Hello, I'm new here. I've come to ask you all for a little bit of help with my situation. My specs: CPU: Core 2 Duo E4300 Motherboard: MSI P965 Neo Graphic Card: XFX GeForce 7600GT RAM: 2GB DDR2-667 SDRAM Operating system: Windows XP Edit: Problem solved, thanks!
Well the graphics card will help A LOT with your frame rates, and a 7600 is a mid-highish range card, but what you said about people playing Crysis on max with no lag, that was with an e6600 and a 8800GTX with 2GB of ram. As for the overclocking question, there really isnt a "easy/beginner" way to do it. You need very good cooling for one. That is probably one of the most important things. Once you get a new heatsink and fan (Zalmans are real good), then all the overclocking is done in the BIOS. So when your PC starts up, press delete (thats what it is for me, it will probably be different for you). Once you get into the BIOS, you need to find where the overclocking settings are located, for me its under "jumper free configuration", but once again, it will probably be different for you. So once you find out where it is, you start upping the Mhz on your cpu, and reboot each couple of times, and if Windows doesnt load, then you need to give the CPU some more voltage to give it more "headroom". Then, you can boot back into the BIOS, and up the Mhz some more. I would say the max for that cpu would be around 3Ghz, so if you get to 2.5, thats fine.
Actually I OC'ed it up to 2.4Ghz but when I run Orthos the temps go up to 75C on CoreTemp! But some people have told me to get the correct temp I have to subtract 15C. I'm not sure what to do about this.
75C in coretemp is reasonable, and to be expected. if your tjunction is 85, don't let it get any higher. if your tjunction is 100, you're fine. (different E4300s have different TJunctions). To overclock further you'll need a better cooler, such as the Freezer 7 Pro, they're not expensive. However, CPU is not your problem, it's your graphics card. The 7600GT is reasonably powerful, but if you're running Bioshock at high setings, then you'll need something with serious beef. Running the game at top settings, my card can only managed 1920x1200, not my full resolution of 2560x1600, and my card's significantly more powerful than a 7600GT. I suggest perhaps you up the graphics card performance to get more out of it. That's very expensive though. if you can't afford one, tough. Overclocking your CPU helps, and indeed can be done on the cheap with an E4300, but it really isn't your problem. If you don't have a lot to spend, you'll have to live with 25fps or turn the settings down until you can afford a meatier graphics card.
Yeah my Tjunction is 100. So I guess it's all good in terms of temp. I forgot to mention that my 7600GT is the Fatal1ty edition, which is noticeably "meatier" than the 7600GT. Currently after OC'ing I am running Bioshock with an average frame rate of 30-35 on high settings. Not to mention Oblivion now runs at 20 more frame rates than normal. Not bad for my first OC I guess. Also, the best way for me to get higher frame rates is that I run 2 7600GT SLI. I think it's worth a shot.
the 7600GT fatality is barely any faster than the 7600GT, in the grand scheme of things. By running an X1950GT, you'd see far higher performance than if you ran two 7600GTs in SLI, and they're cheap too, plus you can then sell the 7600GT.
In the grand scheme of things? Sure. I don't want super 150+ frame rates with 1600x1200 resolution while running on Ultra high quality, I just want 30+ fps on high(ish) settings, which so far I've accomplished with every game I have. And now I have a 10-20 fps boost. I couldn't be happier (yes I could ). But instead of getting a new GPU completely I can just run it SLI. It literally doubles the performance, which could almost match high end GPUs, kinda. Like you said if I don't have enough $$$$ for the latest GPUs, which I don't, then tough. So I'm going for the next best thing.
If only the double in performance were true. It's not true of all games, so a better GPU is always the better option. Besides, as I mentioned it works out cheaper to run a better GPU anyway.
Yeah I guess you're right. I'll probably do so anyway, as long as my CPU can keep up. Maybe when something like Crysis comes along I'll get myself one.
Funny, the only game people ever mention with regard to future upgrades is Crysis. I had no idea it was so popular.
It's not because of its graphics, I mean, it even has a lower system requirement than BioShock. But it's about gameplay. In Crysis you can interact with all objects in a realistic way. Most objects are destructible, you can blow cars in many different ways (depending where you shoot), you can shoot trees to the point that they fall over (maybe even on your enemies), etc.. If you take cover in a bunch of plants your enemies might find you if they see the plants' movement. It's really realistic in so many ways plus the maps are HUGE which allows non-linear ways to reach your goal, but you can know all that from the previews. I just think people mention Crysis because of how it realistically simulates natural environment and objects plus of how they'll react to anything. Which others might think could really stress on their GPUs, hence the reason they use it in regard to upgrading.
Well, I'll be ready, but I sure as hell won't be ready to run it at 2560x1600, no chance on that for a long time yet I suspect.
I'm planning for a 1024x768 at high-ultra high. But this is all speculation of course, since it's so new no one really knows how much power it'll need from a GPU. Although, the minimum requirements are sort of low and anyone with a mid-high range build passes the recommended requirements. Crysis: Minimum Requirements CPU: Athlon 64 3000+/Intel 2.8ghz Graphics: Nvidia 6600 or ATI X1600 - Shader Model 2.0 RAM: 1GB HDD: 6GB Internet: 256k+ Optical Drive: DVD Software: DX9 with Windows XP / Vista Recommended Requirements CPU: Dual-Core CPU (Athlon X2 / Pentium D / Core 2 Duo) Graphics: Nvidia 7800 or ATI X1800 (SM 3.0) RAM: 1.5GB+ HDD: 6GB Internet: 512k+ (128k+ upstream) Optical Drive: DVD Software: DX9 with Windows XP / Vista
Yeah I reckon the 7600GT could do that. 1280x1024 and it would struggle, I reckon 1440x900 is about as far as I'll get with ultra detail (since I use widescreen). 1680x1050 would be nice, but I'm not expecting it. Bioshock runs fine at 1920x1200, but Stalker and Vegas don't.
You know, I realized that once I got BioShock down to 1024x768 I get 10 extra fps, which makes it average about 40-45 fps average and the loss in detail is barely noticeable. So I did just that, I took all my games down to 1024x768 and it gave me plenty more frame rates for a tiny visual quality loss, usually just jagged edges, and if I add AA it doesn't look different at all from my other res, it's a good way to get lots of performance while keeping most visual quality. That's what I'm going for with Crysis and all the new games coming out. But the reason why Stalker and Vegas won't work well with that res is because they are much more intense than BioShock. Of course it's in terms of numbers of enemies and pace of the game, which are both higher than BioShock which would it make harder for your GPU to process.
Heres a screenshot of the Crysis website before they removed the recommended specs: Just postin it...
It'll be one or two DVDs. Don't forget that's installed space, not size on the DVD. It could be a dual layer DVD (and probably will be) which means up to 9GB on the DVD, and once it's extracted to your hard drive, 9GB of data could be expanded to 16GB, it could still potentially be one disc.
I don't buy it, the maximum size for any game I've seen is 6GBs. I don't think it would be 16GBs, it's just too much for one game. Besides, logically 10 extra GBs than the newest games is a bit radical for one that's coming out in 2007.
