Keeping Up With The Jonses

[ceevee]

this has nothing to do with the new Indiana movie but has everything to do with my new rig. benchmarked and stressed here are the results for my (overdue) new rig:

Abit IP35 Pro (SLI ready for the future)
Q6600 2.40GHz overclocked @ 3.30GHz
XFX 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 @ 950/650MHz
4Gb DDR2 @1066MHz Crucial Ballistix Tracer
Antec Nine Hundred Case
Corsair TX 650W PSU
Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit

3dmark 2006 (http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=6877189)
3dmark 2005 (http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=4295402)
5998 points on Vantage (bloody stupid 1-off benchmark if you don't shell out some lolly meh)

Crysis Batch Tests @ Very High/1600*1200/4xAA
CPU1 21fps
CPU2 15fps
GPU 20fps

Crysis Batch Tests @ Medium/1280*1024/No AA
CPU1 65fps
CPU2 43fps
GPU 63fps

oh.. and Pro Evolution Soccer runs like a dream haha albeit i have to manually alter the maximum memory to 3072Mb via msconfig to actually get 3d graphics!!

[BaneNWN]

this has nothing to do with the new Indiana movie but has everything to do with my new rig. benchmarked and stressed here are the results for my (overdue) new rig:

Abit IP35 Pro (SLI ready for the future)
Q6600 2.40GHz overclocked @ 3.30GHz
XFX 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 @ 950/650MHz
4Gb DDR2 @1066MHz Crucial Ballistix Tracer
Antec Nine Hundred Case
Corsair TX 650W PSU
Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit

3dmark 2006 (http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=6877189)
3dmark 2005 (http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=4295402)
5998 points on Vantage (bloody stupid 1-off benchmark if you don't shell out some lolly meh)

Crysis Batch Tests @ Very High/1600*1200/4xAA
CPU1 21fps
CPU2 15fps
GPU 20fps

Crysis Batch Tests @ Medium/1280*1024/No AA
CPU1 65fps
CPU2 43fps
GPU 63fps

oh.. and Pro Evolution Soccer runs like a dream haha albeit i have to manually alter the maximum memory to 3072Mb via msconfig to actually get 3d graphics!!

ok now im jealous.nice rig u got there if ya can do a aquamark 3 test id be curious to see what u get.

[Mochan]

Looks sweet but I'm surprised you decided to get a Q6600? Is it for future proofing? I am not sure if Quad Core is mature enough right now.

But man that is one awesome rig oooh green eyed monster.

[ceevee]

for what i've gathered the performance increase from a Q6600 to the higher clocked quads is marginal for current games. guru3d (http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/) confirmd what i thought. i know that there are obviously higher clock freq out there but as the Q6600 is highly overclockable at air cooling i couldn't justify the expense.. i mean its almost £100 extr for a Q6700 for little gains and the QX series is overkill. when it comes to maturity i agree the quads have some way to reach perfection but as i see it (and so does guru3d) it'll take a while for games to catch up. heck i'm getting smoother gameplay on Crysis than i expected even with all the bells and whistles on. no choppiness yet!

nonetheless, the Q6600 may not be the gold standard for modern PCs but that's why i bought the IP35 based motherboard. if games demand more raw power than what i've got now then a new QX will slot in along with another 8800GTX in SLI. but i doubt i'll be upgrading til 2010 when my PC will hopefully be able to do this:

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oh have you heard of the new Penryn based skulltrail that's a double quad core design? madness sheer madness :devil:

[ceevee]

ok now im jealous.nice rig u got there if ya can do a aquamark 3 test id be curious to see what u get.

aquamark 3 isn't vitsa x64 friendly. i googled to see if my results were 'normal' and they were. maybe the benchmark acts a bit gay around 4Gb ram? anyways for all you guys to laugh at:

121,000 points :blush2:

[Mochan]

There is an Aquamark run around Youtube where the thing took like 5 seconds to finish. The guy had a super clocked quadcore, DDR3, and Sli 8800GTX or something like that. It was hilarious!

[Mochan]

I was able to play Crysis fine but it had bits of choppiness here and there when loading stuff, and I had to play on High settings only (no Vista so no Ultra High). I think that with a faster FSB, CPU and RAM I would have been able to play it more or less lagfree.

[BaneNWN]

aquamark 3 isn't vitsa x64 friendly. i googled to see if my results were 'normal' and they were. maybe the benchmark acts a bit gay around 4Gb ram? anyways for all you guys to laugh at:

121,000 points :blush2:

121k is nothing to laugh at lol.i only scored 94k stock with mine.Im sure vista hinders performance i bet if ya had xp you would have been 130k+ easily

[BaneNWN]

There is an Aquamark run around Youtube where the thing took like 5 seconds to finish. The guy had a super clocked quadcore, DDR3, and Sli 8800GTX or something like that. It was hilarious!
fastest i seen i think was 286'000 aquamark think it took like 18 seconds

[Mochan]

Something like that. :)

[ceevee]

I was able to play Crysis fine but it had bits of choppiness here and there when loading stuff, and I had to play on High settings only (no Vista so no Ultra High). I think that with a faster FSB, CPU and RAM I would have been able to play it more or less lagfree.
there is a way of playing pseudo Very High settings (no such thing as Ultra i think).

find C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis\Game\Config\CVarGroups folder. you'll see some sys_spec cfg files. back up each cfg file first then open up one at a time and edit as this:

select all thats between = 4 and [1]
then copy and then paste to overwrite all thats below [3]
then save

for example the new sys_spec_Full should have:

[3]
i_lighteffects = 1
g_ragdollMinTime = 15.0
g_ragdollUnseenTime = 2
g_ragdollDistance = 40.0
g_battleDust_enable = 1

do this for each file et voilà very high settings for WinXP PCs. its also mean the game will basically run at dix9 instead of dix10 mode and to be honest from screenshots and wotnot there isn't much difference bar the framerate penalty with dirX10

be aware that this'll overwrite all your high settings and will likely cause further slow down (of which i have yet to experience har )

i just wish i was any good at FPS :( i am utterly useless at shooters and this game reminds my why haha. i keep trying to avoid combat to the point that in the Dr Rozenthal mission where you break into the school to free the hostage i took the scenic coastal route then jumped up over the cliffs found a tunnel and motorway leading to an empty rear of the fortification and tried stealth all the way to the school!

Garrett has a lot to answer for :D

[ceevee]

i've been playing crysis on and off these past weeks and am at the last level now.. fighting the hunter bit. its not a bad game considering how i normally don't touch FPS with a barge pole. there was lag at the Exodus level which annoyed (so resorted to 1600 res with 4xAA)but other than that it was playable throughout

i loaded up Bioshock to se what the fuss was about. i've played the whole of 5 minutes and found its blocky port-convertion graphics quite nauseating lol. i'll give it some chance a little later on but crysis has me demanding fine graphic detail for everything i play now