7800GT and really disappointed

[T101]

Bought an Point of View 7800GT (400/1000 clocked) as well as Fear and Call of Duty 2. I am utterly dissappointed. In fear I have to run medium settings to get 48FPS average (35 minimum) and Call of Duty 2 runs around 40 FPS, dropping as low as 7-12 FPS when there is rain or snow. Both games I play in 1280x1024.
I really thought these cards was supposed to be powerful, but it looks like they are not. Setting games to medium detail is something I expect to have to do at the end of a cards life, not two months after they have got driver support....

Are there something wrong with my card, or is there something wrong with these games?

 

[Exsomnis]

Besides the fact that you're playing the games with the most bloated hardware requirements of all time, welcome to PC gaming in the 21st Century.

 

[T101]

Ah, so it is the games that is fubared then. This really sucks. Never in the last five years (I upgrade once per year) have I upgraded new hardware + bought new games, only to feel as disappointed in the performance as this.

I hope these issues will be resolved with patches. Because, I can't belive that developers would be so unintelligent to require hardware that does not yet exist for the game to be playable.

Makes me wonder if I at all will be able to play Ohblivion when it is released.

 

[MoogerFooger]

Originally posted by: T101
Call of Duty 2 runs around 40 FPS, dropping as low as 7-12 FPS when there is rain or snow. Both games I play in 1280x1024.

Don't know what you're talking about. I also run COD2 in 1280x1024, 99% of the time it's perfectly smooth. Max detail, medium number of corpses, 4xAA, bilinear texture filtration.

 

[T101]

MoogerFooger: Yep, 99% it is smooth. During the russian campaign in the snow the frames dropped only during 2 seconds or so, when there was many characters on the screen. It was disappointing, but not that bad. Now I am in the american campaign in Normandie, and there is a rain effect. As soon there is any kind of firefight, I have to play the game in very low framerates, making it impossible to aim or do anything proper.

My CoD2 settings; 1280x1024 Bilineara filtering, small number of corpses, Smooth Smoke Edges off, no AA. Texture settings all to high.

 

[Captante]

Originally posted by: T101
Bought an Point of View 7800GT (400/1000 clocked) as well as Fear and Call of Duty 2. I am utterly dissappointed. In fear I have to run medium settings to get 48FPS average (35 minimum) and Call of Duty 2 runs around 40 FPS, dropping as low as 7-12 FPS when there is rain or snow. Both games I play in 1280x1024.
I really thought these cards was supposed to be powerful, but it looks like they are not. Setting games to medium detail is something I expect to have to do at the end of a cards life, not two months after they have got driver support....

Are there something wrong with my card, or is there something wrong with these games?

I don't know if its a problem with your card, but somthings not right... I have a 6800GT oc'ed to Ultra speeds & I get about the same performance in FEAR that you are, only at HIGH detail settings & 1280x1024...I play at 1024x768 most of the time anyway though. (cpu is an A64 3200+ @ 2.4ghz)

 

[T101]

Fear: Max FPS 85, Average 48, Minimum 35.
it is set to medium settings, then changed resolution to 1280x1024. I have tried high settings, and maximum settings. It affects minimum and average somewhat (about 5-8 FPS per second difference).

 

[edplayer]

Originally posted by: T101
Because, I can't belive that developers would be so unintelligent to require hardware that does not yet exist for the game to be playable.

thats not even close to true

 

[T101]

Edplayer: In the sense that they of course do that? or that they dont.

 

[edplayer]

in that they don't require yet to exist hardware. You have issues with your setup or the graphic settings you chose are too high to get the framerates that you want.

 

[T101]

edplayer: Ok. Then I understood you right. And you are correct. I try to find out what it is. My second setup (ooly difference between that and this setup is the motherboard; Abit AN8-SLI) also has the same framerate.

I suspect it is foremost a problem with the games themselves, as I have no problems with other games (BF2, FarCry etc.) and get the framerates I should have there.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: T101
I hope these issues will be resolved with patches. Because, I can't belive that developers would be so unintelligent to require hardware that does not yet exist for the game to be playable.

