POLL: How many frames per second do you play with? - Page 2

Master Leo · Fri, 2nd Mar '07, 2:54pm

Quote:

In many cases of bad NWN2 performance, it still happens with top of the line PC specs. I know a number of people who've told me how NWN2 runs awfully on their brand new systems with the best graphics cards out there. When you have things like that happening, it's a clear sign that the game was put together shoddily.

actually, the problem with stuttering has nothing to do with a video card.. or a cpu

what is the problem is, the people buy a 4GHZ CPU, 8800 GTX video and 4GB of ram, but the sound card is guess what? a C-MEDIA or REALTEK AC97 onboard audio chip, which simply can't run the latest games properly

these are often the source of lags and frustration for many players, even those with the best computer

the solution is simply, to buy a proper sound card to go with the rest of the system (something/ANYTHING from creative lab will be 10x better than the abovementioned stuff...)

Taluntain · Fri, 2nd Mar '07, 11:29pm

It's not just the stuttering, it's poor performance and low FPS all around. As for the sound card being the problem - possible, but then again, I'm not hearing all the other games out there having problems with it. And considering the default in probably more than 90% of computers today is AC'97 and not a dedicated Sound Blaster, the developers not setting up the game's sound to work properly with the onboard chips is an unforgivable oversight. I don't see what NWN2 is doing with the sound that it'd be so special that AC'97 wouldn't be good enough for it.

chevalier · Fri, 2nd Mar '07, 11:34pm

It's true I play in 1024*768 only, but I get 40+ fps even with my AC97. It's just that EAX isn't for me, hehe. If I were to use EAX2, I think the framerate would drop.

Master Leo · Fri, 2nd Mar '07, 11:42pm

well i don't know about other games, but oblivion sure is heavy when it comes to sound

i can tell that at least half of all the problems over at the bethsoft's tech forum are directly related to a bad sound card

i don't know why some people have more and others less problem with onboard sound, but the problem is definitely there somewhere

it's just something to look at for people who have good computers and bad performance in games; a dedicated sound board isn't that expensive anyway

hedron · Sat, 3rd Mar '07, 2:31am

Quote:

what is the problem is, the people buy a 4GHZ CPU, 8800 GTX video and 4GB of ram, but the sound card is guess what? a C-MEDIA or REALTEK AC97 onboard audio chip, which simply can't run the latest games properly

[font style='color: #FF0000']WARNING: FANBOY ALERT![/font]

What are you talking about? C-Media makes some of the best audio chips in the business. I have one, costed 200$ and is light years ahead of CL X-Fi sound quality wise. Of course, it lacks OAL and a few other proprietary stuff but you can't beat xmeridians raw sound quality, not without hardcore audiophile equipment anyway.

Besides that, I've heard that having a dedicated sound card is actually worse because it uses more CPU cycles than builtin. I forget the exact rationale but it had something to do with the PCI bus fighting for resources with the AGP bus... and builtin doesn't have that issue... maybe I'm wrong here... I dunno...

Quote:

I get 40+ fps

Then how come I'm the only one who voted 30+?

chevalier · Sat, 3rd Mar '07, 2:46am

I voted before getting that high. I think I voted before upgrading CPU, the GFX card and doubling my RAM (plus entering Dual Channel mode).

Quote:

Besides that, I've heard that having a dedicated sound card is actually worse because it uses more CPU cycles than builtin. I forget the exact rationale but it had something to do with the PCI bus fighting for resources with the AGP bus... and builtin doesn't have that issue... maybe I'm wrong here... I dunno...

Yep, that issue exists with some systems. It may lead to awful crackling. PCI latency is probably the problem. Note that PCI-E seems to be immune as it is immune to the PCI latency setting, meaning you should be able to dodge the bad stuff with a PCI-E card. In theory.

Master Leo · Sat, 3rd Mar '07, 4:06am

Quote:

What are you talking about? C-Media makes some of the best audio chips in the business.

maybe so but they also make some of the worst...

