GameAmp: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

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johnpenn

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X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

Bottom line: CAN'T PLAY ON HIGH (even with AA off) @ 1024x res. 85refreshrate

Athlon64 939 Venice 3000+
MSI Neo4 Platinum
Radeon ATI x800xl
SATA ncq hd
430watt psu
1 GB Corsair (2x512) in dual channel
5.6 catalyst drivers

There is definitely something not right about this. All the research I did showed that my setup should be doing much better fps than it is. I am even noticing lag on medium.
I spent too much money for me to be getting not much better performance than my former setup:
2600+ barton
gforce evga 6800 basic 128 MB ram

And I've built tons of computers, so i'm pretty sure its not me.

I would even venture to say that they are performing about the same. Man I'm just really pissed right now! My initial goal was to play on high. In fact, before the game came out I kept saying, if I can't play on high then I'm not really interested in playing it.

07/01/05 10:45

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

Im using x800xl agp version and have a similar system

amd athlon 64 3000+
1 gig pc3200 ddr400 ram
7200 rpm 8 meg cache hard drive

Im able to run everything on high with 4xAA at 1024x768@100htz

I dont see why you wouldnt be able to do the same or better.
Have you made sure you dont have anything hogging your resources in the background like a virus scanner spyware program etc?

BTW the my avg FPS is around 60-70 and the lowest it will normally dip on a lag free server is around 45.

DT

07/02/05 01:16

johnpenn

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

HA! RAM COUNTS.

For all you out there saying 1GB should be enough for mid to high graphics, you are just wrong. With the following specs I was getting significant (fps) lag:

Athlon64 3000+ 939 Venice
MSI Neo4 Platinum motherboard
1 GB Corsair (2x512 in dual chnnl)
ATI Radeon X800XL PCI-E 16pipes
SATA 80GB NCQ seagate HD
430watt antec psu

terrain mid
effects mid
geometry high
texture high
light high
dynamic shadows mid
dynamic light high
anti aliasing 2x
antisotropic filtering mid

Basically mid to high graphics settings. Another thing is that when I would put all my settings on high, when the load process would get to 'collisions' 46%, I would crash to desktop.

SOLUTION:
Well, I took 2 256mb chips from another system and added them in (I have a four slot board, GRN-PRPLE-GRN-PRPLE.) for a total of 1.5GB and *VOILA* that solved the problem. My what 512mb of extra ram can do. I wanted to know this for certain before I went out and bought (2) 1 gibabyte chips of pc3200. Now I will. Now I can load with everything on high across the board without crashing. Come to think of it, I'll bet that more than half of the tons of forum posts I have read online relating to CTD are related to RAM. I am doing better now with 1.5 gbs of ram with settings all on high than I was with 1 gb of ram and settings on medium to high. It seems that when the interface encounters what it perceives to be too little ram it automatically crashes to desktop. This can actually be a good thing. A nice alternative to FREEZING. Although, that is happening to a number of folk as well. The only time I ever freeze though is sometimes when I hit refresh. I mean it will just not go anywhere. And yes I gave it plenty of time. Incidentally, it did this once while I had the extra ram in and so I managed to be able to cntrl alt delete and manual shut down BF2. But when I had only 1 gig of ram and it would freeze it would not let me ctrl alt delete to windows task manager. MORE RAM DEFINITELY COUNTS WITH THIS BEAST OF A GAME. In fact I am going to start calling it 'the Brahma'.

Another thing more RAM did was made me able to ALT+TAB to desktop from the game rather easily so I could save screenshots and then ALT+TAB back into the game. Before I put the extra ram it simply would not let me do that. Also, the way ram affects fps is sort of tricky. Too little ram will make you lag even though your fps shows good.

Having said all that I am still not totally happy with my X800XL. My frames per second are still around 30 to 50, which is playable but I was expecting more. Here is a question for anyone who might know. Does anyone know if NVIDIA cards work better in the nforce chipsets than ati's do?? You know if I had it all to do over again I think I would have just dropped 600$ for the new gforce 7800. At the time money was not really horribly an object for me. But I am just sort of tired and I am going to keep this x800xl.

