Nvidia Video Card on an ATI chpiset MOBO

[jdiego82]

Hey, guys. I'm fairly new to the OCClub community and to a lot of the jargon you guys use here, so I'd appreciate it if you could answer in a way that an amateur 16-year old PC gaming enthusiast would understand.

 

So, I have a Palit GeForce GTS 250 1GB GDDR3 Green Edition video card hooked up to my K9A Platinum AM2 RD580 Crossfire-ready (which has an ATI chipset) MOBO with an AMD Athlon X2 5000+ 2.6 Ghz processor with Windows 7 64-bit installed. I have a 1280x1024 LCD monitor hooked up to my rig.

 

The problem is that I have inconsistent in-game framerates depending on the game. For example, DMC4 runs on an average of 80 FPS with x16CQAA and with all the settings maxed (except for V-sync). The Supreme Commander games (1, FA, and 2) never drop below 50 fps with all settings maxed and x16CQAA on, too. But games like Crysis Warhead, Just Cause 2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Metro 2033 struggle to get above 30-40 fps on more modest settings (in 1280x1024 res). I know from benchmarks and youtube videos that my system should be more than enough to handle those games in their highest settings without lag.

 

I can see plants popping up in Crysis (1072x768 resolution, 0xAA, Gamer settings) while it gives me an average of 35 fps. I had to set JC2 to the lowest settings possible to be able to play in the city environment (29 fps average). The framerates in BF:BC2 and Metro 2033 can go as high as 80 fps to as low as 10fps depending on where I look on-screen.

 

I have the latest Nvidia drivers installed (197.13). The PSU isn't the problem, as it is a 550W unit, more than enough to power the whole setup. I haven't encountered any BSOD's, auto-system shutdowns, GPU overheating, processor overheating, and/or any other system failures relating to power supply and hardware malfunctions. There are no viruses, trojans and/or spywares installed on my computer, as Avast! has detected none during my full system scan three hours ago. I've flashed my MOBO bios to the latest version (1.9, Feb. 2010). While playing, my Athlon X2 5000+ has a peak of 73% (seen in task manager), so I assume it's not a processor bottleneck.

 

My card's specs:

GeForce GTS 250

Driver Version: 197.13

CUDA Cores (I assume that these are my shader cores): 128

Core Clock: 702 Mhz

Shader Clock: 1512 Mhz

Memory Clock: 900 Mhz (1800 Mhz data rate)

Memory Interface: 256-bit

Dedicated Video Memory: 1024 MB

 

Oh, and it's inserted into the MOBO's PCI-e x16 bus, not into a PCI-e 2.0 bus, as the K9A Platinum does not support PCI-e 2.0.

 

Any ideas?

[ScapeGoat]

I don't think there isn't really anything wrong with your system and it has nothing to do with the Nvidia GPU on an AMD chipset.

 

The games you mentioned demand a lot and I think the frame rates are normal for your system.

 

My opinion? The CPU. All the games you mentioned rely heavily on the CPU and yours isn't really that good. Overclock it and you shall see a noticeable improvement but don't expect miracles.

[ccokeman]

Your video card is going to be ok at modest settings and resolutions but it is not going to run Just Cause 2 or Crysis at anything close to max settings. Just as an Example.

 

I did some just cause 2 testing the other day and at 1920x1200 with a GTX 260/216 and core i7 at 3.0GHz I was getting frame rates of around 25 with just about everything enabled. Turning off GPU rendered water will help you in this game. But there is no way you will Run Crysis at max settings on a GTS 250/9800GTX/8800GT 512. It just does not have the graphics horsepower.

[jdiego82]

Thanks for the quick replies, guys. Although I agree that my rig is a bit underpowered, it expected at least 30-40 fps with the games on a 1072x768 or 1280x1024 resolution. Guess I'll have to settle for 30 average fps on JC2 and Crysis.

[ScapeGoat]

Thanks for the quick replies, guys. Although I agree that my rig is a bit underpowered, it expected at least 30-40 fps with the games on a 1072x768 or 1280x1024 resolution. Guess I'll have to settle for 30 average fps on JC2 and Crysis.

 

Your graphics card is able to handle those games at that resolution even at high settings but like I said before your CPU isn't very good for gaming specially at those clocks.

 

BTW, what's your PSU brand?

[jdiego82]

It's an HEC PSU.

[ccokeman]

Your graphics card is able to handle those games at that resolution even at high settings but like I said before your CPU isn't very good for gaming specially at those clocks.

 

BTW, what's your PSU brand?

 

He is GPU bound in those games not CPU bound. I could put in a GTS 250 to prove that point with a 4.2Ghz 920 but not really worth the effort.

[ScapeGoat]

He is GPU bound in those games not CPU bound. I could put in a GTS 250 to prove that point with a 4.2Ghz 920 but not really worth the effort.

 

At those resolutions I don't really think so. He may not be able to max everything out but even at high settings the GTS250 can handle itself. The problems he is experiencing in my opinion come from the CPU, especially on Bad Company 2 and Metro 2033 which bot rely a lot on the CPU.

Edited April 16, 2010 by ScapeGoat

[joel.monteiro]

Crysis warhead in enthusiast settings at the res 1920x1080 i get like 25 to 47 fps at x2 anti- analyzing

just cause 2 works very weirdly even in the benchmarks when u are looking at the ground or something close like a building or ur in a city the fps is 30 - 29 fix just doesnt change but when ur looking at something far or ur flying a plane i get a fix 60 -59 fps and ran the sunset benchmark the same thing happen it was 30 for close views and 60 for far views and on a average 46

ive heard of people facing bottle neck if they have an Nvidia chipset and ati card not the other way around.

[_TheAlexO]

do you have the stock heatsink/fan on your cpu?

 

you can try overclocking a little, thats free power. just to see if it helps you out any.

[Waco]

ive heard of people facing bottle neck if they have an Nvidia chipset and ati card not the other way around.

You've heard wrong then. The chipset doesn't care in the slightest what card it's running.

[joel.monteiro]

Whts the Real purpose of a chipset in performance??