Stuck...

[Graham]

I bought an AGP 8X ATI X850 XT at the beginning of the summer to replace my 9600 pro in order to play HL2 with better fps. To my disappointment, my Athlon 64 3200+ Clawhammer Socket 754 is bottlenecking the hell out of it and causes terrible hicups/studders.

I am pretty sure that I will get a socket 939 motherobard, but I need to know if the few AGP-supported boards are much worse than the PCIe-supported. I don't really plan to buy a new video card for awhile since it has been proven that video cards are causing all CPUs to be bottlenecks. Even the fastest of CPUs can't keep up. The 7800 GTX barely gets anymore fps than the X850 from the reviews I have read unless in SLI mode (which is just plain too expensive for 99% of us).

I am looking at the MSI K8N Neo2 w/ Ultra Nfroce 3 or the Asus A8V. I got a feeling the MSI board is the winner since this ASUS board kind of sucks.

But, then again, I could sell the AGP version of my card on eBay and get the PCIe version. It would just require me to be -$350 in my account more with all the other upgrades (drooling over Athlon 64 4000+ and 2-2-2-5 memory from either OCZ or PDP Patriot).

I was thinking of just selling my X850 and getting a 7800 GT but that seems stupid from the reviews.

 

[SHAWN]

6800GT is all you need at this time.

 

[mgoldb2]

6800GT is all you need at this time.

Um except the radeon x850XT gets quite a bit more fps then a geforce 6800GT in HL2. HL2 is and always been better with ati cards.

You right in HL2 the 7800GTX only get very few more FPS then the x850XT but in almost any other game the 7800GTX would be pulling ahead alot further.

 

[Graham]

Not too sure about that. I read toms hardware review on the 7800 GTX and it really doesn't get $200 more worth of fps. FEAR Demo has to be the only thing I have seen where the 7800 GTX leads the X850 XT by more than 5-10 fps.

 

[GuitarFreak1857]

http://www.techist.com/showthread.php?threadid=65279

 

[Graham]

Strange, I get a much better fps in Doom 3 on High Quality texture with 4x AA then that.

 

[idiotec]

I bought an AGP 8X ATI X850 XT at the beginning of the summer to replace my 9600 pro in order to play HL2 with better fps. To my disappointment, my Athlon 64 3200+ Clawhammer Socket 754 is bottlenecking the hell out of it and causes terrible hicups/studders.

There is no reason you should be getting that bad of "hicups/studders" in HL2, because of a 3200+. My guess is something else is wrong.

But even if it is the CPU, which I doubt, your fogetting the best solution. OC the hell out of it

 

[Graham]

It comes stock 2.0 Ghz and the most I can do is 2.3 Ghz. The clawhammer core is apparently bad with heat according to a post by DJ Chris. He seems like a respectable fellow, too.

My ram timings are 3-3-3-8, and in another post about FEAR demo performance, he said it was my ram. I never got a direct answer as to whether it is the latency timings, the 400MHz DDR PC3200, or what.

Also, I can't use dual-channel with my mobo. I don't know how big an effect that is but if no one can give me a good answer I will have to suspect it of that. Damn Asus K8V Deluxe....

 

[idiotec]

It comes stock 2.0 Ghz and the most I can do is 2.3 Ghz. The clawhammer core is apparently bad with heat according to a post by DJ Chris. He seems like a respectable fellow, too.

Well, 2.3 is a fair amount better, so as long as temps are OK might as well run it at that.

My ram timings are 3-3-3-8, and in another post about FEAR demo performance, he said it was my ram. I never got a direct answer as to whether it is the latency timings, the 400MHz DDR PC3200, or what.

How much RAM do you have. DDR 400 is fine, and those timings are not going to cause the problem. If you have less than 1g, that could be a problem.

Also, I can't use dual-channel with my mobo. I don't know how big an effect that is but if no one can give me a good answer I will have to suspect it of that. Damn Asus K8V Deluxe....

No 754 board can run dual channel, so it is not a fault of the Asus board.

Is it only with HL2, or does it happen in other games? Few things to check. Make sure you have up-to-date drivers and DirectX. Also, you didn't upgrade to the 850 from a nVidia card did you?

 

[Graham]

I have the latest ATI Catalyst Drivers (5.7 I believe), one gig of PC3200 Corsair XMS, and no, I upgraded from a 9600 pro.

The gameplay is very smmoth in all games minus the studdering/hicups where it just freezes for a few seconds and repeats the currently playing sound files. E.G.: If a rifle was just fired and it hicups the crack of the bullet exiting the muzzle will go "POW POW POW POW POW POW"

Could it be a sound-related issue? I'm using a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 X-Gamer so maybe it is causing that....I have heard of sound hardware causing fps problems, espeically with sound quality in UT.

I first noticed this when I played Far Cry. The game ran real well in almost-max settings but it did that weird hicup/studder thing. I only had 512MB ram back then and now with a 1024MB it does the same thing only a tiny bit less frequently.