Running Crysis Warhead - Upgrade or SLI?

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rmdl51

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Hello! Yesterday I bought Crysis warhead and I installed and run it, first time won't run, upgrade my nvidia drivers and then it run ok.

However It runs at some points choppy, I think I'm getting poor FPS, I'm concerned because I want to play Need for speed undercover when it come out on Nov 18 and I don't want it to run like this, actually if it gets just a little worst on crysis it will be unplayable, so I need to improve my FPS.

I wish to upgrade many parts (SLI Mobo, a second 8800GT, 2x2GB DDR2 1066) but I'm on a tight budget right now, so my question is, what's the better upgrade to see a notable increase on my FPS?

Would I see any better performance if I get a 9800GT? (currently 8800GT)

I have Windows XP 32-bit, should I get the XP 64 bit or it's ok to get Vista 64 bit, I ask this because I'm willing to get 4 GB of ram, but I've seen my friend computer run crysis worst on vista (I think due DX10) with an 9800GX2, however he had 2GB of DDR2 800 and old hard drive but it was very slow at high settings, mine run much smoother at high settings AA 2x 1680x1050, but those settings are for Crysis, not Crysis WH, I don't know if WH is more demanding but somehow is running slower, even with AA off, I just don't want to lower my resolution, I rather upgrade either memory or graphic card.

Any suggestions? what upgrade should give me a decent boost? 4GB or DDR2 1066mhz? newer card? or rather wait to do the 8800GT SLI.

Thanks!
 
Warhead is supposed to be less demanding than the original Crysis.

I heard about that, so I wonder why is running slower. maybe I should play a little more with the video settings.

Anybody know the true advantage of the 9800GT over the 8800GT? I see same core clock, same memory speed, same stream processors, etc.

Questions are still in the air? if you take a look at my system specs, which upgrade will be more likely to help me get a more decent FPS
 
Yea I've also heard that Warhead is supposed to run better than the original game but so far I haven't see any proof. There is no real performance gain between the 8800 and the 9800, they are basically the same card. The only difference is that, i believe, the 9800 uses the newer die architecture and supports openGL 2.1, which isn't so much of a plus. Crysis and Warhead should run pretty good on your machine, perhaps you should try closing out some background apps...
 
As far as performance go's, the 8800gt and 9800gt are exactly the same.

As for the performance in WH, I haven't located the problem yet but I believe it's CPU/Ram related. There isn't an apparent drop in FPS but instead there is choppy spikes in the heavy populated areas (and when lots of physics/explosions are going on). The most likely cause is the CPU since it handles most of these processors.

That said, I'm running an E7300 @ 3ghz and a 9800GT. I can run Crysis maxed out perfectly but WH gets the choppy play while playing in Directx10 mode, so I believe that there's a link there between the Directx10 and the CPU (could be an issue with Dual Core/Quad Core)

On the plus side, you can run it fine in directx9 mode until a fix is released, but if you are like me then you'll notice the difference in detail and get annoyed.
 
Well, the issue here is that I'm having the exact same problems but with Directx9, I don't have DX10 I'm running XP and I thought if I upgrade to Vista 64-bit (for my purpose of having 4GB of ram) I'll probably run worst because of DX10.

So I have no idea of this behavoir from WH. I'm still wondering what should I do to
 
The 9800GT is the 55nm refresh of the 8800GT. You will not get any improvement in performance. Also, getting faster RAM is not very beneficial. Furthermore, getting more RAM will only help load textures faster, since all textures will be loaded into the RAM which will reduce the amount of times your HDD is accessed.

Your best bet would be to either get a second 8800GT, or to get a much more powerful card like the HD 4870\GTX 260.
 
First 9800gt is commonly refered to (in benchmarks) as "8800gt (aka. 9800gt)", they are basicly the same card. Rage, do you know if the 9800gt overclocks better?


Crysis Warhead only uses 256VRM until you recreate a the autoexec.cfg file (or system.cfg file, the difference is one loads during engine load (system) and the other one afterwards) in the game folder in the main crysis warhead folder, then add this to it after deleting all the information in the autoexec.cfg (open with notepad)...

con_restricted=0
sys_budget_videomem = 512
r_TexturesStreaming=0

You should get a noticeable difference in the fps, the vram can go higher depending on your video card and resolution but only makes a difference at higher resolutions.