Quote:

Besides that, I've heard that having a dedicated sound card is actually worse because it uses more CPU cycles than builtin. I forget the exact rationale but it had something to do with the PCI bus fighting for resources with the AGP bus... and builtin doesn't have that issue... maybe I'm wrong here... I dunno...

hah this can't be right because then all soundcard makers would have been out of business already

onboard chips usually don't do hardware acceleration (there are exceptions, such as soundstorm chips on nforce boards), which means most of the work is done by the CPU, slowing everything down
and did i mention driver support?

anyway, this sound card debate is getting useless.. but the next time i see someone posting a [insert game name] runs crappy one his superb new pc, i'm going to ...

Fluff-n-Oncense · Sat, 3rd Mar '07, 4:44pm

All I can add at this stage is that I have a system that conforms to the game spec and a graphics card that is listed as 'supported'. So I should not be getting performance problems. Reading all this techo stuff suggests that this game requires an advanced knowledge of PC jiggery-pokery - and that is something that should not be necessary with a commercial game release. Either this game should be marketed 'for techies only' or it should be fixed.

hedron · Sat, 3rd Mar '07, 7:41pm

Quote:

this can't be right because then all soundcard makers would have been out of business already

The bottom line is that no matter what kind of sound card you have it's not going to affect frame rate. Maybe you might get 1 extra FPS every trillionth clock cycle or something, but it's not so much a deal that someone's low frame rate is simply due to onboard sound. If sound is causing issues it's due to incorrectly installed drivers or
something along those lines.

I did a little experiment a few years ago with my old 370 based system. I ran a few benchmarks and tested FPS on a few games with and without my santa cruz sound and I didn't notice any difference.

chevalier · Sun, 4th Mar '07, 12:59am

Quote:

All I can add at this stage is that I have a system that conforms to the game spec and a graphics card that is listed as 'supported'. So I should not be getting performance problems. Reading all this techo stuff suggests that this game requires an advanced knowledge of PC jiggery-pokery - and that is something that should not be necessary with a commercial game release. Either this game should be marketed 'for techies only' or it should be fixed.

Yep. That game won't normally give a good framerate if you don't tinker with it. Besides, the autodetect function is inaccurate. Those are lucky who know what settings to change and where.

Master Leo · Sun, 4th Mar '07, 1:07am

so er... why do you think all gaming tests are always being done without a sound card (or with sound disabled) ?

sound definitely does make an impact on overall game performance, up to 10%, depending on sound chipset and the rest of the hardware being used

in a cpu intensive game such as Oblivion, NWN2 and many others, this can be a problem seeing onboard audio chips eat up cpu cycles as well, creating a possible weak spot

then there is the question, how a sound card is able to handle multiple sounds simultaneously; this has been known to cause massive lag in Oblivion, particularly with four-legged creatures such as wolves, bears

i do not know if the same issue(s) can be found in NWN 2 however

Trellheim · Sun, 4th Mar '07, 4:42am

I have most of the time over 20fps, but have to use 800x600 resolution (or stop playing) when it unexplainably changes to 5-14fps.

Do we really want to see every square centimeter in the characters's undetailed faces? Couldn't they just have made a smooth game with BG graphics?

EDIT: I have 1 GB RAM2, 4GHz and Radeon X550-CRAP. 1024*768 resolution and medium settings.

chevalier · Sun, 4th Mar '07, 1:25pm

Trellheim, I got more on Celeron 2.4 GHz with 512 MB DDR1 RAM and a GF FX5900XT. You should be getting better framerates, I think.

As for onboard sound, would I gain anything from buying a fifteen buck SB Live or something like that over the AC97 chip I have?

Master Leo · Sun, 4th Mar '07, 2:54pm

depends on what kind of AC97 chip you have (ac97 is just a specification, kindof like what opengl is for video cards)

of course, a SB would have been an improvement, but if you are satisfied with sound quality and have no performance issues, don't bother

chevalier · Sun, 4th Mar '07, 4:53pm

No idea what exactly it is, like numbers or anything, it just says Realtek AC'97 Audio and there's one driver for all that stuff.

