Any possible fix for a single core/radeon x1950 pro?

[a dreams forever]

I have a single core pentium 4 3ghz. Recently I have learned that the older single core cpus are bottlenecking the card that I have. My question is, is there anyway to fix this without having to upgrade to a dual core? I don't have any money to upgrade right now. :dead:

 

[kcnychief]

What proof did you find about bottlenecking? Perhaps if you state your issue more clearly we can assist you

 

[a dreams forever]

Read on many forums and read many articles that said that the newer cards can't run to its full potential if you only have a single core cpu. example one would be the new medal of honor. I have what the rec specs are and it still runs at 20 fps. even on med detail. the radeon x1950 is a good card but with my system it is running pretty bad cause of my cpu. I was just wondering if there is any fix. to make games run better. tweaks to my system or my card. hell, even overclocking anything. Pentium 4 3gz, 2g ram, radeon x1950 pro. Even some people on this forum told me that my cpu sucks for gaming. Im just searching for any possible way to make it better without too much image quality loss. its weird. I will run games with full detail and get 20fps. run the same games with the lowest detail and I get the same damn thing.

 

[American Zombie]

I will run games with full detail and get 20fps. run the same games with the lowest detail and I get the same damn thing.

If this is the case then you may have a different problem as lowering setting normally increases FPS.

How many watts is your PSU?

Newer cards need more power and if they do not get enough they clock down into a "safe" mode.

 

[Xie]

If this is the case then you may have a different problem as lowering setting normally increases FPS.

How many watts is your PSU?

Newer cards need more power and if they do not get enough they clock down into a "safe" mode.

Should be pointed out that most video cards these days also clock down if they are overheating, or close to it. Might not be the case but worth investigating. I believe the ATI control panel thingy will show you your cards temp/clock speed.

 

[LeeJend]

Download ATITool.exe to check temperture under load. It runs a small 3D window and you can see the CPU temps climb. 1950 is a very hot CPU so if the system has heat issues it can affect performance.

The P4 is a poor CPU for gaming, but it should do ok with that card. As well as detail level make sure the AA and AF settings are turned off. There are many detail settings and some are a lot more demanding, Like lighting tweak all of them.

 

[a dreams forever]

So your saying with a p4 3ghz this card should be running better? I mean it runs ok. Just I thought it would be alot better than what its running.

I downloaded atitool. I saw nothing about the temp. also looked in the regular ati control panel and nothing there about the temp. and the psu that I have in it is 500 watts.

 

[Xie]

... also looked in the regular ati control panel and nothing there about the temp.

If you have Catalyst Control Center (CCC) installed with the Catalyst drivers it should give you the temp under "ATI Overdrive" in the left menu.

 

[a dreams forever]

Yah I have CCC installed but theres no option like that in the left menu. Looks like the x1950 pro doesn't support ati overdrive?

also, is the omega drivers good to get?

Also. I never upgraded my bios or anything. this is a compaq that i bought from bestbuy heh. I remember my old computer i had to download the via 4 in 1 drivers. do i need to do anything for this? if so, I have no clue wtf i need to download heh.

 

[LeeJend]

The omega drivers are just the ATI drivers with a different set of optimizations set. Personally I did not like them but many here at OSNN swear by them.

There is a tab on ATI tool that shows temps.

How good you think a given video card is performing is subjective. You really have to run multiple cards in the same system to get a feel.

Back to my previous comment you have to go through all the game quality settings and try reducing them one at a time. One minor setting can have a significant effect on FPS depending on your computer. Dynamic lighting kills my X800XL but other settings I can max with no effect.

Don't expect to be able to run a game with everything max'd out unless you have an 8800 GT video card. Even the 2900 may be disappointing in some games with everything max'd.

If you want to check if your card has an issue then download some of the benchmarks and run them. Compare the results to those in our overclcoking section here. The results in the 3dmark website are often extremely overclocked and have to be used for comparison very carefully.

 

[a dreams forever]

I got the newest version of ati tool and there was nothing about temps. and I do that, I play games with lower settings. I play with settings till I get the best framerate. I even tweak the settings in the ini files. I will download some benchmarks and see what I get. thank you all for the help I am getting.


EDIT : wow I never messed with dynamic lighting settings before. I turn them off an I get 40-50 fps at places where I used to get 20.

 

[LeeJend]

Ouch, that hurt. I strained my shoulder patting myself on the back...

Glad I could help.

Dynamic lighting is really cool but it eats my card for lunch. They make explosions and muzzle flash impressive but that's where my card would drop to very low FPS. It would get me killed all the time until I turned it off.

On the bright side keep trying new drivers. ATI did an update last January that let me use dynamic lighting BF2142 with reasonable FPS when I couldn't before.

Here's a guide on adjusting the various options so you might be able to get dynamic lighting enables with decent FPS. From all I can find dynamic lighting should not be affected by the CPU performance. The GPU vertex processing ability is the primary limitation. The 1950XT is one of the best ATI has but it's less than half the vertex rate of the newer Nvidia cards.

http://www.tweakguides.com/STALKER_5.html


On ATI tool:
http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/

I'm using 0.24 on atitool. Click the settings button on the lower right then clcik the menu on the upper right of the new window, just under the Close Wondow X and the drop down will show all the options. Temp monitor is the third item down on the menu.

 

[a dreams forever]

Right now I am using the omega drivers. it seems to be better. I've manage to get the new medal of honor running pretty decent. I messed with the .ini files and found where to turn off all the dynamic shadows. I just have to accept the fact that no matter what I do, my cpu isn't really for gaming heh. BUT I have managed to get Bioshock running at around 40-50 fps constantly on high detail.