To wrap up:
1. always make sure your ram is configured for dual channel if you are going to add some to test it like i did
2. for anyone wanting to play on high settings *YOU WILL BENEFIT BY HAVING MORE THAN 1 GIGABYTE OF RAM*, especially for lower end card owners.
3. don't always necessarily trust some benchmark you found online. I was let down by the x800xl benchmarks. broaden your research before you buy
4. NOTE!! don't take what i am saying as gospel. I am just telling you my experience. Don't blame me if you did what i did and still have problems.

07/03/05 15:20

Dayve

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

I have a gig of ram, and i can play with everything maxed out with no lag. So i am saying that a gig of ram is enough to play on maxed out settings, and i am not wrong.

Other specs: P4 2.4g, Radeon x800pro 256m

07/03/05 23:47

newmodel101

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

Hi johnpen, i have a x800xt too and am getting what can only be desribed as stutter , lag or to put it simply the HL2 stutter bug in this game and CS:S (which used to run fine) i AMD64 3200+ and 1 gig of ram so do you think this will solve my prob, because its doing my head in atm and i dont want to change my system but i will if i dont get it sorted. I can run it all on high too with not bad fps but its the stutter thats killing me :(

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

07/18/05 09:02

johnpenn

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

You should definitely be able to run everything on high with your set up in CS:SOURCE with no lag. Now in battlefield 2 you will run into swap lag with everything on high.

But do this for me. Give me detailed specs. For example:

Athlon64 3000+ 939 Venice
MSI Neo4 Platinum motherboard
1 GB Corsair (2x512 in dual chnnl)
ATI Radeon X800XL PCI-E 16pipes
SATA 80GB NCQ seagate HD
430watt antec psu

What is your exact motherboard. I want to look at the manual online and see proper ram configuration. Are your rams equal. What brand and watt pwer supply are you using. What are your temperatures. give as much detail as you can

07/18/05 16:19

newmodel101

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

Thanks for the help :)

full specs are
AMD 64 3200+ think its winchester 939 sockett
ASUS A8V DELUX MOTHERBOARD
1GIG GEIL PC3200 DUEL CHANNEL MEMORY
ASUS X800XT PE
350WATT PSU (cant see the make without removing it the sticker is on the wrong side )
80 gig HD 7200rpm (agian cant see make)

nothing has changed in my setup for months, Doom 3 runs like a charm on high settings its just CS:S, probably the game itself as HL2 had alot of stutter/lag when it came out even though it used to be fine, BF2 has got slightly better since last night as i installed the new 5.7 cat drivers still abit of lag now and then but my freind agreed with your views about the memory so we are probably both getting another gig each, cant hurt :)

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

07/19/05 12:55

johnpenn

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

make sure you know what the configuration of you motherboard ram slots are supposed to be or you might buy the wrong kind of ram to match with the ones you already have.

before you buy let me look up the config of your board.

ill post later tonight

07/19/05 14:17

newmodel101

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

cool thanks alot

07/19/05 14:25

johnpenn

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

i just briefly looked at the manual for your board.

Find out what RAM exactly you got already, dont guess, read the model # on the side of the RAM.

Purchase two more just like those for total of 2 gigs. Fill all four slots on your board and you should be fine. Now I hat to tell you this but I wouldnt feel comfortable with a 350 watt power supply unless it was antec. AND EVEN THEN I just think you need a new higher watt power supply.

07/19/05 14:26

newmodel101

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

i am goin to get the ram tomorrow and look at a new psu as someone else suggested that too, i hope it works for me :) thanks alot for your advice.

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

07/20/05 11:21

BigDawg

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

I am running a Pentium 4 2.53Ghz Processor, SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Sound Card, eVGA Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra...I had to upgrade my power supply...I got a 600watt, and 2 gigs of Corsair PC3200 Dual Channel Ram...I also have the 865PE Neo2-p Mother Board.