No issues, I think, quality was better on the Live I previously own (gave it away before getting new compy because they said the integrated stuff would be better, newer, whatever).

Darkwolf · Sat, 10th Mar '07, 2:21pm

Ok, Faraaz mentions 1.04 patch...but I can't find it...is this an international patch and not offered in the US? Bioware points you to Atari for patches, and Atari says there are no patches at this time...

Edit:

Ok, nevermind...stupid Vista doesn't set NWN2 up correctly...it doesn't give you the launcher in the start menu, it takes you directly to the game, so the update option is never presented. Just went out on my hard drive and created a shortcut to the launcher on my desktop and all is well.

I bought a computer from a friend becuase he overextended himself and was in a bind and unfortunately it came with Vista...my advise, wait on Vista for a while. It is better than XP when it first came out IMO, but not by much.

Fri, 2nd Mar '07, 11:29pm	#27
Taluntain SPS Account Holder Founder Resident Alpha and Omega Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Cori Celesti Posts: 20,815 Blog Entries: 13 Like: 159 Liked 124 Times in 80 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 53,191 Level: 58 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 51.05% Daily Activity 148.06% Weekly Activity 196.6% Monthly Activity 90.9% Achievements Awards	It's not just the stuttering, it's poor performance and low FPS all around. As for the sound card being the problem - possible, but then again, I'm not hearing all the other games out there having problems with it. And considering the default in probably more than 90% of computers today is AC'97 and not a dedicated Sound Blaster, the developers not setting up the game's sound to work properly with the onboard chips is an unforgivable oversight. I don't see what NWN2 is doing with the sound that it'd be so special that AC'97 wouldn't be good enough for it.
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Fri, 2nd Mar '07, 11:34pm	#28
chevalier SPS Account Holder Senior News Editor Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: I wish I were in the land of coffee... Posts: 16,675 Like: 2 Liked 1 Time in 1 Post vBActivity - Stats XP: 62,754 Level: 62 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 24.54% Daily Activity 2.43% Weekly Activity 2.43% Monthly Activity 2.04% Achievements	It's true I play in 1024*768 only, but I get 40+ fps even with my AC97. It's just that EAX isn't for me, hehe. If I were to use EAX2, I think the framerate would drop.

Fri, 2nd Mar '07, 11:42pm	#29
Master Leo Gems: 7/31 Latest gem: Tchazar Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 211 Like: 0 Liked 0 Times in 0 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 746 Level: 9 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 60.2% Daily Activity 2.43% Weekly Activity 2.43% Monthly Activity 2.04% Achievements	well i don't know about other games, but oblivion sure is heavy when it comes to sound i can tell that at least half of all the problems over at the bethsoft's tech forum are directly related to a bad sound card i don't know why some people have more and others less problem with onboard sound, but the problem is definitely there somewhere it's just something to look at for people who have good computers and bad performance in games; a dedicated sound board isn't that expensive anyway

Sat, 3rd Mar '07, 4:44pm	#33
Fluff-n-Oncense Gems: 1/31 Latest gem: Turquoise Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: UK Posts: 21 Like: 0 Liked 0 Times in 0 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 290 Level: 6 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 25.96% Daily Activity 2.43% Weekly Activity 2.43% Monthly Activity 2.04% Achievements	All I can add at this stage is that I have a system that conforms to the game spec and a graphics card that is listed as 'supported'. So I should not be getting performance problems. Reading all this techo stuff suggests that this game requires an advanced knowledge of PC jiggery-pokery - and that is something that should not be necessary with a commercial game release. Either this game should be marketed 'for techies only' or it should be fixed.

