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A Sign?

Started by Azhura Oct 9, 2008 at 8:43 AM 16 replies 2.4k views
Original Post
Azhura
Azhura
Hey guys, I just stopped in to ask a quick question. My comp specs are Pentium 4, 3.20ghz, 1 gig of ram and an ATI Radeon Viper X1650 Pro graphics card. I've noticed something during high performance games like Doom 3 and Bioshock. If I go to, say, shoot my shotgun at an incoming zombie/splicer, it'll often freeze for a second and then speed up to compensate. Sort of like I'll shoot, it'll freeze frame and I'll see the muzzle flash, I'll see another frame of the zombie/splicer being torn apart by my gun, and then I'll see the graphics play it out smoothly from there. It happens fairly fast but it's very noticeable. This often happens only when I first fire the shotgun and clears up later. This is not a "game issue", I was wondering if this is a sign of lack of RAM? I'll also notice that if I have a LOT of incoming enemies, my aim will be off because I'll be lagging a bit, kind of like I am in slow-mo but they aren't. I also notice that things get somewhat laggy when more objects in my various games have to be rendered. I always thought 1 gig might not be enough so I've been thinking about upgrading to 2 gigs. Do you think this would solve my problem? Does this look like a RAM problem? P.S: I have no viruses, no malware/adware, and I am currently on a a clean reformatted computer. This performance problem also occurs regardless of game settings. Thanks - Azhura
Sandman
Sandman
It certainly isn't a Game Design problem.
alnite
alnite
Quote:
Original post by Sandman
It certainly isn't a Game Design problem.


It's a Lounge problem, I see.
kostiak2
kostiak2
Might be a mem problem, but i would suspect the cpu/gpu more in those situations (especially cpu)

kost.
d000hg
d000hg
Could it be that textures are being used for the first time and have not yet been cached on the graphics card?

I was going to say maybe the resources hadn't been loaded at all but that seems unlikely... but if the data is being copied onto the GPU that might be a factor.
Don Carnage
Don Carnage
It's gotta be an issue with drivers or your system configuration. You aren't by any chance the kind of guy who has tons of things running in the background, i.e. 1.3 gigs loaded on a 1 gig system?

It sounds like its pressed for resources and normally that wouldn't happen with D3 on 1 gig memory.

Hows about posting this on a PC support site?
It is I, the spectaculous Don Karnage! My bloodthirsty horde is on an intercept course with you. We will be shooting you and looting you in precisely... Ten minutes. Felicitations!
Kest
Kest
Playing a real-time action game with zero slow-down is pure bliss. But programmers are just lazy these days. Most recent games require very high end PCs to run without any lag. Many of them lag even with very high end PCs. Maybe we'll get to experience these current games without lag in about ten more years.

Shotguns spray multiple bullets, so if its the only weapon that causes the performance cough, it sounds more like a CPU issue. There certainly wouldn't be much system memory being employed to carry the bullets, and any video memory would be shared between the multiple bullets, but there would be a decent amount of CPU crunching to collide them into things. On the other hand, it seems like 3.2ghz would be plenty.

It could still be a lack of memory. If the game is storing environment collision objects in virtual memory, it would need to access the hard drive to process each bullet.
Wan
Wan
Quote:
Original post by Sandman
It certainly isn't a Game Design problem.

Um, who put the zombies in there in the first place?
Extrarius
Extrarius
The Pentium 4 is built around a horrible architecture and 1 GB is on the low end for recent and semi-recent games like those you list. I can't speak about the graphics card, as I'm not familiar with that model, but I believe your system simply isn't up to speed for the games you're trying to play.
"Walk not the trodden path, for it has borne it's burden." -John, Flying Monk
mattnewport
mattnewport
Doom 3 isn't a particularly demanding game these days - it's over 4 years old. Bioshock on the other hand is quite demanding and your PC specs aren't really up to running it at high frame rates.

1GB RAM isn't really sufficient for decent performance on recent games. The Pentium 4 is also a pretty underpowered CPU and your graphics card is pretty out of date as well. For a decent experience in newer games you should be looking at a reasonably fast Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, a decent mid range graphics card like a 9800GT or Radeon 4850 and at least 2GB of RAM. I'd suggest 4GB though - RAM's super cheap these days and it makes a noticeable difference. If you're running a 64bit OS then 8GB is a worthwhile investment. If you want to run at high resolutions (1600x1200+) and/or with anti-aliasing turned on then a faster graphics card is probably a good idea - move up to something like a 9800GTX+ or Radeon 4870, or even a GTX260.
Azhura
Azhura
Quote:
Original post by mattnewport
Doom 3 isn't a particularly demanding game these days - it's over 4 years old. Bioshock on the other hand is quite demanding and your PC specs aren't really up to running it at high frame rates.

1GB RAM isn't really sufficient for decent performance on recent games. The Pentium 4 is also a pretty underpowered CPU and your graphics card is pretty out of date as well. For a decent experience in newer games you should be looking at a reasonably fast Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, a decent mid range graphics card like a 9800GT or Radeon 4850 and at least 2GB of RAM. I'd suggest 4GB though - RAM's super cheap these days and it makes a noticeable difference. If you're running a 64bit OS then 8GB is a worthwhile investment. If you want to run at high resolutions (1600x1200+) and/or with anti-aliasing turned on then a faster graphics card is probably a good idea - move up to something like a 9800GTX+ or Radeon 4870, or even a GTX260.


