So what is this comp's bottleneck?!?!?!?!?!

[Artonox]

Ok, using Counter Strike Source as the game to check about my graphic cards' power, I used to get 50 fps average with my 8800gt 256mb at 1680x1050 res (or something like that) with everything around high.

Now, wanting to maximise the fps, I upgraded to 4870 512mb and guess what? Precisely the same average 50fps. Wtf?! I was expecting MAXED fps by this beast D: So the question is, what is going on? How come this literally have the same performace as the 8800gt?

My main specs:
AMD Phenom 9500 (2.2ghz)
4gb PC6400 ram
4870 512mb
Razer Barracuda Sound Card
coolermaster 600W PSU (dunno what model but I dont think it matters)

Stuff that might be of use:
Runs 64bit Windows 7
CSS is a 32bit application
Lowest score in my Windows Scoring thing is 5.9 - by the 1tb sata hard drive
In the highest driver vers.

I have already posted this in another forum and the general idea is that the CPU might be the bottleneck. Are there any other suggestions?

 

[Jonathan_King]

Welcome Atenax,

Unless you have a Solid State drive, your hard drive will usually be the bottleneck. You can only run as fast as your slowest link.

 

[Artonox]

so is my hard drive the reason why i cant get 100+ fps on CSS then?

 

[Jonathan_King]

I'm not sure about graphics, but I know in most circumstances, that is the bottleneck.

 

[pparks1]

I don't profess to be a fountain of knowledge when it comes to video cards, but is there really a massive difference between an Nvidia 8800GT and an ATI 4870? The CPU is certainly going to have an impact. And your hard drive would primary cause slower loading times...but I don't think would have a big impact on FPS?

 

[damoh]

hi
Right looking over your specs, i see nothing that would prevent you from getting above 100 fps. Remember when evaluating CSS that its 6 years old and when it was released we were entering the P4 age, which was not 2.2 ghz. I dont think that the HDD is even an issue. However i know im goner welcome people flaming me for saying its not your CPU. Like i say remember its a 6 year old game, not bioshock. So this leaves us with other things. have you got a custom config? One of those FPS Configs? Such as bens or similar? Do you play the same server all the time or change to random publics? Have you checked your FPS on all servers you go on? Let me know the answers to that and i might be able to suggest other things. Dont blame hardware too easily for failing to get above 50 fps. I run win7 64 with a 8800gts 512 card and get 190fps on average.


However ill check around, im not saying its NOT hardware, but those specs seem more then able to run css. One more thing, when u changed cards, did you properly uninstall the nvidia stuff before installing the ATI? Or did you clean install?

 

[Fumz]

Hard drives have zero impact on fps. The only thing games use hard drives for is loading; after the game is loaded, everything is done in RAM.

Yes, technically speaking, your HD is your system's "bottleneck", per se, but that does not explain away your low fps as it has nothing to do with it.

 

[Artonox]

hi
Right looking over your specs, i see nothing that would prevent you from getting above 100 fps. Remember when evaluating CSS that its 6 years old and when it was released we were entering the P4 age, which was not 2.2 ghz. I dont think that the HDD is even an issue. However i know im goner welcome people flaming me for saying its not your CPU. Like i say remember its a 6 year old game, not bioshock. So this leaves us with other things. have you got a custom config? One of those FPS Configs? Such as bens or similar? Do you play the same server all the time or change to random publics? Have you checked your FPS on all servers you go on? Let me know the answers to that and i might be able to suggest other things. Dont blame hardware too easily for failing to get above 50 fps. I run win7 64 with a 8800gts 512 card and get 190fps on average.


However ill check around, im not saying its NOT hardware, but those specs seem more then able to run css. One more thing, when u changed cards, did you properly uninstall the nvidia stuff before installing the ATI? Or did you clean install?

In quick answers to your questions, its just plain CSS and none of those modifiers that are optional. I usually play on two to three servers and all report roughly about the same thing (the servers reside in UK and the US) - i leave the "show fps" thing on to see. What I have done since i posted was to clear all the drivers properly (using a driver sweeper) as I realised that some was not properly uninstalled. I have also updated the mobo bios, reinstalled the 4870 bios and reinstalled the 4870 drivers.

On the CSS stress test now, i get 90fps over 70fps in i forgot to mention btw (*havent played enough to see if its an improvement of 50fps in real time server games) - still shy of what i really want though.

Summary:
Before changes:
Stress test gives 70-75fps
Real time gameplay gives 50fps

After changes:
Stress test gives 90fps
Dunnot about real times yet

EDIT: no real significant improvement in servers after playing around for a bit (it still likes to drop in the 30-40 or lower zone when there is 5-7 players on the screen shooting in a deathmap server) and it seems that the stress test reports back to 78 fps once again after that.