I am running everything on Hi!!!! Woot

07/24/05 11:13

MadPolock

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

Will not run at high resolution 1024 x 768 85hz
Not Happy with EA

Asus P4C800 Deluxe
Pentium4 2.8GHz
Radeon x800xl 256mb AGP
1GB PC3200 Corsair
450 watt PS
SATA 7200rpm 80GB
Audigy2

In the same system I had a Radeon 9800Pro. Great Card. Could run BF2 on high no problem could not run DOOM3 on Ultra high or HL2 at full res. I bought the Radeon 800xl
because it was only $250.00 and wanted to run DOOM3 and HL2 at full resolution. Ran DOOM3 on Ultra high and HL2 at full res with the x800xl and had no problems. Had to run BF2 on Medium with the x800xl. WHATS UP WITH THAT. The x800xl is twice as fast as the 9800pro. I think the problem is the way EA made BF2. It was written for Nvidia cards. I'm not going to buy a card just for one game. EA needs to make there games for all cards. I think EA needs to fix BF2. The game has bugs like this was EA first time at making a game. They have plenty of time and know how to make this game right. The mutiplayer voice almost never works, the mutiplayer list hangs up half the time, when you change the video settings it tends to hang and I can go on and on.

I believe the problem is not the x800xl, the ram or anything else it is EA's code. They need to fix there game!!!!

08/08/05 09:51

johnpenn

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

Great News. Your problem is not the game. Read carefully the following material:

RAM:

The RAM config on your board is A1-A2 B1-B2

this is as if you are looking straight down at the motherboard. Make sure your ram sticks are in A1 and B1.

Next: I had exact same brand and capacity RAM as you but they were not equal CAS Latency. And it was cutting my fps down 30fps. So I had to purchase another 512mb corsair, cl 2.5. Make sure the model #'s on your rams are exactly the same. If you have Corsair 512 pc3200 nonECC RAM then you have among the following model#:

VS512MB400
VS512MB400C3
CMSS512MB-400
VS1GBKIT400
VS1GBKIT400C3

Make sure you don't cross up any of these models, for optimum performance, although presumably the vs512mb400 is the same as the vs1gbkit400. My guess is that you are running two VS512MB400'S

NEXT:

Where did you get an AGP X800XL for 250 dollars? If I am right the market is not selling that puppy anywhere for less than 280$. I am just a little skeptical about that. Was it a sale or something?

Now remember that the AGP version of the X800XL has its own power connector. But I assume you got it connected, because most versions will alert you with long beep if you don't.

I would like to know the exact model # of your video card. I just got to know where you can get a x800xl for 250.

ONWARD:

You said that you could play the game on high with the 9800pro, with the RAM you have. That's puzzling. Is everything else exactly the same? If I were you (and you may have already done this) I might reinstall windows and start from scratch.

LASTLY:

I had to add extra ram to make the swap lag go away. Your processing units are plenty(gpu and cpu), but if you want to play all on high then you will need more than a gig of ram to avoid swap lag.

Now let me explain something that i will definitely get flak for saying. BF2/ATI optimization utilities will attempt to optimise the game to suite the graphics technology of your new specifications. What this means is that (this may sound crazy) it may require more system memory to work optimally than the 9800pro because the x800xl is a better card. On high settings the game will optimize itself to such a degree that it pushes the ram it needs above the 1 gig mark. It is a fact that on high settings the x800xl needs more than 1 gig of ram to run bf2 with no lag at all. If you don't believe me, alt tab to your desktop during a game and go to Task Manager/processes/mem use and you will see bf2 is taking up about 850mb alone. As you may know, when you alt tab out of a game the mem use goes down considerably. What this means is that while you are in a game the mem use is OVER 1gig. Now i am talking about 'mem use' not 'pf use'. The x800xl(at least a month ago) is the best price/performance card on the market. And it sports a better screen for screen image than its nvidia counterparts.

Right now I running the game on 1280x1024, with aa4x, af8x, and all settings maxed out at (40 to 70 fps). With no lag at all. I have 4 sticks of Corsair 512, pc3200, cl 2.5, running in dual channel for 2gigs total and I run brilliantly and beautifully. You should be able to also.

