+Brainless 1 Posted October 3, 2007 (edited) Hi guys Well I thought I'd just tell those of you who had been following my 'New System' posts and those who had kindly replied, especially Buff who has been so helpful, that I installed a new Sapphire 1950 Pro graphics card today with updated drivers and its very disappointing. Considering that the new card is ( I think 2.5 times) faster than my old one there seems to be little if any improvement in frame rates and image. Unless you guys know something I don't ( I expect you do) I wonder why I spent the bucks upgrading. I know that I am only waiting on the new stuff to come out so I can build a new better rig but unless I have not done something right - yes I did connect both power supply cords to the PSU and yes it all seems to run O.K. and yes the PSU is within the specified 450w rating- mine's 480, it all seems such a waste of time and effort. All day tinkering and evaluting for no gain. Don't you just love thiese machines!! Edited October 3, 2007 by Brainless Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted October 4, 2007 What's your CPU? I don't remember you mentioning it. If it's too slow, it will hold the card back. Remember the card can only do as much as the CPU sends to it, and a CPU can only send as much to a card as it will take. In other words, either one can be a bottleneck. If your performance hasn't budged, you must have a CPU bottleneck. Try turning up your FSAA and AF settings and I'm guessing you won't see a performance hit--those are done solely in the video card. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BUFF 8 Posted October 5, 2007 what settings are you running at? are you running at the LCD monitor's native res. or interpolated? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Brainless 1 Posted October 5, 2007 What's your CPU? I don't remember you mentioning it. If it's too slow, it will hold the card back. Remember the card can only do as much as the CPU sends to it, and a CPU can only send as much to a card as it will take. In other words, either one can be a bottleneck. If your performance hasn't budged, you must have a CPU bottleneck. Try turning up your FSAA and AF settings and I'm guessing you won't see a performance hit--those are done solely in the video card. CPU? See my first post in the 'New System' series of posts. It's an AMD Athalon 64 3700+ (2.4 Ghz)I believe. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Brainless 1 Posted October 5, 2007 what settings are you running at?are you running at the LCD monitor's native res. or interpolated? Err..... now you've lost me What is interpolated and how would I know and what settings do you mean? I think there is now some very slight improvement in the image definition. I think the system has sort of tuned itself a bit. Would this be right? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BUFF 8 Posted October 5, 2007 Err..... now you've lost me What is interpolated and how would I know and what settings do you mean? Your Iiyama LCD has a native resolution of 1280 by 1024. From Wikipedia: "While CRT monitors can usually display images at various resolutions, a LCD monitor has to rely on interpolation (scaling of the image), which causes a loss of image quality. An LCD has to scale up a smaller image to fit into the area of the native resolution. This is the same principle as taking a smaller image in an image editing program and enlarging it; the smaller image loses its sharpness when it is expanded. This is especially problematic as most resolutions are in a 4:3 aspect ratio (640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×960, 1600×1200) but there are odd resolutions that are not, notably 1280×1024. If a user were to map 1024×768 to a 1280×1024 screen there would be distortion as well as some image errors, as there is not a one-to-one mapping with regards to pixels. This results in noticeable quality loss and the image is much less sharp." Basically, running at a resolution other than the native one has a negative affect on performance/quality. As for settings I was asking what resolution you are running at & what level of anti-aliasing & aniso that you are using. Possibly your in-game settings can be tweaked as well now that you have a better card. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted October 5, 2007 I used to have a 3700 myself. Now I have a 2.8GHz FX-57. When I had my 3700 and an X800 XT, I upgraded the 2 about a month apart. I can't remember what I did first, I think it was the CPU, but I saw pretty much no improvement until I upgraded the other as well. In other words, the 2 were well-suited to each other in speed and whichever I chose to upgrade first didn't matter as the other would hold me back until it too was upgraded. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Brainless 1 Posted October 5, 2007 Your Iiyama LCD has a native resolution of 1280 by 1024.From Wikipedia: "While CRT monitors can usually display images at various resolutions, a LCD monitor has to rely on interpolation (scaling of the image), which causes a loss of image quality. An LCD has to scale up a smaller image to fit into the area of the native resolution. This is the same principle as taking a smaller image in an image editing program and enlarging it; the smaller image loses its sharpness when it is expanded. This is especially problematic as most resolutions are in a 4:3 aspect ratio (640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×960, 1600×1200) but there are odd resolutions that are not, notably 1280×1024. If a user were to map 1024×768 to a 1280×1024 screen there would be distortion as well as some image errors, as there is not a one-to-one mapping with regards to pixels. This results in noticeable quality loss and the image is much less sharp." Basically, running at a resolution other than the native one has a negative affect on performance/quality. As for settings I was asking what resolution you are running at & what level of anti-aliasing & aniso that you are using. Possibly your in-game settings can be tweaked as well now that you have a better card. Well thanks for that. As far as I can make out from the Iiyama manual I'm running in the native image. It says 1280 x 1024 which is what I'm using. As for the other settings they are in default at present. Perhaps you can advise better settings? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Brainless 1 Posted October 5, 2007 I used to have a 3700 myself. Now I have a 2.8GHz FX-57. When I had my 3700 and an X800 XT, I upgraded the 2 about a month apart. I can't remember what I did first, I think it was the CPU, but I saw pretty much no improvement until I upgraded the other as well. In other words, the 2 were well-suited to each other in speed and whichever I chose to upgrade first didn't matter as the other would hold me back until it too was upgraded. Thanks for the info. This is something which I had already considered but my 754 chip can't be upgraded further so far as I know. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted October 9, 2007 Ouch, you've got a 754? Yeah, I think you're stuck there. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
