Need increase in FPS

[Balbaines]

Vista Ultimate
AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800+
3GB Ram
Radeon x850
Creative xtreme gamer
High speed cable 50Mbps down / 20 up (below 100 latency at all times in game)

I feel as if I should be getting higher FPS. Currently in shat I'm running around 17-20. It's not too choppy or anything until I turn the mouse and then I get a bit of choppiness. Overall not too bad but want to boost it up a bit. Is this number about right for my machine? If not, any suggestions?

Thanks in advance guys.

[elsegundo]

1. vista eats up about 2 gigs of ram already. that leaves you with very little for applications.
2. Radeon x850 card is about four years old.

sounds about right for your machine.

[Kalos]

You're getting what I'd expect on an aging rig design. One of the earliest Athlon X2 models, and the graphics card is older still, released in 2004. You'd need to at least replace the graphics card to get better results after the graphics upgrades the game has taken in the last 12 months.

[Balbaines]

KK, just making sure. As far as the memory goes. I have Vista services stripped down quite a bit, aero shut off, and appearance is adjusted for best performance. Average memory use is about 11% for me. I'll look into replacing the vid card. Any suggestions in the budget to mid-range category based on the rest of the system? Thanks again for the help all.

[elsegundo]

KK, just making sure. As far as the memory goes. I have Vista services stripped down quite a bit, aero shut off, and appearance is adjusted for best performance. Average memory use is about 11% for me. I'll look into replacing the vid card. Any suggestions in the budget to mid-range category based on the rest of the system? Thanks again for the help all.

for some people, aero makes their wow go faster.
same thing goes for windows media player.

videocards? depends in your slot type. your videocard came out when PCI-e was new. if you have an AGP card slot for video, you will be limited in options.

[Balbaines]

It is PCI-e so I know there are a few options. I know pretty much any of the newer vid cards would be better I'm sure but I know some have better results with wow than others. I will try turning aero back on and see if that helps frame rates. Didn't think that would have anything to do with it.

[elsegundo]

It is PCI-e so I know there are a few options. I know pretty much any of the newer vid cards would be better I'm sure but I know some have better results with wow than others. I will try turning aero back on and see if that helps frame rates. Didn't think that would have anything to do with it.

also, start up windows media player but leave it idle.



getting a card that's a gforce 8600 or better would be a good start.
this includes... 8800's 9600's 9800s, etc. all of which you can get for about $100USD or less. i cant remember offhand the ATi equiv of these cards are. sorry im a nvidia fan.

at newegg:
9000 series: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048%201305520548%20106792522&name=GeForce%209%20series
8000 series: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048%201305520548%20106791921&name=GeForce%208%20series

though the 8500's or 9500s are able to run wow decently, i find that for a minimal $ investment, a x600 or x800 will blow any x500 away.

[Sturm]

Hmmm I might be off topic here, but u have to check the PCI-E port.
There are 3 standards: 1.0, 1.0a and 1.1 iirc.
Some newer cards wont run on 1.0 while all the older cards can be applied to any of the three.
Just don't buy a gtx260 or better without checking this first. :)