jcarle Posted December 4, 2004 Share Posted December 4, 2004 I'm playing Need For Speed: Underground 2 on my computer and it's having a hard time running it smoothly... Now before anyone even suggests it, I don't want to build another computer (not right now), I'm trying to find ways to improve the game as best as possible on THIS computer.My computer is the following:Asus CUSL2 MotherboardIntel Pentium III 800EB Processor512 MB 133Mhz RamAsus/nVidia GeForce FX5200 128MB AGP Video CardCreative SoundBlaster Live! 5.180GB Seagate HardDrive with 8MB CacheLG 52X CD-RomMy computer is configured as follows:Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2DirectX 9.0cLatest drivers and firmware for all pieces of hardwareNo running processes in the backgroundHarddrive is defraggedI suspect my CPU is the bottleneck but I have no idea how to check this while I'm playing the game.Interesting thing though is that when I moved from my old GeForce 2 Ti to my GeForce FX5200, all my stats within 3DMark went up EXCEPT one:Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing):GeForce 2 Ti - 589.8 MTexels/sGeForce FX 5200 - 284.9 MTexels/sThat one really struck me as very weird. But I've never been able to find out why...Hope someone has ideas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synapse Posted December 4, 2004 Share Posted December 4, 2004 Only problem i see would be the Processor.. you have a good video card, and 512 megs memory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XPero Posted December 4, 2004 Share Posted December 4, 2004 I think your videocard doesn't "deserve" this processor...Anyway you said your computer is clean and defragged...so I recommend you 2 things:- Try to use a quality/performance setting in game- Search for good tutorials on how you can get more fps in game (maybe, you can edit some xxxx.ini with advanced settings)Bye Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drewdatrip Posted December 4, 2004 Share Posted December 4, 2004 In all honestly saying the 5200 is a good card is kinda an over stament.I wouldent doubt it if your older ti performed better.But all in all your system is pretty old to be playing some of these newer games. I do understand that NFS U2 is not a super intensive game...your jsut workin with some pretty limted Hardware.Try poping the quality lvls do low or med and try the Ti card, you maybe suprised with the results.|Drew| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synapse Posted December 4, 2004 Share Posted December 4, 2004 In all honestly saying the 5200 is a good card is kinda an over stament.I wouldent doubt it if your older ti performed better.Get a GeForce 4 MX440... and you would swear that the mainboard video card is better lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XtremeMaC Posted December 4, 2004 Share Posted December 4, 2004 don't get the mx, u'll regret it, it doesn't have pixel shader. u won't be able to play much of the newer games...I have this problem so bought another video card...I'm not sure why your ti performs better but as Drewdatrip mentioned 5200 is not the best card out there.go to tomshardware for reviews.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synapse Posted December 4, 2004 Share Posted December 4, 2004 don't get the mx, u'll regret it, it doesn't have pixel shader. u won't be able to play much of the newer games...yea by all means DON'T GET A MX lol i was just joking.. lol. you know.. laugh.. haha... ok... lol.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thai3g_Eclipse Posted December 4, 2004 Share Posted December 4, 2004 I think you probably need a faster CPU, and may consider upgrading the video card. The FX5200 is starting to show its age already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcarle Posted December 4, 2004 Author Share Posted December 4, 2004 Ah, the race for hardware... :|I won a bid for a faster CPU on eBay, a 1.0 GHz Pentium III (Coppermine), so maybe that'll help a bit.It's kinda sad that my FX 5200 is already outdated so badly considering how short of a time I've had it. I guess if my CPU doesn't fix this then I'll have to dig deeper and build a new system, but again, that opens up a whole new debate...Intel vs AMD... what to choose? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XtremeMaC Posted December 4, 2004 Share Posted December 4, 2004 new amd's... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doggie Posted December 5, 2004 Share Posted December 5, 2004 definitely AMD athlon 2000+ and above Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rupert86 Posted December 5, 2004 Share Posted December 5, 2004 Now who the <bad names> thinks FX5200 is better than GF2 Ti??Today the ATi Radeon 9800 class is faster than the X300 SE. Its easy to figure out how. Although the newer product has hardware support for some new technologies, its overall clock rate and memory are too slow to compete with the top-class of older generation.Most of the FX5200s are still paired with lousy 64-bit RAM although they are fully capable of a 128-bit interface. And even big manufaturers like ASUS and MSI don't mention the channel width of their value/entry series. Its an easy theoritical reason: The FX5200 has more processin power, but lesser memory bandwidth, hence its fill rate is lesser. Texture fill rate directly depends upon the memory and AGP bus bandiwths (OK, that's what I've been able to learn from Tom's hardware).So, the end result is that the FX5200 is theoritically faster, and the GF2 Ti is practically faster.Now since your motherboard is a very good one, the only option is to overclock. It has a fine-tuning clock generator. Tom's Hardware, in the days of Pentium III, tested this board on FSB 185 MHz. That's cool. Pity you don't support Tualatins.EDIT: Oh sorry, I mean your mobo, of course.Try if your CPU can do it. I myself am going to get an Intel D815EEA2U + Intel Celeron 1.1G. That's why I can OC it to a higher FSB (It has the same amount of cache as Tualatin P-IIIs). Oh yeah and I'll use CPUFSB. (If anybody can recommend me some other way, please PM me. Of overvolting it also, plz.)Also, try pushing your RAM to tightest possible timings. Normally all branded PC133s manufatured in 2003/2004 can do 145-153 MHz w/ CL2 and even that on stock voltages. If it doesn't do, try changing the vDIMM.And ah, getting a faster processor wouldn't hurt you. B'coz it means a bigger multiplier and higher overclock. (My own P-III 733 MHz reaches 797 MHz @ FSB 145, but the integrated AC'97 controller crashes there, and please nobody recommend me to get a newer sound board. I wouldn't be OC'ing in the first place if I had enough to get a faster system . Now think if it were an 866 MHz one. Hmmmmm, possibilities).And plz ppl don't think of me as an OC'ing geek. Its only to sqeeze out most power out of an outdated/near-retirement/old system. I don't recommend OC'ing to anyone having a 2+ GHz PC.And note it, benchmarks are sometimes very betraying. I've seen some systems passing in benchmarks w/ flying colours (is that the right idiom?) but everyday tasks such as opening My Computer becomes a real pain.EDIT: Where did you find a Seagate 80 GB w/ 8 MB cache? They don't do any 8 MB under 120 GB. Is it SATA? Are you using an add-on board to connect it to your system? What is its model no.? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcarle Posted December 5, 2004 Author Share Posted December 5, 2004 I errored in my description of my computer, my harddrive is a Western Digital and not a Seagate. The drive in question is a Western Digital Caviar SE, full specs are available here, on the company's site.As for overclocking, trying to overclock my board using the FSB/RAM/PCI ratio of 133:133:33 crashes by going not very high over 133... the most I've been able to overclock so far is using the 133:100:33 ratio and getting up to 150/112/37 MHz.I don't know enough about overclocking to be able to get more out of this though I'm sure I could...My Pentium III 800EB's full specs are available here, on the company's site.My ram is running on timings of 2-2-2, 5/7 and is rated for 133MHz operation. It is two 256MB double-bank DIMMs.My Asus GeForce FX 5200 128MB video card's full specs are available here, on the company's site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolfenstein Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 Definitely AMD, they're a lot cheaper than Intel's current processors and they are just slightly slower that the P4's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix_nf Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 Definetly AMD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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