What to upgrade with only $200?

[gregom]

I have an ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe, 4GB DDR2 800 dual channel, AMD Athlon X2 6000+, and GeForce 9800 512MB GTX+ running on a 37" 1080p LCD TV at 1920x1080. I play plenty of games on it like Batman Arkham Asylum, ArmA2, FarCry2, Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising, STALKER, GTA 4, and most recently NFS SHIFT. All these games run pretty good at the native 1920x1080 with most frills on high.

In particular I'm having some performance issues in NFS SHIFT when playing career mode with 4+ AI. I'm running it in 8x AA/AS (have to or the track in the distance is hard to see clearly) with everything on high. It plays fine when i'm on the track by myself or with another car. But if I start adding other cars it starts to get low framerates. It doesn't seem very bad on online races though the most i've experinced is 5 others, and the framerates were still good.

I'm trying to figure what my bottleneck is here... I'm thinking CPU considering the results but i'm not sure. More cars adds a lot more polygons to process.

So if you had my setup and situation, where would you put $200? A new mobo and CPU or a video card? I can't go over $200.

Ideas?

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Why not just lower the settings a little bit? Are you using CSAA or MSAA?

 

[gregom]

I have tried lowering the settings... I don't recall it helping framerates much when playing against several AI racers. Plus... lowering settings really makes seeing where the track goes in the distance quite difficult. With my 37" screen sitting about 1.5 meters away I can see where the track goes perfectly, lowering settings that have the most impact would be resolution and AA... both of which I cannot lower without considerable picture quality degredation. I tried experimenting with lowering texture res and such but didn't seem to make a difference. Which is why I'm thinking its the CPU holding me back.

I believe SHIFT uses MSAA... I just selected it in-game. I might try some newer video drivers they are probably a few months old.

 

[lxskllr]

Try not using AA, but turn the AF up. That'll sharpen distant textures, but not get rid of jaggies. AF also has less of a performance than AA does.

Edit:
If you aren't overclocking, try a mild overclock on everything.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

You could try forcing CSAA in the Nvidia control panel.

2 core:
http://www.frys-electronics-ads.com...on-II-X2-550-Black-MSI-785GTM-E45-Motherboard

3 core:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.293290

4 core:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.293342

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.293291

 

[gregom]

ill try those tomorrow... so what should I burn $200 on then lol...

 

[WildW]

lowering settings that have the most impact would be resolution and AA... both of which I cannot lower without considerable picture quality degredation. I tried experimenting with lowering texture res and such but didn't seem to make a difference. Which is why I'm thinking its the CPU holding me back.

When you go up in resolution to 1920 or so, GPU memory starts to become more important, especially when you pile on the AA. The 256MB on your 9800 is likely the main problem. I have basically the same card as you (GTS250) but with 1GB of memory, and SHIFT (or rather its demo) runs really well.

I would upgrade GPU before CPU. Perhaps 4870 1GB/4890/GTX260

 

[heyheybooboo]

When you go up in resolution to 1920 or so, GPU memory starts to become more important, especially when you pile on the AA. The 256MB on your 9800 is likely the main problem. I have basically the same card as you (GTS250) but with 1GB of memory, and SHIFT (or rather its demo) runs really well.

I would upgrade GPU before CPU. Perhaps 4870 1GB/4890/GTX260

I'm not a gaming guru but I'd guess this is really holding you back.

Can you force 720p on your LCD and see what difference it makes? I bet it will be substantial.

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[gregom]

Damn i'm sorry i'm retarded... its 512MB not 256MB. Either way i'll try a few of the things mentioned.

I did try 1280x720 and don't recall that helping.

 

[gregom]

Ok i've spent a good deal of time playing NFS SHIFT with the only setting changed being anti aliasing which has been set to 2x. I've played some 10 player single player races and it ran smoothly.

So now i've determined anti aliasing is the problem.... what can I do to solve it? Is the 512 MB onboard RAM for my video card not enough? What card would be good value for money (= or > $200) that will solve my problem? If I won't be moving up much in the GPU area then maybe it's not really worth spending another $200 on only marginally better performance.

So anyone have any suggestions?

 

[lxskllr]

Is low, or no AA a problem? I don't use it in any of my games, and they look good enough. You shouldn't see any jaggies in a fast paced game, and slow paced games aren't as bad with slowdowns.

 

[gregom]

I don't understand your question. I set the AA to 2x and the game now runs smoothly with 6+ AI cars, where before at 8x AA it would slow to 15-20 fps.

Basically i'm trying to find out what video card would solve my AA issues, I would like to turn it back to 8x. But if I am not going to get much of a performance boost for $200 compared to my 9800GTX+ then I wont bother.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

He's saying that buying a new video card over AA isn't worth it but if you still want one then get a GTX 260 or better.

 

[gregom]

Yeah after looking around I don't think it is worth spending money on right now... I'll just keep the AA at 2x I can live with it.

Thanks for the help guys!