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Geek Culture / PC Gaming - Should it Be This Slow?

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RedneckRambo
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Posted: 7th Jul 2011 11:52
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Some of you may have just read my last thread where I overclocked my card and had some nice increases... but my problem is, should it even be this slow to begin with? I understand that the Nvidia GeForce 8400gs is a crap card and what not, but I've seen plenty of youtube videos of people playing games such as metro 2033 with this card. I can't even play that game because I literally get no more than 2 fps on the lowest possible settings!

I've been trying to play Killing Floor the past couple days, and my FPS is FREAKING HORRIBLE!!!

I can barely play Killing Floor with every single setting set to the very, very, very lowest. 640x400 Resolution, no anti-aliasing of course, horrendously low texture/model details, no shadows and no dynamic lighting. I mean EVERYTHING to the very, very lowest or off entirely, and it runs like complete and udder garbage.

Here are my system specs

Processor ~ AMD Athlon9tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600+ 2.8GHz
Memory (RAM) ~ 3070 MB
Video Card ~ Nvidia GeForce 8400gs (512mb)

... which I have always assumed were plenty good enough. I know my 8400gs isn't much... but a 512mb card should be plenty to at least play games on a low setting without horrendous FPS right? My specs smash the recommended settings for the game, yet it's barely even playable on the lowest settings.

It's always been this way too. I remember trying to play guild wars with the PC and I couldn't get anymore than 7-8 fps. GUILD WARS!!! That game requires hardly anything... my PC smashes those specs!

Is there anything I can do? It's driving me nuts.

AKA Jenkins
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Van B
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Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 7th Jul 2011 12:23
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I'd point all the blame at that 8400. Really, if you spend even just £50 on a new card, you'll see huge improvements. An 8400 is not a gaming card, it's a cheap turd that you'd find in a laptop.

For instance, I have a 2.0ghz vista laptop with a 7600 in it, and that runs killing floor pretty well, it runs Minecraft and stuff like that pretty nicely too. I'd even put the ION in my netbook up against an 8400.

I'm guessing that the card came with the PC?. My younger brother has a cruddy PC with an 8400 in it, and a case too small to take another card, even though it has a PCIe slot. I really don't like these new small factor Win7 machines, he phones me every other day asking why the new Total War game won't run .

Health, Ammo, and bacon and eggs!
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RedneckRambo
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Posted: 7th Jul 2011 12:38 Edited at: 7th Jul 2011 12:40
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Quote: "I'm guessing that the card came with the PC?"

Actually it did not. This computer came with like a Nvidia 5900 or something insanely god awful. I got this 8400gs for $20 from a friend a while back and it was an improvement from whatever the hell else was in this thing. It had never been opened and it was only $20 so I said sure why not.

I assumed as much that it was simply just a crap card. Though I don't really understand why lol. It's a 512mb card and Killing Floor's requirements are much less. I've seen videos online of people playing games on the card smoothly as well.

I know I can find a video card cheap, but I'm on a low budget and buying a new one simply isn't going to work. I could afford a card obviously, but then I would have to buy another power supply as well and I really am not about to throw down $150 for something I don't understand why it isn't already working.

AKA Jenkins
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SikaSina Games
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Location: Reading, UK
Posted: 7th Jul 2011 12:48
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My dad's PC has the 8400GS and I used to play Crysis on it. Yes, Crysis. Everything low and for some reason it played really well, apart from when you went near water or firefights, and don't get me started with explosions .

The 8400 isn't made for today's games, it was more for the old ones 2004 and back, however, my PC has a GT 240 1GB (games report it as 2GB ) and runs Crysis on High like a beast with a few little crunches. I got it for £70/$90 to replace my ATi 4550 and difference is stunning.

And that was a year ago. Perhaps now the 240 will be about $50 so that's the card to use because it's a pretty spectacular mid-range card .

I've no idea what Killing Floor is, I've played Metro and that handles well on the 240 with High DX10 and I've never overclocked so I can't thoroughly help on two of your points :/ plus the 240 doesn't need a new PSU, I've a 500W stock PSU in my custom and I think there's like 100W left, but I have 2 external fans and an Audiophile PCI installed so they'd increase the usage.

-SSG

Sorry all for my furious departure a while ago (well, almost 8 months xD) after deep thought I have decided to return.

I apologise to those I offended.
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Benjamin
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Posted: 7th Jul 2011 15:45
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Bizarre. I can play KF pretty well on higher settings and my graphics card is some budget thing. I've even seen it play pretty well on older PCs.

Perhaps something is sucking up CPU time?



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Quik
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Posted: 7th Jul 2011 15:52
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I can play KF on my laptop, with an GFX which is part of the mothercard (its worse than the GF 7000 series*) and on my 8800GT i could play crysis on modifyied normal GFXs (with moded i mean its normal, but with some settings set higher)

you really should be fine, like benjamin said you might want to check out task manager for something thats using up your CPU, using gamebooster might help in that regard aswell

and for the record, I am a man.

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Ocho Geek
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Posted: 7th Jul 2011 16:40 Edited at: 7th Jul 2011 16:42
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TBH, everything apart from the RAM would suggest a slow system

The Athlon is the cheap AMD processor, and AMD are the cheap processor brand .

3GB memory is usually something you find in an intel laptop, you tend to see powers of 2 for AMD desktop ram (2/4/8 ect) But I assume is fine, more is better though, I actually got 8GB from corsairs mid-range (and corsair is the best for ram) for £99 ($160)
Finally, the graphics card is indeed a bit of a carp

My Advice, save up for a rebuild. Desperatley

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Quik
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Posted: 7th Jul 2011 16:51
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yeah but ocho, this system should be able to handle KF on decent settings, without FPS drop =/

and for the record, I am a man.