Alright, so instead of buying more RAM for my Pentium 4, I should save money for an Intel Core Duo and a new graphics card? I'm just making sure, because I thought that maybe if I put some more RAM in, things would run smoothly. Hmm, looks like I'm facing a pretty expensive upgrade.
kevtimc
kevtimc
1 gig is the minimum for Bioshock, so I would focus on that first. I can vouch for the HD 4850; I bought one while upgrading my PC a few weeks ago and I'm running Crysis at 1280X1024 on high. I also get 40 - 70 fps (and over 100 at times) in Call of Duty 4 on max settings. The beauty of it all is that in total my upgrades (motherboard, processor, GFX card, memory, and PSU!) cost a little over $300 dollars; I still have trouble believing that myself. I'm download the Bioshock demo now to see how it runs.

Basically, if you're serious about gaming, upgrade.
jbadams
jbadams
Back when I had a P4 I found the stock cooling that came with the system was insufficient and the processor would always run throttled when put under strain by games or anything else requiring a lot of processing. Replacing the cooling with something more effective helped reduce the effects of this till I upgraded to a new system. YYMV.
- Jason Astle-Adams
Azhura
Azhura
Quote:
Original post by kevtimc
1 gig is the minimum for Bioshock, so I would focus on that first. I can vouch for the HD 4850; I bought one while upgrading my PC a few weeks ago and I'm running Crysis at 1280X1024 on high. I also get 40 - 70 fps (and over 100 at times) in Call of Duty 4 on max settings. The beauty of it all is that in total my upgrades (motherboard, processor, GFX card, memory, and PSU!) cost a little over $300 dollars; I still have trouble believing that myself. I'm download the Bioshock demo now to see how it runs.

Basically, if you're serious about gaming, upgrade.


Hey kevtimc, could you list your motherboard, processor, gfx card, memory, and PSU? I'd be interested in going after the same $300 bargain, heh ;)
kevtimc
kevtimc
Quote:
Original post by Azhura
Quote:
Original post by kevtimc
1 gig is the minimum for Bioshock, so I would focus on that first. I can vouch for the HD 4850; I bought one while upgrading my PC a few weeks ago and I'm running Crysis at 1280X1024 on high. I also get 40 - 70 fps (and over 100 at times) in Call of Duty 4 on max settings. The beauty of it all is that in total my upgrades (motherboard, processor, GFX card, memory, and PSU!) cost a little over $300 dollars; I still have trouble believing that myself. I'm download the Bioshock demo now to see how it runs.

Basically, if you're serious about gaming, upgrade.


Hey kevtimc, could you list your motherboard, processor, gfx card, memory, and PSU? I'd be interested in going after the same $300 bargain, heh ;)


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102770
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231098
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103210
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131022
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817152035&Tpk=raidmax%20630W

I had *WAY* better rebates when I bought them (except for the 4850), but it's still a bargain. I think my original came out total (w/ shipping) about $330.

Those listed are basically "budget gaming" parts (excluding the 4850), but I've found nothing budget about them. The RAM (despite being only DDR2 800) works perfectly (although you may wanna go to 4g for Vista) and the AMD 5200+ is still a powerful chip (at $66!). The motherboard only supports DDR2 800 RAM, but it supports AMD dual core, 8g of RAM, and 6 SATA devices, which is suitable for my needs. I don't know if I'd consider the PSU "budget" at 630W. By the way, modular cabling is dreamy :)

[Edited by - kevtimc on October 10, 2008 1:46:36 PM]
mattnewport
mattnewport
Quote:
Original post by Azhura
Alright, so instead of buying more RAM for my Pentium 4, I should save money for an Intel Core Duo and a new graphics card? I'm just making sure, because I thought that maybe if I put some more RAM in, things would run smoothly. Hmm, looks like I'm facing a pretty expensive upgrade.


Another gig of RAM won't hurt and RAM is pretty cheap at the moment. Ultimately there's a limit on what your system is capable of with that CPU and graphics card though. If you want to avoid replacing the motherboard and CPU then another gig of RAM and a graphics card upgrade to something in the sub $100 range would be a worthwhile upgrade without breaking the bank. Take a look at this $100 graphics card roundup at Techreport. The P4 is probably going to be a bit of a bottleneck at that point though.
misi
misi
I have Core 2 Quad, 4 GB RAM and GF 9800GTX, Windows Vista 64 and I can still observe the same issue with certain games, it's especially obvious in in-engine-rendered cutscenes. Besides these occasional hickups, the framerate is always very high. Most of the games that I have observed this lately were based on Unreal 3 engine. This is not too much of a concern as it is not that noticeable during actual gameplay. Some games, however run super-smooth despite very detailed graphics, Call of Duty 4 comes to mind.

Anybody here can give some insight why this happens and how can I reduce this issue?
kevtimc
kevtimc
Quote:
Original post by misi
I have Core 2 Quad, 4 GB RAM and GF 9800GTX, Windows Vista 64 and I can still observe the same issue with certain games, it's especially obvious in in-engine-rendered cutscenes. Besides these occasional hickups, the framerate is always very high. Most of the games that I have observed this lately were based on Unreal 3 engine. This is not too much of a concern as it is not that noticeable during actual gameplay. Some games, however run super-smooth despite very detailed graphics, Call of Duty 4 comes to mind.

Anybody here can give some insight why this happens and how can I reduce this issue?

I had the same issue (only worse) when running Vista. I switched back to XP and everything works fine.

[I realize I probably could have resolved it in Vista, please don't go interpreting this as an incendiary statement.]

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