Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hi Guys,

Current setup:

1x XFX GTX295
2x 1gb DDR2 RAM
1x E8400 cpu
1x 850W PSU
3x WD raptors in raid0 on a dedicated hardware raid card.
1x 22" samsung lcd 226bw monitor (1680x1050)
Windows XP SP3 (DirectX 9c)

I'm concerned about the performance of the GTX295 that I bought the other day. I am busy preparing to go surround gaming mainly for world of warcraft but also other games such as COD etc and hence the reason I bought such a powerful beast.

Anyways, my concern is the following, I ran WoW with 2x8800gt's and got on average 45-50fps sometimes more with everything cranked up. And I mean everything. Inside buildings I get would get well over 100fps. Now, with the GTX295, I seem to be getting exactly the same performance.

Is this card going to perform well when I crank up the resolution to 5040x1050? If this is the fps at the moment, my guess would be that this card is going to completely buckle under the load of 3x 22" monitors.

I have the latest drivers from XFX installed.

:( Any thoughts?

GabbaDude

it could be an engine limitation.

Run 3dmark to justify it the 295!

I wouldn't recommend XFX drivers, head to nvidia's website and use those.

Ok, I will try the nvidia drivers. The Vantage 3dmark that came supplied with the card only runs on Windows Vista. So I am screwed regarding 3dmark :(

seriously, i don't know why everyone is concerned about wow graphics.

no offence but wow graphics look lik N64 graphics.

it's definately an engine thing.

Look at the ut3 engine, LOOKs amazing and u can get 120+fps on max settings. Wow just uses a crappy limited engine, end of story.

295gtx will play any game 5040x1050 no problem

3DMark Vantage would be a better benchmarking tool than just getting the feel of WOW framerates.

Well, whether wow gfx sux or not, that's not my concern right now. My main concern is trying to figure out why the fps would be exactly the same on my 2x8800gt's versus the GTX295. It doesn't make sense. I have seen people gett well over the 100fps mark with some cards. Is it really an engine problem then???

Why would it work on some and not others??

In addition to possible engine limitation as mentioned above, I throw in 2 more wild thoughts for you to investigate.
One is the possibility that at 1680 x 1050 (a relatively 'low' resolution for the GTX295), your CPU becomes the bottleneck?
Two is that the GTX295 might not be set up properly (driver issue? SLi issue?). As you know, the 295 basically sits between 260 SLi and 280Sli in performance. So, if the SLi function does not work to its full potential, 295 will act like a single 275, more or less. And I believe a GTX275 performs just about the same as a pair of 8800GT.

I agree with the above, your GFX card is operating in a subpar resolution and graphic environment. Once you bump up the res you should see a big difference between 2x8800s and a GTX295.

1680 to 5040 is a massive in pixels - 1.7m vs 5.2m, with over 300% more work to do there is no way the older cards would keep up, even in WoW. :)

Well, I realy hope you guys are right. It's just that I can't imagine getting the same fps as my 2x8800gt's

Well, I realy hope you guys are right. It's just that I can't imagine getting the same fps as my 2x8800gt's

You assume games just scale linearly and request as much FPS as possible. They dont for timing and engine limitation reasons. Worry when your FPS gets choppy, not when it maintains 100fps.

It's very likely that WoW will be hitting your cpu limit before GPU. Especially when you throw in a handful of addons. If you have any, consider disabling them all and then rechecking the frame rate. If you see it's noticeably different, renable them one by one until you find the culprit !

Overclock that CPU and you'll see the frames go up. That's how it is for most games with high end GPUs. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets the same framerate as 1680x1050 at 5040x1050 :lol:

Well, I am running the E8400 3.0GHz Dual Core Intel processor. Correct me if I am wrong here but would it make sense to go Quad Core if games aren't even written to take advantage of Quad Core?

Would going Vista x64 bit be a better option? Will this maybe give me better performance?? Will the game even run at 64bit???

Apologies for all the questions, but yes...I am a little worried I have wasted my money. But from what I hear you guys saying, I haven't?

Well, I am running the E8400 3.0GHz Dual Core Intel processor. Correct me if I am wrong here but would it make sense to go Quad Core if games aren't even written to take advantage of Quad Core?

Would going Vista x64 bit be a better option? Will this maybe give me better performance?? Will the game even run at 64bit???

Apologies for all the questions, but yes...I am a little worried I have wasted my money. But from what I hear you guys saying, I haven't?

QC wont help WoW and for the moment virtually no other game either (over Dual Core).

Vista (in general, 32 and 64) is likely slower than XP for WoW.
All games will run in x64 (in x86 32bit mode) and some will actually take advantage of the 64bit arch, but this is rare. Generally a new system will be x64 and software will very soon really take advantage of it. Most people use x64 for over 3GB ram support, faster HDD access, faster media encoding and generally an all round better PC. However it doesnt really help games as much as youd like at the moment outside of some rare x64 native games (which show 15% FPS increase, which is very good).

Then Im glad I havent made the transition. There was no point really.

If you want an OS update, wait till Windows 7, consider it a Vista that works.

Well, it's not that I desperately want an OS upgrade...I just want the best performance from my rig. And if the OS is going to give me that then I will do it. But from what I see, there is no point until W7.

I think you could very well be CPU and Res locked. At lower resolutions you hit ceilings where performance doesn't get better. And you hit ceilings where the GPU doesn't really kick in (based on CPU limits).

Here is my benchmark suite showing the move from an E6700 to an i7 920 (with an NVIDIA 9800GX2). They are the same speed, but the i7 stops the E6700. I doubt anything is taking advantage of Quad Core, but the architecture is much more efficent

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/WS_and_WTH_Benchmarking_%28Core_i7_920_and_9800_GX2%29

Here is the benchmark suite of the i7 with the 9800GX2 and GTX 295. Again, similar performance at many lower resolutions. Once you hit Surround and Wide Surround, then the GTX295 starts to take off.

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/WS_and_WTH_Benchmarking_%28Core_i7_920_and_GTX_295%29

Ok, :) Thanks Ibrin,

So to understand what you are saying just so that I don't misinterpret, when you say "but the i7 stops the E6700", do you mean that the I7 kills the E6700? I would assume you meant that. :P

Also, overall from your post, what I took from it is that even though the FPS is low at the moment with the E8400, when I push the RES up to 5040x1050 on the GTX295, I should have no problems?

Or are you saying I should flog the E8400 and get an I7?

I just want to make sure what you are saying. :)

Might be a silly thing to ask, but do you have SLI enabled yet? Sure, the GTX295 is a single card, but it needs SLI enabled between the 2 GPUs on it.