Chinwhe Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 The day I can run around in Tatooine without seeing a "green laser wall" here & there, my feet are no longer sinking into a metal floor about 2 inches, my cape deosn't glitch and wrap around me, and they finally get with the times and at least use DX10, is the day I will be more open to the notion of my hardware causing my problems. Otherwise, it seems to me as though there are some glitches in the game code that may or may not be causeing some FPS issues. How is it that a DX9 game would be harder to run than a DX11 game? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cooltrip Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Try bumping the RAM up to 8gb. Not as costly an upgrade as cpu could be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Culveren Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Current system specs: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 @ 2.5GHz 4GB DDR2 memory Radeon HD 6870 (1GB) Windows 7 SP1 64bit Game Settings: Everything on High (shadows off), 4xAA, 1920x1080 (native monitor resolution). For the most part my frame rate is always above 35FPS, probably more around the 45-50FPS mark. However when in areas with a lot of people like Imperial Fleet, I get between 5-20FPS. I realize in dense areas this will happen because there is far more background calculations going, but I thought it is handled by the CPU since reducing my graphic settings to Low and disabling AA doesn't improve my FPS much at all. I've started monitoring CPU usage which never seems to go above 70%, and Memory usage is at about 3GB (~2GB of it being used by SWTOR). If the game isn't even using all of the resources available to it, would upgrading to an i7, new mainboard and 16GB DDR3 ram help increase my FPS in this situation? New mother board + CPu would help, i would stick to 8 GIGS of ram. For the time being a nice over clock to 3 GHZ or so would be a good upgrade. I was getting 50 to 60 FPS with my 3.3 GHZ 1100T but at 4.0 GHZ that number is a good 15 FPS higher at all times, with 40 being my absolute lowest in fleet. Of course my GPU is a 6950 which is faster than yours, but its not a huge difference. Also people that are suggesting DDR2 as holding you back are wrong regarding core 2 quads, There is no noticeable gain for the core 2 quad series in terms of performance for for DDr3 ram versus ddr2, ddr3 is just needed for the i5s and i7s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texel Posted January 9, 2012 Author Share Posted January 9, 2012 When you get that spike of FPS your cpu and mobo can't process information fast enough for the GPU to render it. If you lag all the time with high settings i'd bet its your GPU (if the hardware is somewhat ok). If your in a area with not a lot of people around and things dont lag (unless you jump in a area with a lot of people). I'd bet it's a cpu, mobo and ram bottle necking. So anything faster then like a gtx 260 or so is somewhat of a waste and will be bottle necked (can't process information fast enough to really take full effect of that new card). Thank you for explaining that. gpu-z Forgive my lack of knowledge, but what specifically in GPU-Z tells me the GPU usage/load? Everything seems to be about temperature and voltage. And finally your GPU is not a fast one. Its a budget GPU so you can't expect to run games flawlessly. I bought it when it came out. It was considered top of the line but at today's date I know its not high-end. However calling it a "budget GPU" is wrong. That would be calling a nVidia GTX560Ti budget as well... http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html If a 560Ti is budget, then a 570GTX is low-end and 580GTX is mid-range to you? Not much else to work with... lol Anyway lets not make this an argument about where to class my GPU. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marmerus Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Thank you for explaining that. Forgive my lack of knowledge, but what specifically in GPU-Z tells me the GPU usage/load? Everything seems to be about temperature and voltage. I bought it when it came out. It was considered top of the line but at today's date I know its not high-end. However calling it a "budget GPU" is wrong. That would be calling a nVidia GTX560Ti budget as well... http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html If a 560Ti is budget, then a 570GTX is low-end and 580GTX is mid-range to you? Not much else to work with... lol Anyway lets not make this an argument about where to class my GPU. Budget GPU is a GPU that offers good performance for the money. A low end GPU is a GPU that performs poorly. In GPU-Z try the sensors tab and find "GPU LOAD". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texel Posted January 9, 2012 Author Share Posted January 9, 2012 Budget GPU is a GPU that offers good performance for the money. A low end GPU is a GPU that performs poorly. Fair enough. I guess a few of us took the term budget in the wrong context. In GPU-Z try the sensors tab and find "GPU LOAD". I'm at work right now and the screenshots (I guess for an older version) didn't show that. I'll take a look when I download it at home. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmack Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Fair enough. I guess a few of us took the term budget in the wrong context. I'm at work right now and the screenshots (I guess for an older version) didn't show that. I'll take a look when I download it at home. Thank you. More so a good GPU made with very cheap material. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texel Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 When you get that spike of FPS your cpu and mobo can't process information fast enough for the GPU to render it. If you lag all the time with high settings i'd bet its your GPU (if the hardware is somewhat ok). If your in a area with not a lot of people around and things dont lag (unless you jump in a area with a lot of people). I'd bet it's a cpu, mobo and ram bottle necking. So anything faster then like a gtx 260 or so is somewhat of a waste and will be bottle necked (can't process information fast enough to really take full effect of that new card). I downloaded GPU-Z and tested it for a while. Generally GPU usage sits around 60-70%, however when in the middle of the Imperial Fleet its at 0% (~9FPS). If I stand around the GTN area my FPS increases to 25-30 and GPU usage shows ~30%. To my understanding this would put what rmack said spot on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marmerus Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 I downloaded GPU-Z and tested it for a while. Generally GPU usage sits around 60-70%, however when in the middle of the Imperial Fleet its at 0% (~9FPS). If I stand around the GTN area my FPS increases to 25-30 and GPU usage shows ~30%. To my understanding this would put what rmack said spot on. Then your Q9300 is slower than my older Q6600 computer. Sounds more like you are having some problems with either hardware or software in your computer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghostfaced Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 Your processor is bad. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-overclocking,3052-5.html Yours falls somewhere between the i3 2100, and a cheez-it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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