Also all the crysis graphics configs work in warhead, so you can make gamer settings look like enthusiast settings with little to no performance loss.

- Rezakon




However It runs at some points choppy, I think I'm getting poor FPS, I'm concerned because I want to play Need for speed undercover when it come out on Nov 18 and I don't want it to run like this, actually if it gets just a little worst on crysis it will be unplayable, so I need to improve my FPS.

What settings are you running crysis at, high? And i HIGHLY doubt need for speed will come anywere close to as demanding as crysis. I don't think you need to upgrade.
 
Thanks Rage, you did go to my point exactly, so getting more ram or faster ram won't help the FPS at all? I think it makes sense to think that if testures are loaded faster when you are walking into one area it will get smoothly, but I don't know I'm just asking, game loads are no problem, Raptor HD is amazing there, I usually load the game in less than 10 sec, my concern are the FPS, which I think you said is directly related to my video card.

If I want to go SLI with another 8800GT I would need to upgrade my motherboard, this one is crossfire not SLI, therefore the cost of another 8800GT and new motherboard will be around the same as a GTX 260, so which one will provide better performance SLI 8800GT or single card GTX 260?

Hello kitty, thanks for that quote, does that apply only for video cards with 512MB or VRAM? because the instruccions seems to reassing the amount of memory crysis will use, what if you have let's say 640? can you modify that parameter?

Yes, on Crysis I go High settings with AA x4 at 1680x1050, but the same setting on Crysis WH gets choppy, turned off AA and still gets choppy at some points with a lot of action, it's playable I mean it's just a couple of seconds that behaves like that, but racing games like NFS can't get choppy for a sec or will make you crash, that used to frustate me back then when I played most wanted with my old ATI 9600XT.
 
hellokitty[hk said:
]Rage, do you know if the 9800gt overclocks better?
It should, given that it has a smaller die and with an aftermarket cooler, you could probably reach 9800GTX clocks or maybe even surpass them. Haven't seen such an OC yet, but on paper, it looks feasible.

rmdl51 said:
which one will provide better performance SLI 8800GT or single card GTX 260?
The performance of the 8800GT SLI setup will depend on how well SLI works in that particular game. Realistically speaking, you would see gains of around 30-40% on average. And that's for paying the full price for two cards, which will pull more power, put out more heat and require a new motherboard as compared to a single card. So no reason to go SLI.

The GTX 260 will be faster than that setup, and will not have all the cons previously described. I'd personally go with the HD 4870 for its overall better performance compared to the GTX 260 and the ability to throw in two of them together later without getting a new mobo.
 
Ok So, definitely an upgrade of single card but you are right, since my motherboard is crossfire ready I should go with ATI/AMD but somehow I've become more to the nvidia side because I was impressed on the performance about a year ago with the 8 series cards, even my older AGP 7800GS never found a match from ATI.

Well I don't mean to bash ATI, I used to have a 9600XT, and all in wonder cards and they performed pretty good, I Just don't know about newish products and what the benchmarks are saying and don't know iether about good brands for ATI chipsets, for nvidia my list goes 1-eVGA 2-XFX 3-BFG but for ATI don't know who is reliable.

I see your system specs and you have 2 HD 4870 from visiontek, are they good? I'm going to do some research about pricing and when I found something interesting I will ask if the card is ok according to your experience.

Thanks a lot to everybody for your help.
 
I have the HD 4870X2, not two HD 4870s (I guess the way I typed it confused you, I'll change it ASAP). It's the most powerful card out there at the moment, but I bought it simply because I game at 2560x1600 and with this card, I don't need to sacrifice image quality for performance. Plus, I don't like having two high-end cards heating up the insides of my case.

The HD 4870 is an excellent card for its price range and is able to edge out the GTX 260 performance-wise in most games. I would definitely recommend it and almost all the reviews you'll see of it online will do so too.

As far as third-party manufacturers go, the top three for ATI cards are Sapphire, HIS and Visiontek. Other good ones include Gigabyte and Diamond. Ones that should probably be your last choice are PowerColor and GeCube, not because they make bad cards, but because their customer support is close to zero AFAIK from my experience with both. From the top three, Sapphire's Toxic and HIS's IceQ versions of their cards come with high-end third-party coolers installed and with OCed clocks.
 
