31 replies to this topic

[thudo]

I think yer good in waiting just like 2-3 months OR until Intel releases their next Quad or AMD gets their frick'n act together to stomp on Intel with a true 4x4 processor. We need competition to keep the warring parties' brains simulated

[Malkor]

I was thinking of getting a twin quad core system, but that would be ridiculous. Barely anything even uses dual core, right now. If it's in my price range, though... maybe I'll do the insane.

[Blodo]

Exactly why I'm not even trying to upgrade my processor. Dual core ain't even supported by a good deal of games which not only means no performance boosts but performance drops, and that's just unacceptable.

Unsurprisingly the processor is a bottleneck in my config. OCing the proc from 1,8 to 2,2ghz however gave me such a boost in performance it was stupid. Though I have to admit: when not clocked, the AI mod puts a large strain on the computer. Might be me not disabling Norton, but still..

[thudo]

Of course a Conroe E6400 and up + OC'ing it will give you massive benefits in DC and all other games. They've long since done real-world tests on games with Conroes and they blow away the fastest AMD could thrown at em. Factor in OC'ing and the fact Conroes have dropped in price since their Quad was introduced in November and its a great time even now to upgrade. However.. its always a waiting game to get cheaper. So remember, single core in a Conroe is waayyy faster than anything AMD or even Intel's last gen processors could handle and thats even before OC'ing.

[Malkor]

Previously I didn't like to OC since it could get to 100 degrees F in my room with the computer off, but since I've moved from that hellhole into a place a little cooler, I'll probably end up OCing my new computer (This one gets unstable for some reason o.O)

I think a Crossfire R600 would be equivelent to lighting a scorpy on fire, though. I wonder if I'll be able to shave by using my computer as a flamethrower. I can't wait to find out!

Edited by Malkor, 02 January 2007 - 07:11 AM.

[thudo]

Well when ever running a computer in a room, the room temp is as important as the temp in, obviously hence the reason server rooms are refridgerated! My case around the front and back of it stays around 21-23c (based on two temp indicators) and my Oc'ed cpu idles @ 39c and the most I see it when I'm converting a 320mb mp4 to avi is ~43c. Running DC it usually maxes out @ 42c. with alot of action and AIs killine each other.

So yes.. don't think about OC'ing a system or building one for that matter IF you don't first determine how warm your room is. ALWAYS do the groundwork. Even if you water/phase cool the CPU, GPU, and Memory its still important to have a decently cool room (~21-25c). Keeping the Mobo cool and other components like HDDs cool is just as important.

[Malkor]

Actually the only heating issues I've seen is my HD's. I know that once I start doing some serious video work (high-definition game recording is something I plan to do on the new comp) my HD's are gonna need to be cooled.

[thudo]

HDDs get hot? What are they? Newer SATA2 .10 drives are cooler, quieter, and faster than their predessors. You have temp sensor near them to determine their temps vs, say, the CPU or GPU?

[Malkor]

These are IDE drives so that's probably at least one thing accounting for them. I can use BIOS and external/internal temps. One HD was running at 25c and one was running at 4c or something obscure like that at one point. My CPU probably idles around 20-30, no idea about GPU but I doubt it gets that hot.

[LarkinVB]

Get the speedfan utility and you can read the temp sensor of most HD drives.

[Seven_Force]

Hey thudd and Arkhan. Guess no one else had my problem eh? Remember, the VERY slight jitters in the framerate only affected the camera panning/zooming and will only occur during camera panning/zooming toward the start of a match. Nothing else is affected in the least for me. IE, infantry animation doesn't stutter or anything. You guys might as well delete/lock this topic then. lol, it's barely noticeable like I said. Good luck with version 2.2! (which I'll download as well.) I plugged your mod at gamefaqs.com too! see ya...