I promise you, contrary to what you were saying, the problem (at least your problem) is not the game. Unless you consider Optimizational utilities a problem. I happen to think it is a good thing.

08/08/05 11:37

MadPolock

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

Johnpenn Thanks for the info. Sounds Good.

I'm at work right now and not near my computer. Tonight I'll find out what model video and memory I have and I'll let you know.

Yes, I did double checked to make sure the video card was seated and the 5V plug was plugged in. I also reinstalled windows and only loaded the hardware drivers and BF2. Still had the same problem with BF2.

Good point on the memory.
I'm pretty sure the ram has the same Latency. At least when I bought it, I order two of the same thing. I'll will double check.

I bought the video card at Best Buy in Salisbury, MD 21804 (Store Phone# 410-334-6771). It was a clearance price. A friend told me they were selling it for $250.00. So, I went and checked it out. They were selling the ATI Radeon x800xl AGP card (Retail version in the ATI Radeon box Brand new) for this price. Why they are having a clearance on this card I don't know, but for that price I had to get one.

I can see you know your computer hardware well. I trust your info and I'm going to try the extra memory. I will also make sure the latency is the same on both ram modules. I will keep you posted.

Thanks again for the info.

08/08/05 14:39

UncleSkunk

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

QUOTE

I have 4 sticks of Corsair 512, pc3200, cl 2.5, running in dual channel for 2gigs total and I run brilliantly and beautifully. You should be able to also.

Johnpenn doesn't that drop it to ddr333? or can you boost it in the bios. according to http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec....atinum&class=mb
you can only run at ddr333 if your using up all the slots unless your running single sided?
Im courious how you did this cause I have that same setup with different HD, only 350w psu (should I upgrade?) and I just have the neo4 f (not platinum) and was wonder how to get dual channel to work with a 4x512s and at ddr400. Also are you using a diffrent sound card driver then the one that came on cd ?(may or may not have gotten)

When I try to run any game the system just freezes up. have no idea what the heck the problem is. (all my drivers are up to date). was thinking the onboard sound card is being stupid?, faulty graphics card?, not enough power? Idunno at a totally loss.. at least you guys can play games damnit

08/08/05 21:27

johnpenn

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

Skunk list your system specs in detail down to model # if possible. You're right, i am running at 333mhz memory, but the gain of extra mem outweighs the fractional loss of running at 333. Now you realise i am still running in dual channel. One of the dual channel configs is to have all four slots populated with identical sticks.

Also make sure that you fill Green dimm1 and Purple dimm2 first, channel A & B. The instructions have a slight little confusing statement they make that I and others were misled by. Dual channel on this board is dimm1 and dimm2 if you have 2 sticks. If you have four sticks, then you populate dimm3 and dimm4. With alot of intel boards its just the opposite. You fill dimm1 and dimm3 first, then dimm2 and dimm4.

About your power supply, it depends on what brand. If it is an antec then i wouldn't worry. 350 should be fine. That is if you are only running 1 hd, and 1 or 2 cddrives, and maybe one pci card. If it another brand psu you might want to think about upgrading. The other good brands are enermax, thermaltake, fortran. There are a few others. But in general 350 should be fine if you are not running a bunch of extra power consuming devices.

Just list all the hardware you have specifically.

08/08/05 22:46

UncleSkunk

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

Athlon64 939 Venice 3000+
MSI Neo4 F
Radeon ATI x800xl 256mb PCI-E
SATA WD hd
350watt antec psu
2 GB Corsair value select(4x512)
5.7 catalyst drivers

I don't have the RAM in Dual channel cause I have yet to see any point when it comes to gaming. doesn't seem give much of a boost. Plus I thought that on these MSI Neo4 boards if and only if you run dual channel does it drop to ddr333? I'll have to go look.....
Any way I found the problem to why games crashed all the time. when I was looking to see if there was a memory tester in the BIOS I saw that the memory was set at 2.65v when it should only be at 2.5v and that fixed all the problems.
Now I just got to work on the sometimes fuzzy cracky sound.

