Need advice to maximize system potential

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Colorado Mutant

Hi, I'm a serious HL2DM player looking for some help to get the most out of what i have. After getting 2 8800GTS 512 i discovered my mobo does not support sli. I have been looking for ways to patch the X38 chipset on my Maximus Forumula SE mobo to overcome this to no avail. If anyone has any ideas on that issue it would be greatly appreciated.
I'm using ntune and aisuite to overclock. Just not sure which way to go at this point. My 6 y o daughter just got out of ICU, she was just diagnosed as a type 1 diabetic so needless to say money is tight right now. I'm considering whether to upgrade my mobo or my v card. My system is stable and running smooth so i'm thinking on holding off on the mobo. That way i can continue to use what i have. Save up some $ and when time is right go big. In the mean time i'm thinking of the BFG GeForce GTX 285. Also getting the XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler to go to the next step in cooling. If only I could patch the mobo i could take advantage of the sli on the two 8800's i have, alas so it goes. My system specs are below. I am still green or noobish to overclocking and system builds as this is my first. I would appreciate any constructive advice and am open to new ideas. Thanks in advance Mutant.
CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Motherboard
Maximus Formula SE
Memory
4 GB Crucial Ballistix ddr2 800
Videocard
Nvidia GTS 8800 512
Cooling
Air - 7 120mm fans 1 80mm
Soundcard/Speakers
Supreme FXII
Hard Disk
Maxtor 300 GB sata
PSU Coolermaster 600W
Case
Colormaster CM 690
Other Peripherals
Tarantula n Lachesis
Operating System
Vista Ultimate 32 bit
Comments on system
mobo not sli ready D:

Frame rates are consistantly 150 - 180 / sec
I am looking for 250 FPS
Resolution 1280 x 1024 with 21" LCD refresh rate at 60 Hz.
AA at 8x, AT is 16X
There are two PCI e slots and both cards fit no problem.
The issue is that the ASUS mobo does not support sli.

I love the tarantula, smooth as butter to borrow a phrase from EXCellR8 :D.
Have not been happy with ATI cards and was running 2 HD 2600 XT 512 GDDR3 in crossfire.
 
Hi, I'm a serious HL2DM player looking for some help to get the most out of what i have.
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How are you not getting ridiculously good performance already?
What are your framerates, and what are you aiming at?

If only I could patch the mobo i could take advantage of the sli on the two 8800's i have
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What do you mean, your motherboard can't fit two cards...?

Tarantula n Lachesis
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hmm, how is that tarantula?

One more thing, SLI probably won't help if you are using low resolutions for higher refresh rate.
 
i would think a single nvidia 88xx series card would run HL2 like smooth butter coupled with any CPU over ~2.2Ghz. There isn't a whole lot to gain w/ two cards in the Source engine either, since it dates back to 2004 (release date). If you really wanted to use two cards, just keep the X38 and run some CrossFire. The price on ATI 4800 series cards has come down a lot and the CrossFire is just as easy to use as the SLI. I wouldn't swap mobos just to use the dual card technology.
 
I wouldn't swap mobos just to use the dual card technology.
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I would return or sell your second card, and figure out whats wrong with your game D:.
I would like to again mention SLI does VERY LITTLE for low resolutions, and I know many high level gamers use CRT's coupled with lowest resolution for highest refresh rates, not only that, but it gives you a FPS boost too.

SLI working on his crossfire board
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Right, I forgot Intel limits people to a small set of choices, silly intel xD.
 
Quote "Frame rates are consistantly 150 - 180 / sec
I am looking for 250 FPS"

Why? I find it very unlikely you will notice a bit of diffrence between 180 and 250 fps. And 180 fps is a damn good rate to begin with!

To improve your game, i would be looking at internet connection, latency, and a good mouse.
 
lol there is no difference in gameplay what so ever past 60 fps so i dont understand why you need more.when you have over 150 fps
 
or return the card and buy two of those 4770 cards.


There are bios hacks for the board, no one here will tell you how or where to get them. Frankly, I know where to get them, tried them on my p35 board, they work, but void your warrently. I value my TS membership too much to help you in that area.
 
To improve your game, i would be looking at internet connection, latency, and a good mouse.
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He already has a good mouse, a mouse I have myself, its very cool :).

I'm a serious HL2DM player
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Maybe none of you notice the FPS difference between 150 - 200, but it is possible to see, now 150 fps is just fine for average gameplay, but fast movements can still show a little choppiness, i'll just accept his fps greediness and help him along his way.

+1 man ure power is being wasted, if anything change ure motherboard for a cheap SLI board
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First we will have to ask him what resolution he is playing at though, SLI and CF again do little for lower resolutions.

I love the tarantula, smooth as butter to borrow a phrase from EXCellR8 .
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Nice, but I think my arctosa looks sexier ^^, I think the tarantula is just too large, I don't have too much use for those extra buttons just yet...
 