Perhaps the developers of these games wanted the best graphics experience possible, and knew those with SLI would be able to enjoy it?

You've got a SLI motherboard, why not put another 7800GT on it and see if you think the same?

 

[T101]

I could do that temporarily, but I can not afford to equip both computers with SLI setup.
Requiring SLI setup, that would be like wanting to sell only to a small portion of the user-base. A very bad business idea.

 

[MoogerFooger]

Originally posted by: T101
My CoD2 settings; 1280x1024 Bilineara filtering, small number of corpses, Smooth Smoke Edges off, no AA. Texture settings all to high.

I have texture settings on auto, smooth smoke edges on, 4xAA and mostly great framerates. I've just stepped into the third level of the British Campaign and the framerate could be a bit better, but nothing that bad actually.

This is weird.

 

[T101]

MoogerFooger: Was fine until I reached the american campaign and the missions with rain too. Guess you will find out when you get that far, if the problem exist for you too.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: T101
I could do that temporarily, but I can not afford to equip both computers with SLI setup.
Requiring SLI setup, that would be like wanting to sell only to a small portion of the user-base. A very bad business idea.

Why is it "a bad idea"?

People who have paid a lot for their hardware deserve to actually get something for having paid a lot for their hardware? What would be the point of SLI if every game on the planet ran at 20X15 8X16X at 75fps minimum on a single card?

Why shouldn't developers be allowed to make games that only high end hardware can run? The games run on all hardware, just at lower settings. Why do you get to decide what they should run best on? Seems to me things are as they should be- high end hardware runs the games well, middle range (single card) runs them OK, and low end (anything last gen) requires real sacrifices.

What some people seem to have trouble with is that SLI, and soon Crossfire, are now the "high end" and spend $300-$400 on a video card isn't going to guarantee them 16X12 4X8X performance anymore.

There has been a shift in the hardware hierarchy, and personally:
A. I'd rather have the option to have hign end hardware/games that require it
B. I wouldn't be pissed if I didn't.

 

[edplayer]

Originally posted by: Rollo
Why shouldn't developers be allowed to make games that only high end hardware can run?

The only thing preventing them from doing so is common sense. They are in business to make money, not tech demoes

 

[GOREGRINDER]

yeah your minimum fps and average fps would definatly go up with SLi in fear and call of duty2,...you notice in call of duty2 theres an sli option in the vid section of cod2?,..yeah the games made for it ,..like alot of them will be soon./pre optimized

Fear: Max FPS 85, Average 48, Minimum 35.

my minimum fps in fear is higher than your average fps just so you have an idea

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: edplayer

Originally posted by: Rollo
Why shouldn't developers be allowed to make games that only high end hardware can run?

The only thing preventing them from doing so is common sense. They are in business to make money, not tech demoes

So you know for a fact that licensing revenues of game engines are not where developers "make money" and that they should think about the cards of the past and what most people have?

I see.

Beyond that, FEAR seems to be selling well, even though there's not a single card on the market that can run it at 16x12 4x8x? Apparently your theory doesn't apply if it's a good game people want to play?

 

[AsianriceX]

Originally posted by: T101
Bought an Point of View 7800GT (400/1000 clocked) as well as Fear and Call of Duty 2. I am utterly dissappointed. In fear I have to run medium settings to get 48FPS average (35 minimum) and Call of Duty 2 runs around 40 FPS, dropping as low as 7-12 FPS when there is rain or snow. Both games I play in 1280x1024.
I really thought these cards was supposed to be powerful, but it looks like they are not. Setting games to medium detail is something I expect to have to do at the end of a cards life, not two months after they have got driver support....

Are there something wrong with my card, or is there something wrong with these games?

You could always try overclocking that card. Those stock clocks seem kinda low. I know they're Nvidia's reference clocks but we all know these cards can do better. My eVGA 7800GT runs 445/1070.

 

[Dean]

I'm glad there are game developers out there willing to push the envelope. If there was not, the idea of developing high end video cards would be completely worthless.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: T101
MoogerFooger: Yep, 99% it is smooth. During the russian campaign in the snow the frames dropped only during 2 seconds or so, when there was many characters on the screen. It was disappointing, but not that bad. Now I am in the american campaign in Normandie, and there is a rain effect. As soon there is any kind of firefight, I have to play the game in very low framerates, making it impossible to aim or do anything proper.