Oh I see, the HD 4870X2 is two GPUs in the same card, but I see that runs for over $500 right now. from my research I see visiontek offer lifetime warranty while others offer 1 to 3 years only.

My main concern is that many people seem to complain about the heat of the card, however they say it's an easy solution with an utility to mod the fan speed, well I hate loud fans I hope you (and any other user of the HD 4870) could let me know how loud is the fan.

I've seen/read many reviews and most of them agree this card kills the GTX 260 however they say some exceptions might be Crysis, well this game was the main reason to upgrade (besides NFS) but they say the only reason for this is because the card won't support the very high settings on DX10.1 well I don't mind about it, if it gets decent FPS in High I don't need everything on very high.

First it was very confusing because the GTX 260 seems to have higher specs than the HD 4870 like 448-bit vs 256-bit, 896MB vram vs 512MB higher memory clock, and some more but I guess the stream processors and core clock speeds are giving the advantage to the HD 4870 and many others specs but they are still beyond my knowledge.

I'm still confused about this two:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129113
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102795
why the second card if it's the same chipset have half memory clock if it's the same GDDR5 and it's even more expensive, I know it's 1 GB but if it's running slower it's not worth it right?
and what about this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161247
that seems to be double as fast on the memory clock and still have 1 GB of Vram and cost the same as the prevoius one.

So what would you get? I currently game on a 22" but probably will upgrade soon to a 24 or 26 with higher resolution. I think there's where video memory plays an important role.
 
I game at 2560x1600 and with this card, I don't need to sacrifice image quality for performance. Plus, I don't like having two high-end cards heating up the insides of my case.
Do you ever expeirence monitor lag or ghosting? I heard huge monitors have slower response times.


Im not sure what your talking about in those 4870's, they all have (as far as i can tell, and according to previous knowlage) the same memory clock, the same core clock, and the only thing different is the brand and amount. Also, i am not sure buying a 1 gig version would be worth it. 24" is generally 1920 X 1200 and that would take up MOST of the memory, but not all.

And I have no idea how to work that thing to remove the memory accolation size limitations, i can't even find the file :/
 
well, since you posted the quote I thought you might know about those memory size limitations.

If you check the links I posted in the specs of each one you will see every card despite of being HD 4870 they have different speeds for memory clock
 
oh i see, the difference between the 900mhz mem clock and the 1800mhz mem clock is that the 1800mhz mem clock is a typo xD. The real mem clock should be displayed as 900, and them multiplied by four (GDDR5) or something to equal a total of 3600mhz.

Also i forgot to mention that Crysis, (dunno about GTA) prefers Nvida cards, and i think GTA does too. Also there is the new GTX 270 or 216 or something. Its right in between GTX 280 and GTX 260.



First Line Unrestricts the Limit.
Second Line Is the Vram Limit, The Amount of Vram the Game is Allowed to Use.
Third Line Disables Constant Streaming (its buggy).

And yes if you use crossfire or sli you can set the things higher, but only if your using resolutions above 1400x900, otherwise keep it at 512 cause you will get limit to no difference in the fps, above that max it.

I run 1600x1024 with two 4870 in crossfire, I've gotten a very nice increase using this little trick, the streaming disable trick helps a heck of a lot.
- Rezakon.

Thats what was just posted on another thread.
 
hellokitty[hk said:
]Do you ever expeirence monitor lag or ghosting? I heard huge monitors have slower response times.
Yeah well, it does happen with fast games like ET: Quake Wars & BF2, but it's not that bad and besides, with almost every game at 60+ FPS, I don't really notice much of it. I especially love playing Oblivion on it though, it looks jaw-dropping.

@rmdl51, more VRAM helps at higher resolutions, where more framebuffer is needed. So if you're gonna be upgrading to a larger monitor, then more VRAM will be beneficial.
 
Have any of you run Crysis on high setttings with that card (HD 4870)? if yes how does it performs?

Should I go with the regular version of can I go with the OC version? previous cards I have bought I was suggested to get the normal version because OCed card will get little to no improvements, and if the card already runs hot I don't want to run hotter with an OCed card.

what temps do you currently have at idle and full load?
 
Thanks! been looking for some benchmarks like that, guess that I was right with that 1GB card then.

Still not sure about OCed cards but I guess they are more expensive and I rather not go over the $300 budget for my new card
 
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