What a difference a few tweaks can make.

Exfoliate

Exfoliate

Geek Trainee
I know I told you guys about how I fumbled around and managed to overclock my video card and Processor (see "my computer") and I decided to unlock the pipelines and vertex shader in my card to get a full 16/6 in hopes of getting better performance in addition to getting my video drivers updated once and for all. But I didn't really site how much of a difference that can make. I think my processor, dispite not having a killer card or anything still was holding me back a lot. HL2 ran pretty choppy on High at 800x600 and no AA. Now it manages High 1280x1024 at 4xAA 8x AF. Chronicles of Riddick used to run okay on high but at only 800x600 and certain scenes lagged up big time, not it's at 1280x1024 and perfectly smooth (though I still can't quite afford to enable 2.0++ shaders that allow for softshadows for some reason).
Doom 3 runs perfectly on Ultra settings and Call of Duty 2 runs quite well, with a few laggy moments at 1024x768, trilinear, 2x AA, high dynamic lights, soften smoke edges:everything, insane # of corpses, high texture resoution and extra normal and specular map resolution. It's probably the most demanding game I've ever played besides Company of Heros. That needs to be on medium for most things (though I'm sure it would've run worse before I did the tweaking). Quake 4 runs a good bit better on high then it used to and I can afford to put on 4x AA and 1280x1024 but there's not hope for Ultra quality for some reason. It's weird because that works flawlessly for Doom 3 and a lot of tests I've seen make it out to be a game a 7300GT can max, it's probably my lack of vram, 128Mb is definatly a bottleneck.
FEAR was probably the most surprising. It used to only run on medium settings without AA or softshadows and at 1024x768. Apparently it's pretty processor hungry as now it works great on most levels at 1024x768 with softshadows, 4x AA and maximum texture and effects settings (despite the red warning I get). There were a few levels near the end that for whatever reason required me to bump the texture resolution down to medium but I could keep everthing else.
I'm not writing this to bore anyone or brag. Almost everyone has a rig that far exceeds mine or has the cash to do it but I just thought I'd document that even when you think you're PC's seen it's last leg there's still hope if you want to change a few settings.
 
Exfoliate said:
I know I told you guys about how I fumbled around and managed to overclock my video card and Processor (see "my computer") and I decided to unlock the pipelines and vertex shader in my card to get a full 16/6 in hopes of getting better performance in addition to getting my video drivers updated once and for all. But I didn't really site how much of a difference that can make..............
Click to expand...

that's great, how did u unlonk the pipelines, with a GFX bios upgrade or through software.
 
Seems your tweaking to your graphics cards dont alot of difference, dont you get loads of jaggy crap in F.E.A.R at 1024 x 768? I run most of my games at 1280 x 1024 res, now i gotta go even higher, 1440 x 900, that takes quite abit more fps off, not much difference though. I cant seem to run Quake 4 on Ultra settings too, i think it needs a super powerfull cpu and like 2gb of ram, i can run Cod2 on all max exept for some advanced effect features which are also ok to turn on in some maps.

For a tricked out 6800, thats preety good :D, your not far off my X800XT really.

Good job :good:
 
I've got a 6600GT anybody know how well these can be overclocked?
And how many pipelines it has unlocked/locked
 
you cant unlock any pipelines, as thats the max for the 6600gt, 12pipelines? or is it 8?, Matt555 has good overclocked with his, i think get got 500mhz on the core, i cant remember what he got with his memory though, but it doesent mean yours will be a good overclockers, worth a try though :)
 
My 6600GT had:

Stock
Core: 500MHz
Mem: 1000MHz

Overclocked
Core: 600MHz
Mem: 1200MHz

I did add a 3rd party cooler but I didn't add any ramsinks.

I'm now running an X1400 - nothing special, but the rest of my laptop is rather nice ;)

And 6600GT's only have 8 pipes I think, none to unlock.
 