[ThetaOrion]

I have complete freeze up while panning around the horizon at the start of every match -- on the large maps. It has been there ever since I bought Dark Crusade, from the beginning as far as I know. Dark Crusade is a resource hog compared to WA and DoW. Iirc, if I did any large 1024X512 map with DC plain vanilla, I had the exact same problems -- complete freezup and lag at the beginning of every game.

The bottleneck is the Hard Drive!

On large maps, it takes two or three minutes just to load the map, and then after the map is loaded and the game is started, the SoundBlaster Live still stutters a bit as the sound is loaded further or as the sound card gets ahead of the Hard Drive loadup. And if I pan the horizon, the thing just freezes up while it continues to load all the decals and objects and textures and scenery from the hard drive. Once all the crap is loaded from the hard drive and into the 1 gig of RAM memory and 256MB of GPU memory, after about 30 seconds, then I can spin around the horizon looking at the all scenery in real time and all is normal and just fine thereafter.

With the large maps, at least with my system, DC has to have time to get all the crap loaded into memory, and then it's all back to normal.

I have an Nforce2 mobo, Athlon XP running at 2200Mhz, and I have a nice AGP Geforce 6800GS to go with it. I turn Shadows off as they cause lag during the game and are buggy, and I have persistent bodies and persistent scarring to LOW, which can also feed the lag on large maps, and the rest of the stuff is HIGH in the graphics options, and once the first minute is past and I have done my first pan around the horizon getting all the stuff loaded into memory, then all is fine. I also play at 1024X768 32bit with 75Mhz or 85Mhz refresh rate. The lower the refresh rate, the better the performance, and of course, the lower the resolution the better the performance.

But, my friend Aralez has been complaining about all my maps lagging on him. I make big maps, that's for sure. He has some sort of Athlon XP, I do believe, and a 6600GT Geforce, the last I heard. But, he said he's running at 1280X1024 -- no wonders he's getting lag during the game itself!! He can only run those small survival maps of his at 1280X1024 without any lag. I imagine I'd have lag, too, at that resolution. Alas, my monitor is an ADI Microscan, an older 17 inch monitor, but nice and crisp and clear at 1024X768, one of the sharpest I have ever seen at that resolution. But, my monitor is too soft at 1280X1024 or at the 1600X1280 or whatever it is. It will go there, and I have had it there at times with HomeWorld and Homeworld II, but it looks best by far at 1024X768, which I believe it was designed and optimized around.

My whole rig sure plays DC and this AI Skirmish Mod just fine, thank you, as long as I get past the first pan and the first minute freezeups while all the stuff is being loaded into memory. It's still a pretty good system, and I'm waiting for Dual Core support and Vista SP1 and DX10c and drivers an updates for my programs before I get into all of that stuff. I'm saving for a new system, but, it's still too early to jump. A year or two from now, all the kinks with the new hardware and with Vista will be worked out of it by others, and then it will be good stuff. The Intel 1333FSB processors will be out, and there will be DDR2 1333 ram affordable for them by then, and Intel will be at 45nm process for even cooler processors, and the EVGA 680i mobo bugs will be ironed out and at a different level. They might even have an affordable flash drive to complement your Raptor and get you faster bootup of Vista by then. It's gonna change a lot the next year as Vista and DX10 is debugged and settles in.

Anyway, I can't really pin this first minute lag or freezup on the AI Skirmish Mod, as Dark Crusade just lagged more and took longer to load up, right from the very beginning when I switched from Dark Crusade to WA. Same rig, just a lot slower loadup and a few moments more lag here and there when switching to all new scenery on the minimap or some such, until the new scenery or crap is loaded, and then back to normal again. It's a DC thing, I do believe, and those of us with machines on the borderline will probably notice it most. Thank goodness I have one of those new 320MB WD drives that was rated as being one of the fastest loading HD's out there for IDE. That thing cut 20 seconds of my WinXP bootup. And, if I had a Raptor, I could probably cut my XP bootup and the DC loadup and the DC initial freeze times in half as well. It's the hard drive that's the bottleneck!!

Edited by ThetaOrion, 21 January 2007 - 12:30 AM.