Resolution, internet and the downward spiral

To improve your game, i would be looking at internet connection, latency, and a good mouse.[/QUOTE]

Mouse is Razer Lachesis and it has served me well so far.
I live in a small mtn town in CO so internet providers are limited. I have gone thru some steps to improve the signal strength per Comcasts instructions. Have a D-Link gaming router DGL-4100. I tweaked the rwin settings awhile back but did not notice much improvement then. I suppose i might look into that again as well as some other speed tweaks for improvement. Thanks for the suggestions, i really appreciate everyone's input.

Resolution 1280 x 1024 with 21" LCD refresh rate at 60 Hz was an edit i added on to the original post. I notice choppiness and am looking for every greedy bit of FPS i can get lol. I have also noticed that i am not as competitive as i was say 3 months ago. I attribute this to improvements in technology. As others systems have improved in relationship to mine their game play has as well. I am not the top dog player and i know it, have accepted it. By the same token though i have skills and know when i'm fighting both my opponent and a faster system.
 
Ill take back the new mouse comment. Im not really up on gaming mice and to be honest had no idea what a razer lachesis was till i googled it :) You appear to have already tried to sort out your internet connection.. So you are left with 2 choices. Invest in a cheap sli mobo which will probably not really make much diffrence at that resoulution. Or sell both cards and buy a gtx 285. Do a little reasearch on the power supply needed, i own a 275 and it reccomends a psu of 575 watts or greater.
 
lol hellokitty there is no choppiness at 150 fps man the human eye can not tell a difference past 60 fps at all you get choppiness when frame rates drop below 60 so i dont see your point here. no one can see a difference including you at that frame rate so that statement makes no since thats why there is a 60hz refresh rate on monitors.
 
lol hellokitty there is no choppiness at 150 fps man the human eye can not tell a difference past 60 fps
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Thats why he has GAMER eyes... :p. even on a 60hz LCD I can easily see the difference.

It's huge. A couple more frames per second and everything gets really nice. It's all about getting more frames, the computer filling in stuff more quickly and allowing you move around the maps more fluidly.
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http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/bus...The-perfect-job-/0,139023749,139116062,00.htm
Not that I totally agree...
 
I had two GeForce 8600 cards in a nice intel build two years ago. Don't know about Half Life, but in an Inn while playing WoW I would get 120 something FPS, but when i went outside, you could see a visible motion difference while it dropped from 120 to 80.

So maybe its the rapid drop in frames affecting motion coupled with latency that "GAMER eyes" are seeing.

For the most part, saying that you won't notice anymore frames after 60 is just undeniable. However, whether the motion is fluid or not, is a different story.

Get a new screen. Refresh Refresh Refresh! Turn Vsync off in both the card and game. This will minimize tearing while granting frames, and oh does it look nice.

Other than that. Your system should be playing HL like an atari game.
 
once again no no you cant see the difference no matter how much you believe you can you cant look it up there is no slow down on any fast paced fps in the world unless its below 60 fps man it has been proven. the reason wow does that is latency not your video card.
 
He probably already has vsync off, but yes his system should be performing better than that. What version are your graphics drivers.
 
Graphics drivers and relative motion questions

hellokitty[hk] said:
He probably already has vsync off, but yes his system should be performing better than that. What version are your graphics drivers.
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TY kitty for your hep. Been crazy busy with daughter and trying to get an insulin routine stable.

Graphics Driver 185.85 nvidia
Bios AMI 1302

Have used Omega drivers before and got better performance but that was while running XP.

Altho i keep hearing that 60 fps limit i'm not sure i can grasp it as being that simple. If you stood at home plate and a nade exploded behind the pitcher while you were watching. Initially the pitcher's head would be stationary, then it would accelerate let's say towards you until it just missed you. KK so if you took a frame shot at 1/60 of a second 60 times during the event you would have 60 frames of that event. I would guess that if the head is moving faster than the frame speed, it would appear blurry in that frame. Initially her head would be clear, on her body. Then as it began to accelerate it would reach the critical velocity where it would become blurry. Furthermore it would be blurry for the rest of this event. If this is true then we are seeing fast moving objects that are blurry. We are able to see them and react to them. Does the gpu act this way? Do items get rendered blurry per there relative velocity? If more frames are generated during the event who is to say which frames at what time interval are chosen by the human cpu. Additionally if say every 20th frame is the one seen then might it not give a better visual representation and appear more fluid?
Any thought's on that Klepto12? Is there any scenario in which an advantage appears as a result of greater than 60 FPS during game play? Ayt thanks n L8rz
 
Do items get rendered blurry
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I don't think so, they are just skippy. I think it would be just that only a few frames would show, so it would appear choppy. Don't worry about the 60fps limit, you need it :/.
 
im a serious HL2DM player too. but with the newest nvidia driver 185.85 give the game some glitches and low fps 45-60 most of the time even with my XFX 9800GTX+
 
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