My CoD2 settings; 1280x1024 Bilineara filtering, small number of corpses, Smooth Smoke Edges off, no AA. Texture settings all to high.

hmm.. on my 6800gt i run 1280, trilinear, smooth smoke, 2xaa (it's nearly free) and large # of bodies - and under texture settings everything is set "high" and "manual settings"...

haven't done the american campaign you speak of, but still, something doesn't sound/seem exactly right...

 

[Woofmeister]

A few points. First, your card stock core and memory settings are very low. Most of us with 7800GTs are running well over 500 MHz/1100 MHz. Try using the "Coolbits" registry hack to detect optimal settings for your core and memory. Bumping those values will yield big performance gains.

Second, both of the games you have focused on are notorious hardware hogs which cannot be maxed out with any current hardware configuration. Not with SLI, not with Crossfire. Both FEAR and COD2 are meant to challenge the next generation of cards. You are asking too much of your current 7800GT when you expect to run either game at max settings. Having said that, there's a difference between a perfectly satisfying graphics experience and being able to run at full maximum. I'm running FEAR at 1920 x 1200 with my single 7800GT and it looks absolutely spectacular. Use the in game FEAR time demo to experiment with all the performance and video settings and you're sure to arrive at a good compromise between performance and quality. I'm only averaging 35 FPS in FEAR and the game is perfectly smooth. That's with vertical sync enabled and at 1920 x 1200, so you ought to be able to scale much higher if you work at it.

Third, who the Hell is "Point of View?" Had to do a Google search on them and only found one video card review. Next time try EVGA, XFX, BFG or ASUS; they're preferred NVIDIA vendors and it shows in their performance.

 

[RampantAndroid]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: T101
I could do that temporarily, but I can not afford to equip both computers with SLI setup.
Requiring SLI setup, that would be like wanting to sell only to a small portion of the user-base. A very bad business idea.

Why is it "a bad idea"?

People who have paid a lot for their hardware deserve to actually get something for having paid a lot for their hardware? What would be the point of SLI if every game on the planet ran at 20X15 8X16X at 75fps minimum on a single card?

Why shouldn't developers be allowed to make games that only high end hardware can run? The games run on all hardware, just at lower settings. Why do you get to decide what they should run best on? Seems to me things are as they should be- high end hardware runs the games well, middle range (single card) runs them OK, and low end (anything last gen) requires real sacrifices.

What some people seem to have trouble with is that SLI, and soon Crossfire, are now the "high end" and spend $300-$400 on a video card isn't going to guarantee them 16X12 4X8X performance anymore.

There has been a shift in the hardware hierarchy, and personally:
A. I'd rather have the option to have hign end hardware/games that require it
B. I wouldn't be pissed if I didn't.

As far as marketing to single card owners, they have to. By making games for SLI, that means that they are putting people who own a top of the line single card in a very bad position....our cards will barely run current games, let along those of the next generation. My 7800GT will be useless in a year or so it seems. Great. In addition to being gouged on game prices, I also have to be gouged YEARLY on new videocard hardware. Not all of use have money falling out of our ears. I have college to pay for.

They do that, people are going to say, "Bah! I don't want to pay an extra 500 for a second videocard, and I don't feel like running this game on low settings...forget PC gaming"

T101, that card is clocked really low....most are clock 445/1070....I have OCed mine to 485/1200 and am still OCing it further. I get a good steady framrate of 60 or so in COD2, except in the dense areas of D-Day that have a lot of foliage...then my card struggles a little. Just OC it, and play around with your nvidia driver control panel. That should give you a much better framerate.

I cannot speak for FEAR, I haven't pulled mine out of the box yet.

 

[T101]

I have reinstalled my system now, from scratch, clean sweep. Fear: Minimum 48, Average 58, Maximum 115. Something was not right.

Thank you all for your assistance and comments. Finally I feel happier with my purchase.