Sun, 4th Mar '07, 1:07am	#36
Master Leo Gems: 7/31 Latest gem: Tchazar Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 211 Like: 0 Liked 0 Times in 0 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 746 Level: 9 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 60.2% Daily Activity 2.43% Weekly Activity 2.43% Monthly Activity 2.04% Achievements	so er... why do you think all gaming tests are always being done without a sound card (or with sound disabled) ? sound definitely does make an impact on overall game performance, up to 10%, depending on sound chipset and the rest of the hardware being used in a cpu intensive game such as Oblivion, NWN2 and many others, this can be a problem seeing onboard audio chips eat up cpu cycles as well, creating a possible weak spot then there is the question, how a sound card is able to handle multiple sounds simultaneously; this has been known to cause massive lag in Oblivion, particularly with four-legged creatures such as wolves, bears i do not know if the same issue(s) can be found in NWN 2 however

Sun, 4th Mar '07, 4:42am	#37
Trellheim The Dreadful Bear Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Finland/Luxembourg Posts: 1,469 Like: 0 Liked 0 Times in 0 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 3,333 Level: 18 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 57.26% Daily Activity 2.43% Weekly Activity 2.43% Monthly Activity 2.04% Achievements	I have most of the time over 20fps, but have to use 800x600 resolution (or stop playing) when it unexplainably changes to 5-14fps. Do we really want to see every square centimeter in the characters's undetailed faces? Couldn't they just have made a smooth game with BG graphics? EDIT: I have 1 GB RAM2, 4GHz and Radeon X550-CRAP. 1024*768 resolution and medium settings.

Sun, 4th Mar '07, 1:25pm	#38
chevalier SPS Account Holder Senior News Editor Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: I wish I were in the land of coffee... Posts: 16,675 Like: 2 Liked 1 Time in 1 Post vBActivity - Stats XP: 62,754 Level: 62 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 24.54% Daily Activity 2.43% Weekly Activity 2.43% Monthly Activity 2.04% Achievements	Trellheim, I got more on Celeron 2.4 GHz with 512 MB DDR1 RAM and a GF FX5900XT. You should be getting better framerates, I think. As for onboard sound, would I gain anything from buying a fifteen buck SB Live or something like that over the AC97 chip I have?

Sun, 4th Mar '07, 2:54pm	#39
Master Leo Gems: 7/31 Latest gem: Tchazar Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 211 Like: 0 Liked 0 Times in 0 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 746 Level: 9 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 60.2% Daily Activity 2.43% Weekly Activity 2.43% Monthly Activity 2.04% Achievements	depends on what kind of AC97 chip you have (ac97 is just a specification, kindof like what opengl is for video cards) of course, a SB would have been an improvement, but if you are satisfied with sound quality and have no performance issues, don't bother

Sun, 4th Mar '07, 4:53pm	#40
chevalier SPS Account Holder Senior News Editor Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: I wish I were in the land of coffee... Posts: 16,675 Like: 2 Liked 1 Time in 1 Post vBActivity - Stats XP: 62,754 Level: 62 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 24.54% Daily Activity 2.43% Weekly Activity 2.43% Monthly Activity 2.04% Achievements	No idea what exactly it is, like numbers or anything, it just says Realtek AC'97 Audio and there's one driver for all that stuff. No issues, I think, quality was better on the Live I previously own (gave it away before getting new compy because they said the integrated stuff would be better, newer, whatever).

Sat, 10th Mar '07, 2:21pm	#41
Darkwolf Gems: 18/31 Latest gem: Horn Coral Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: The deepest, darkest pit in hades. Posts: 1,033 Like: 0 Liked 0 Times in 0 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 2,864 Level: 17 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 38.18% Daily Activity 2.43% Weekly Activity 2.43% Monthly Activity 2.04% Achievements	Ok, Faraaz mentions 1.04 patch...but I can't find it...is this an international patch and not offered in the US? Bioware points you to Atari for patches, and Atari says there are no patches at this time... Edit: Ok, nevermind...stupid Vista doesn't set NWN2 up correctly...it doesn't give you the launcher in the start menu, it takes you directly to the game, so the update option is never presented. Just went out on my hard drive and created a shortcut to the launcher on my desktop and all is well. I bought a computer from a friend becuase he overextended himself and was in a bind and unfortunately it came with Vista...my advise, wait on Vista for a while. It is better than XP when it first came out IMO, but not by much.