU in this case. It may be similar to what you're facing, although your CPU is much faster than that, so it wouldn't be to that extent.

Try updating the GPU drivers to see if that makes a difference.

That's interesting because all of the CPU bound games run fine on my AMD Athlon X2 5600+ which is clocked at 2.8ghz and dual 8800gt at that resolution. World in Conflict on max settings runs perfectly smooth for me and I can get crysis on max to run at about 25fps+ which is playable. Crysis Warhead I can turn on 2xaa and it still plays fine. COD runs perfect on it as well, bu then again COD runs fine on my laptop with a intel core 2 duo t5750 and ATI mobility 3450 at 1280x800. I would try to OC you processor first then if that doesn't work get a new proc.

CPU bound here, yes, but note that this is running on only medium settings which even a 9600GT can handle easily. At max the difference will be smaller. I forgot that the E5200 is lacking in cache quite a bit which is probably hurting its performance here.

nice rig! i have a good friend running 2 260 sc and a i5, maxed every game