Spoons Dream PC

[bhoar]

Re: Spoons Dream PC

You mean the stack of CD drives that has a computer attached to it? :P

Yes, though you neglected to mention the three stacking columns (plus one spindle) to hold all 600+ CDs (as well as the robot arm that moves them)!

-brendan

[neilthecellist]

Re: Spoons Dream PC

http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=279&page=1

According to general benchmarks, I should be getting near-60 frames per second on 1024 x 768 resolution, maxed out details. The strange thing, though, is that I'm running the game at 640 x 480 resolution at lowest details and I'm getting serious lag. Some of the video game forums are calling Rainbow Six Vegas an "inefficient" game. I guess I can see why.

From fiddling around on the computer, I've narrowed down to the two suspectible culprits behind my awful performance: CPU or motherboard. I've already overclocked my CPU to a point higher than the game recommends (game recommends at least a 3.4 ghz CPU, my CPU is overclocked to a 3800+).

Overclocking my GPU did nothing to improve performance, I was getting around 20-30 FPS on certain points of the game.

Neil: get a better CPU, preferably a dual-core, and get a bigger HDD. Also, try turning some of the prettier graphics options down.

I was wondering if I should invest in a quad-core CPU. And does AMD do that or is it currently just Intel? */me Googles*

Running other games on this computer produces funky results too, but I think this thread has gone off topic enough...

[LtData]

Re: Spoons Dream PC

AMD's quad-cores will be coming out in the fall, I believe. Also, the FPSs are when you are not using FRAPs, correct?

[neilthecellist]

Re: Spoons Dream PC

Well, about the FRAPs thing.... I have FRAPs enabled when I'm playing video games, but not recording any video. I use FRAPs sometimes solely as an FPS indicator (especially when a game doesn't include its own FPS counter, which can be annoying :-\ )

[LtData]

Re: Spoons Dream PC

OK, I just wanted to make sure you weren't running benchmarks when you had FRAPs recording. Just the FPS counter alone is fine.

[donny]

Re: Spoons Dream PC

about your problems:
and a new hard drive could speed up some things, especially because of fragmentation on the old small drive you have... and these new drives are really faster, not just marketing.

and those things about recommended and similar settings are usualy just markteing tricks to get people buying the game. they really say that the latest rainbow six is very demanding on the hardware... besides, the markings on amd processors should represent their Intel equivalent but overclocking to 3800 doesn't mean that it is more than 3.4 Ghz the game is asking. this game probably want's a dual core thing...

overclocking the GPU probably didn't work because your processor is not fast enough to supply it with info.
or maybe it is a motherboard thingy. you didn't say nothing bout it. what chips does it have? who made it?

genreally:
you are not going to get that much out of games with a quad core processor. maybe some of the really new games will have options for it...
on the other hand tha dual core is used in some games that I saw. for instance Hawok sistem found in most modern games supposrts threading on multiple processors.

RAM is very important for alot of things and is usually the best and cheapest upgrade to the system (to a limit of course ) your 2GB should be enough...

[neilthecellist]

Re: Spoons Dream PC

about your problems:
and a new hard drive could speed up some things, especially because of fragmentation on the old small drive you have... and these new drives are really faster, not just marketing.

Should I invest in a SATA II? My brother was considering a solid state hard drive (Yes, we both realize how expensive it is, but if it means super fast-ness, we might invest in a SS hard drive)

and those things about recommended and similar settings are usualy just markteing tricks to get people buying the game. they really say that the latest rainbow six is very demanding on the hardware... besides, the markings on amd processors should represent their Intel equivalent but overclocking to 3800 doesn't mean that it is more than 3.4 Ghz the game is asking. this game probably want's a dual core thing...

overclocking the GPU probably didn't work because your processor is not fast enough to supply it with info.
or maybe it is a motherboard thingy. you didn't say nothing bout it. what chips does it have? who made it?

The strange thing is, Rainbow Six: Vegas runs on Unreal Engine 3, but looks nothing like Unreal Tournament 3 or Gears of War, both games which also used Unreal Engine. In fact, with HDR turned off in Rainbow Six: Vegas, the graphics honestly just looks like Rainbow Six: Lockdown (the prequel game to Rainbow Six: Vegas)

genreally:
you are not going to get that much out of games with a quad core processor. maybe some of the really new games will have options for it...
on the other hand tha dual core is used in some games that I saw. for instance Hawok sistem found in most modern games supposrts threading on multiple processors.

RAM is very important for alot of things and is usually the best and cheapest upgrade to the system (to a limit of course ) your 2GB should be enough...

So for now, a dual core is good, but in the near future, a quad core may be preferrable?

[LtData]

Re: Spoons Dream PC

SS HDDs are STUPID expensive. I believe it is around $300 for a 32GB drive and $500-600 for a 64GB drive. And no, they are not much faster in transfer rates than normal HDDs. Their advantages are lower power consumption and faster access times.

Dual-cores will be fine for the next few years. If you wanna burn your money, sure go quad-core. As for SATA-II, most new drives support it, if your mobo does too then mabye buy one sata-II drive for your main drive but keep the rest of your drives still.

[bhoar]

Re: Spoons Dream PC

SS HDDs are STUPID expensive.

SS=SAS?

-brendan

[LtData]

Re: Spoons Dream PC

apologies, SS = solid state aka flash-based

[neilthecellist]

Re: Spoons Dream PC

SAS... British Special Air Service?

I uninstalled Rainbow Six: Vegas today. I think that perhaps, because Vegas was developed on an early corporate release of Unreal Engine 3, Vegas' performance just isn't that great as it could be. Guess I'll wait to see what Gears of War on PC and Unreal Tournament 3 on PC will be like before I go benchmarking in the future.

[bhoar]

Re: Spoons Dream PC

SAS... British Special Air Service?

SAS = Serial Attached SCSI (replacement for SCSI that allows SATA drives to be plugged into some SAS hardware).

Original acronym "SS" was actually meant to imply "Solid State", e.g. flash storage.

-brendan

[donny]

Re: Spoons Dream PC

you probably shouldn't rush into quad. there were games with problems with the dual core processors (audio/video out of sync and similar things - one of them runing twice as fast as it should, other at normal). so similar can be expected with quad if the coding is too optimized. or just bad...

on the other hand it will be easier to convert to quad from dual, then from single to dual