Thanks guys. Only a select few cards actually can be unlocked with RivaTuner, which is just a program that allows you to tweak graphics cards in a number of ways, from overclocking to color correction etc. It's only really the cards that are based off of higher end models that can be unlocked. X800GTO2's, and 6800's are some of the select few.
I've got a dinky 17" CRT so 1024x768 is the ideal resolution for that monitor, I notice no difference in visual quality at 1280x1024, only perhaps a slightly less jaggy scene at best but it doesn't really matter with AA. I get better fps and visuals with 1024x768 and 4x or 2x AA than 1280x1024 and 2x or 0x AA enabled.
I think Quake 4 needs either a very strong 256MB card and 2gigs of ram or a strong 512Mb card and a gig. It just gives slightly higher texture quality which really sucks the vram. I don't think the CPU figures into that much as it's purely visual at this point.
COD2 is really killing my rig though. It's very odd. Sometimes it runs great with the setting I noted on top, and sometimes it's completely unplayable, even on medium. There's so much variation it's just weird. Certain very intense and open areas (like the in the Russian campaign when you blow up the building) run flawlessly with things cranked up, and them some small and unexciting areas run horribly like when the armored car is shotting at you in the house during the end of British campaign. Stranger still is how some maps load up and are extremely sluggish to begin with but then when I look at a secluded indoor area the fps go way up and then I can play normally no matter where I turn. It doesn't make much sense.
 
Is your card almost unlocked to be a full 6800GT?

I have to use 1440 x 900 with my monitor, well i dont have to, but anything lower looks preety crap, its annoying that most games dont support widescreen resolutions :(
 
I have the same clock speeds on my 6600GT to Matt, using the nVidia overclocking function I can get it just past 550MHz and 1100MHz.
I haven't tried in RivaTuner. My 6600GT runs in the mid 40s normally when I'm in a game. So I doubt I need extra cooling.

P.S. My friend has the same laptop as you Matt
 
You've proberbly reached the max Overclock of your 6600GT?, just because its the same dont mean it will overclock as good, still there good overclocked, i wish my X800XT PE overclocked justy as good as all the other X800XT / PE's, i got an Asus, shouldnt of now, would of got better overclock out of an X800XT, with my card i only get a max overclock of like 40mhz lol, infact its not worth even keeping the overclock due to the fact it aint high enough to improve performance.

Stock
520Mhz Core
1120Mhz Memory (560Mhz)

Overclock
560Mhz
1160Mhz (580Mhz)

Some people got 640Mhz with the X800 / X850 XT series cards.
 
Limitations? Maybe the Nvidia was limiting it to be safe even when overclocked? Anyway, with the overclock settings in Nvidia Overclocking (CoolBits?) you should try some games for a coupld of hours, see if its stable. Still, i dont think that overclock is rubbish, preety good :)

Thats a though, i dont think i have ever used RiviaTuner to Overclock my Graphics Card, i may give it a go, may get slightly higher speeds :p, last time i tried overclocking any higher with the Build in Overclock utility in the Omega ATi drivers i screwed up the screen :(.
 
OFF TOPIC: The worst thing is when you put a refresh rate that's too high in a pc game. For example in the graphics settings put a refresh rate of 75 on a CRT monitor which will only support 60Hz. Couldn't work out how to get the game to work since every time the game booted up my screen refused to show it.
 
[ot] In every game there should be a configuration file, for example in Unreal Tournament 2004, there is a file called UT2004.ini, in this file stored various things from graphics settings, stored things like faviourates, mutators, other stuff etc..., and from these files i belive you can change the settings before you load the game, also some games have programs for them were you can change the settings from outside the game in a nice app, dunno were to find these apps if any exist for a game though. [/ot]
 
It wouldn't worry about that OC, the 6600GT's won't get too far as they're already pushing the limets at 500/1000 for the memory they're given and cooling provided. Plus a lot of cards just won't OC well for whatever reason. There are some people that will get pretty impressive OC's for a 6800, and then there's me who can only get about 50 or so extra MHz out of it so it's very variable.
And yeah I essentually have an underclocked 6800GT with have the normal memory in plain jane DDR instead of DDR3. When I look at it that way it sounds as wimpy as hell.:)
 
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