How to get my games running smooth?

I have just built my first power PC and am very pleased with it.

Brief specs:

Antec 900 case
corsair 650 watt psu
CPU i7 930 2.8ghz
GPU saphire 5870 Eyefinity 6 2GB
6gb OCZ platinum 1333 memory
1tb WD black caviar
Asus rampage II Extreme MOBO



All my games seem to tear, lag or not perform even near as smooth as a console would, I'm sure I have enough power but am not sure of how to get everything running well.

I have the latest drivers but still cant seem to get things running how I would like them...

All games I have played run the same even if its on high or low graphical settings.

COD4 runs weird "vibrating"
Crysis tears like hell vysnc on or off
gears of war feels like guns vibrate and most games if they don't tear they feel like they are lagging or vibrating.

Does anybody know what I am missing to get started. I'm sure its all driver issues or setting that I have not tweaked.

Thanks

I'm also having coil squeal from the gpu under loads but I have done some reading and the majority claims that issue is normal and it really doesn't bother me if I know its working correctly.

That sounds more like you just got a bad card than driver issues to me.

Try using older drivers like 10.4. I installed 10.6 today and all I got was crash, crash, crash.

Yep! i use 10.4 on my 5850 very stable.
Have you considered looking for a monitor with DisplayPort?
I got a nice 23" Dell with DP for well under $230 taxes in.
No complaints here plus free shipping and 3yr 1 dead pixel warranty hard to beat imo.

I see improvement with 10.4 on COD4 but crysis is still really tearing???

I bet I'm missing a setting or something...

Should a graphics card like mine work good out of the box basically?

[quotemsg=2175496,9,99870]Did you check the settings on the Catalyst Control Panel?

There is an option for VSync that says (Always Off) - irrespective of the game settings. Try changing this to Always On or Default On.[/quotem

I tried that, I was playing with the settings and its really not making any difference......... I hope my card is still good. It is brand new. I'm still a noob and have no idea really what to do.

10.4 is still causing me issues...

What would be the best drivers/catalyst for my GPU "ATI Sapphire radeon 5870 eyefinity 6 2GB"

Im really new to this. Does rail mean like another cable from the psu?

I'll report back....

PSU only has enough plug ins for one GPU.... Hmmmm its brand new though,just like every other part..... Less than a week old...

Damn, now I dont know what to do. Could it be my monitor? I'm using a 720p tv...

I found the patch and enabled vsync and for the most part the tearing is gone. The issue seems to be more like their is lag now like my gpu is not good enough... I'm sure my 2gb card is just fine for all these game... Im starting to think its either a fauly power supply( or its too weak "650 watts" or GPU is faulty?... How do I determine which one is faulty???

Congrats on your build! it's a very good set up you've got there!

The only input I can add is that you need to make sure that everything is set to default on the ATI control panel. AA and AF set as default. Not sure if its already been said but double check.

Or to revert to a previous driver. Sorry I cant be more helpful!

Try turning off AA in Crysis. Assuming your resolution in 1920x1080 your card may still struggle with Crysis fully maxed but turning AA off or at least to x2 should make it fairly smooth.

I have CF 5850s which are greatly overclocked, and Crysis runs pretty smooth at 1920x1080 2xAA. 4xAA I find has some issues with zooming in and such. On the other hand, Crysis Warhead runs really well at highest settings and 4xAA. Original Crysis, you have to remember, is already a few years old and not really optimized for current equipment.

The other 2 super demanding games I've played so far is Metro 2033, which I can play at Very High with DX11 Tesslation and DOF, but only AAA (analytical anti aliasing). 4xMSAA drops the FPS from ~50 to ~10 lol. Unless I turn DOF off, then 4xMSAA works fine. Not sure what the deal is there. Anyway, the other game is Cryostasis. It really puts my cards through the wringer. It also doesn't play very well on ATI cards from what I've read, and I can say that's the truth. Every so often I get some tearing even with Vsync on. It also now and then freezes on me. I thought it might be due to my OC so I fiddled around with but it still freezes occasionally. I'm pretty sure it's just the game.

Anyway, I guess my point is if it's only Crysis giving you issues I wouldn't worry too much about it. Try lowering the settings in game and see if you can get it smooth.

Cryostasis does not stress the GPU, it's the CPU, the game can only use 1 core and it uses PhysX.

AAA is actually better than MSAA, MSAA can only handle object aliasing, AAA is basically MSAA+Texture anti-aliasing.

Here is a short clip I uploaded to youtube.

Maybe somebody knows how to fix it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg6JF0qKOFg


Sorry the video seems a little dark....



Also is it possible that my 650 watt psu is not strong enough for my gpu? when I play crisis my gpu makes noises when it lags like for example once the game lags the gpu stops making a noise and then continues making noise and then lags again...???

I'm moving it. When I pan the area it does that.....

Do you have the latest patch for GoW?

no....

I should try that. Although all my games have a weird vibration feel to them. That was probably a bad video for showing my issue, the thing is they are huge when I record them. 4 sec= 30mb

I have a garbage 5 year old dirty wireless microsoft keyboard and mouse set. I have been hating it the whole time.


I think I need to try a legit game an software to really be sure. Also should do you think a 650 psu is good enough for my card?

I don't see any problems in the game either. I think you may have been confusing the "natural" gun movement that they have implemented in the game with "vibration".

Okay, I'll do that. First I need a copy of Windows 7


Where can I buy a cheap full copy?

I also need to decide which ccc is the most compatible with my card...

Thanks for that link, I didn't' think you could get it for $100

I got my original copy from somewhere but I doubt its legit. I'm buying that copy right now...

Thanks again

Steam often has some very nice sales on games.

Benson: I've been using the latest, 10.6.

That's rather subjective. I've compared both. If I was at home I'd upload the screenshots I took, but basically here's the deal from both what I saw and what I've read - AAA is good, certainly, however where it falls short is on edges that near verticle or horizontal. Therefore things like doors tend to look completely un-antialiased. 4xMSAA on the other hand does a good job of smoothing all edges out. The downside is that it tends to smooth everything out, making the whole scene/textures appear less sharp. I noticed this very distinctly in the screens I took, in particular there's a soldier sitting very close by in the shot and you can tell the details of his clothing get slightly washed out by MSAA. I agree AAA is great and has good performance, but as I said, it doesn't do AA on some edges very well.

If you're interested, let me know and I'll try to get the images up tonight.

Oh and as for Cryostasis, I did not know it only uses 1 core. That's lame! Although 1 core should run at 4.2ghz with my OC, but I guess that's why it doesn't run really well.

The CCC version is completely different than what Metro 2033 implements.

First, here's someone else who took comparison screens in Metro for AAA and MSAA: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpo [...] count=2389
So you can see the blurry effect of MSAA but also the smoother edges (the ceiling tiles, some locker edges)

And from http://imagequalitymatters.blogspo [...] f-war.html

And if you look here you can clearly see it says "Analytical Anti Aliasing" as an option

I have never used steam....


Do you make an account and then direct download to your pc after you purchase the game with paypal or credit card???