08/09/05 14:52

piotrr

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

QUOTE

That restriction is on the Athlon 64 CPU (built-in PMMU, remember?) and disappeared with the E3 revision (Venice and San Diego cores).

08/12/05 08:24

BigDawg

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

ALL I AM GONA SAY IS...........NVIDIA THE WAY ITS MEANT TO BE PLAYED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GeForce 6800 ULTRA
256MEG

08/14/05 09:30

piotrr

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

QUOTE

ALL I AM GONA SAY IS...........NVIDIA THE WAY ITS MEANT TO BE PLAYED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All you are going to say is a direct quote of a marketeering blurb? Both Nvidia and ATI offer on-site tech support to game developers. Only Nvidia additionally choose to pay cash to place their logo at game bootup. It has nothing to do with quality, and everything to do with marketing.

08/21/05 19:17

BigDawg

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

Well...Nvidia must be makin the money then because obviously they felt like spendin it to have there title placed on the most anticipated game of the freakin century...lol

08/21/05 21:12

Bloodless_End

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

doesent that board have only 12 pipelines...... my x850xt-pe has 16 pipelines and i love it

09/09/05 23:51

Saito

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

Things I noticed off the start-

MSI mobo- Bad choice. For AMD DFI is the way to go, for intel it’s ABIT. ASUS and GIGABYTE are safe mobos but won’t run as fast. MSI is a first tier seller but doesn’t stack up, and it WILL run slower than an ASUS let alone a DFI.

3000+ - It’s not really that fast, the performance of AMD chips isn’t what they benchmark. The on die memory controller lets them slaughter benchmarks but doesn’t equate to much in application. You will need to OC that chip (also if the cache on it is less than 1mb that’s also a problem).

1 gig corsair ram- that doesn’t mean anything. What speed, and what timings. If those are sub par that explains everything right there. BF2 is more memory intensive than any game out.

Large point over all. Upgrading your system won’t help you if you retain a bottle neck, from the looks of it you might have a ram issue. If it’s not that you have a mobo issue which a bios flash might help. If neither of those matter it means your CPU just can’t keep up, quick solution is a small OC to raise that FSB (not FSB means more here than overall clock rate) and see if that fixes it.

My PC
CPU P4EE Gallitan core socket 478 @ 4.2ghz, Abit IC7-G Max 3, 2 gb PC4000 corsair xms, PC Power and cooling 510 psu, Albatron 6800gt @ ultra, Creative Audigy 2 ZS, Cooler master wave master case, Switech Liquid Cooling, Dual NEC 22 inch CRT, Klipch Pro Media 5.1, Senn HD280 pro, MS 3.0, Steel S&S, logitech elite.

09/10/05 00:16

Bloodless_End

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

yeah i would never go over 1gb for gamming comps right now ..... i do have a 4gb system right now but its for rendering my animation stuff in maya .... and doing some video editing

09/10/05 00:19

johnpenn

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

Saito who were you addressing? If you were addressing me, just to let you know I totally solved my problem. I run the game well. 50 to 70 fps, 1180x res., settings maxed. including aa, and af. If you werent addressing me than disregard these statements.

Athlon64 939 Venice 3000+
MSI Neo4 Platinum
Radeon ATI x800xl
SATA ncq hd
430watt psu
2 GB Corsair (4x512) in dual channel
5.8 catalyst drivers

09/10/05 22:11

Bloodless_End

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

is the x800xl 12 pixel pipes or 16?

09/10/05 23:10

johnpenn

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

16 pipes

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16814142036

09/11/05 08:27

Bloodless_End

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

sweet.....i cant wait for that new ati card thats going to have 32 pixel pipes ..... that should beat nvidia's 28... or w.e they have ... if i rember correctly it was 28 but im proble wrong

09/11/05 15:28

Saito

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Re: X800XL : Not getting performance I expected.

It's 24 and pipes aren't the end all of performance, just like ram on card, or clock rate isn't.

09/12/05 21:07

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