EDIT2: if it helps, the drivers used in the Razer Barracuda are meant for XP - Razer still aint finished with the W7 Drivers for this sound card.

 

[damoh]

hi
Ok, so to summarize, you are noticing a difference, albeit not much. The previous post regarding hdd's was spot on, and as you have 4 gig of ram CSS should be fine once loaded into ram. Thing is that a lot of servers, ( the ones i sell included) unless you specify that you want a 500fps or a 1000 fps server, they will always be setup to 100.
However with you mentioning that your real time stress tests report 90 out of game im assuming, then i would defo say were looking at a software problem. There is no reason that i can see of that your setup shouldn't be getting at least 150 fps, with that g/card. Out of curiosity, what internet connection do you have?
Ill keep looking around and report back anything i find. Short of a full reinstall ( which i think would help) this might be a bit sticky as your hardware, as far as i can see is more then sufficient to run CSS maxed out.

 

[damoh]

Welcome Atenax,

Unless you have a Solid State drive, your hard drive will usually be the bottleneck. You can only run as fast as your slowest link.

Very true, yet i this case his hard drive is the slowest link imho, but its not used after the inital loading into ram.

 

[Billy]

I don't profess to be a fountain of knowledge when it comes to video cards, but is there really a massive difference between an Nvidia 8800GT and an ATI 4870? The CPU is certainly going to have an impact. And your hard drive would primary cause slower loading times...but I don't think would have a big impact on FPS?

Here is an article on graphics cards, there should be a noticable difference, especially in higher resolutions, between the Nvidia 8800GT and the ATI 4870.

Far Cry 2 PC VGA Graphics performance review

 

[Frostmourne]

Your CPU is useless. 2.2GHz of slow quad cores is not conducive to gaming. It will not push the GPU which is not being utilized properly.

 

[ccatlett1984]

Your CPU is useless. 2.2GHz of slow quad cores is not conducive to gaming. It will not push the GPU which is not being utilized properly.

This coming from a guy with a phenom logo as his avitar. I wonder if your computer support faster ram? You are running ddr-800, if the board supports ddr-1066 you would have a large increase in transfer speed of in-ram data to the video card.

Read the following thread:
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5549636

 

[Frostmourne]

Your CPU is useless. 2.2GHz of slow quad cores is not conducive to gaming. It will not push the GPU which is not being utilized properly.

This coming from a guy with a phenom logo as his avitar. I wonder if your computer support faster ram? You are running ddr-800, if the board supports ddr-1066 you would have a large increase in transfer speed of in-ram data to the video card.

Read the following thread:
Bottleknecks Help On Understanding Them - Overclockers Forums

The laptop processor in my system specs is better than this slow quad-core - games need high clock speed combined with cache and architecture - and 2.2GHz will choke any modern game. As for transfer speed, that will be negligible, quantity counts for RAM, not speed (as much).

 

[ccatlett1984]

I beg to differ on pure hertz being the defining spec. I happen to run close to that setup, and have no lag issues at all. I only play on lan servers, but my fps never drops below 60.

 

[Frostmourne]

I beg to differ on pure hertz being the defining spec. I happen to run close to that setup, and have no lag issues at all. I only play on lan servers, but my fps never drops below 60.

Lan is different to Crysis - and I did mention cache+architecture. Clock speed is important along with these two for games. Have you tried Crysis on high at 1920x1080?

 

[ccatlett1984]

I beg to differ on pure hertz being the defining spec. I happen to run close to that setup, and have no lag issues at all. I only play on lan servers, but my fps never drops below 60.

Lan is different to Crysis - and I did mention cache+architecture. Clock speed is important along with these two for games. Have you tried Crysis on high at 1920x1080?

The OP is playing CSS, did you pull Crysis out of a hat? CSS is not a comp killer like crysis. And yes i have tried crysis on high, with my two cards in crossfire i was able to keep ~18fps min, but I know that my hardware isnt up to playing it maxed.

 

[Frostmourne]

I beg to differ on pure hertz being the defining spec. I happen to run close to that setup, and have no lag issues at all. I only play on lan servers, but my fps never drops below 60.

Lan is different to Crysis - and I did mention cache+architecture. Clock speed is important along with these two for games. Have you tried Crysis on high at 1920x1080?

The OP is playing CSS, did you pull Crysis out of a hat? CSS is not a comp killer like crysis. And yes i have tried crysis on high, with my two cards in crossfire i was able to keep ~18fps min, but I know that my hardware isnt up to playing it maxed.

End this - not much can play Crysis maxed - and high is the second highest option. I hold that a low clock speed is a bottleneck even on old games like CSS.

 

[ccatlett1984]

End what?

 

[Billy]

I'm going to agree that it's the CPU that is the bottleneck. What is your Front Side Bus set to?

We have very comparable computers. Here is a picture of my CS:S all settings maxed at 1680x1050 resolution