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Jimpo
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Posted: 7th Jul 2011 21:00 Edited at: 7th Jul 2011 21:00
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Quote: "It's always been this way too. I remember trying to play guild wars with the PC and I couldn't get anymore than 7-8 fps. GUILD WARS!!! That game requires hardly anything... my PC smashes those specs!"

Guild Wars was a very well programed and optimized game. It ran better than that on my ancient desktop with a single core processor, 512mb ram, and a GeForce FX 5200. So there is probably something else wrong with your computer, besides just low specs.

Is the computer filled with dust? Maybe you have a virus taking up a significant amount of processing power? Or maybe your power supply is broken? The computer might be getting enough power to run, but not what it needs to properly perform.

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old_School
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Posted: 7th Jul 2011 21:12
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I see no reason why this machine could not run this game unless the game requires some kind of intenet connection or something. Ive never played or herd of the game. So ethier internet or the game is poorly coded/built or poorly designed. On the flipside the requirements for the game maybe high. IDK but a average game would and should be able to play on that machine perfectly.
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Indicium
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Posted: 7th Jul 2011 21:16
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Quote: "AMD are the cheap processor brand"


You make it sound like there is a vast and diverse choice of processor manufacturers. Not everyone can afford to buy high end intels.

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old_School
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Posted: 7th Jul 2011 21:18
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Lol Intel blows Lol They decided to make a decent processor now and no one can afford the I core processors now. were all broke from buying their previous crap processors lol
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RedneckRambo
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Posted: 7th Jul 2011 21:31
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The computer has had issues of BSOD-ing over and over and over again. We took it in to the shops ages ago and they said something about the motherboard being all funky. I put the 8400gs in the computer and then it never blue screened again (until yesterday actually so I turned my overclock back to default.) Is it possible that it's the motherboard?

Something is definitely wrong with it... I'm playing killing floor on my parents desktop and that has a 128mb integrated card, same RAM, and slightly less processor speed. If this thing can run Killing Floor on the highest settings, my computer should as well.

AKA Jenkins
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Benjamin
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Posted: 7th Jul 2011 21:33
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You've probably checked this already but make sure the CPU heatsink is free of dust and fluff, since overheating will cause similar symptoms.



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old_School
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Posted: 7th Jul 2011 21:56 Edited at: 7th Jul 2011 21:57
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Im thinking about this issue and I think were over looking the power of a corrupt OS or bad HD. If you want I have no problem team viewing you and checking a few things. I highly dought a mother board is "funky" that translates into a shop saying "we have no idea so lets make up something". For every computer problem lies a logic solution period.
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Ocho Geek
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Posted: 7th Jul 2011 21:58
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Quote: "Lol Intel blows Lol"


Uhh, please; leave the forum, or just exercise decent English. Intel Does Not "Blow". Not unless your a ten year old yellow cartoon character

Intel Make good, quality processors and spend a lot more money than AMD on R&D into new, novel technolgies. I have the top end AMD Phenom X4 processor, and it's only about as good as a low-mid range i7 Processor. (the 920 i think from 1st gen)

And Apparently, the 2nd gen are twice as powerful, though I don't believe my friend when He says that


Not Spanish, Not Eight, Just Ocho

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Indicium
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Posted: 8th Jul 2011 02:03
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Quote: "I have the top end AMD Phenom X4 processor, and it's only about as good as a low-mid range i7 Processor. "


But it's about £100 cheaper than a low-mid range i7.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 8th Jul 2011 14:25
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My next gaming rig will probably be an AMD. Its just too pricey for intel chips.

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Ocho Geek
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Posted: 8th Jul 2011 14:42
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Quote: "But it's about £100 cheaper than a low-mid range i7"

that's probably exaggerating a little, but yeah

If your doing AMD, wait for the next gen processors, the ones ATM (phenom II ect) are a generation behind intel, and I presume you therefore get less value-for-money from AMD at present


Not Spanish, Not Eight, Just Ocho

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bitJericho
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Posted: 8th Jul 2011 19:47 Edited at: 8th Jul 2011 19:49
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It's about a 70 dollar difference (MSRP) in high end processors, but for mid-to-high-end, over 110 usd



http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

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4125
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Posted: 8th Jul 2011 21:54
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Mmm. I wonder if this would be an issue with the O\S...

I have two PCs here. Both with an 8400 GS 512MB. The specs goes like this.

PC1:
AMD Sempron 3400+ @ 1.8 GHz
1.5GB RAM
8400 GS 512MB PCI-E
Dell Dimension C521

PC2:
Intel Pentium IV @ 3GHz
1.5GB RAM
8400 GS 512MB PCI
Dell Optiplex GX520

Both PC's are below your system RedneckRambo. But have the 8400GS.

When running KF on Windows XP. The lag was terrible. Got the same problem but even at that, the game was for the most part, playble going solo.

Then I installed Windows 7 on these PCs and restarted KF. Both PCs fun fine, at high settings and a resoultion set to 1024 x 768.

The Nvidia Control panel has everything set to the lowest or max performence.

Very strange isn't it ?

Computer Specs: Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2.80GHz @ 1066Mhz FSB 3MB Cache, Dual Channel 8192MB DDR2 PC6400 800MHz RAM, XFX Nvidia Geforce 9800 GTX+ 512MB, XFX 780i SLI Motherboard
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