Fastest Gaming Performance Possible

Without having to upgrade any stuff at all, what's the best way I can get top notch speed for gaming on my machine in sig?

Also in terms of connection ping to gaming servers, does the contention ratio have an effect on how fast you are?
Mines 1:50, would I be faster on 1:30?

Looking for any tweaks for faster gaming performance.
Thanks

Highest FSB you can get, PC3500 is supposed to do 217 FSB at default so it should go even higher than that.

FSB is important for gaming so increase your Vdimm voltage and maybe Vocre voltage as well to hit the highest FSB with lowest multiplier you can, for MHz speed = [FSB] x multiplier.

You can overclock your video card too, ask in the video card section for that...

Excellent power supply and cooling, you should be able to hit record high overclocks with your Barton, what's your FSB x multi now?

200x11

You see, I have GeForce 2 MX400 at the moment and it just plain blows, so I am always trying to find new ways to boost my performance. I started with overclocking my videocard, there are lots of utilities out there that make it extremely easy to overclock your card. A good place to get these utilities is www.guru3d.com.

Then there is always to option of overclocking, but I'm sure you've already tried that considering you are posting on an Overclockers forum.

Another thing, turn off all the Windows Services that you aren't using. www.blackviper.com goes into that subject. Disabling the services that you don't need gives you some of those valuable resources back that Windows steals.

There are also lots of Windows tweaks at www.tweakxp.com and if you aren't running XP then just search the net for tweaks for whichever OS you are running.

If you have the manual for your motherboard read through it and make sure there isn't anything in the BIOS that you can change. I know in my BIOS there are lots of things that I was able change which gave me a bit of a performance increase.

Make sure that your any CD-ROM drives and HDDs are on seperate channels. Each device on an IDE channel is held back by the slowest device on that channel.

Forgive me if I am repeating things that you already know, but I just want to help you out. Anyways, I hope that helps you at least a tiny bit and sorry I couldn't come up with anymore reasons.

Your RAM is supposed to do 217 FSB at default, 200 FSB is PC3200 default, you have PC3500, click here:
http://www.c627627.com/RAM/

so lower the multiplier way down to test the limits of your RAM, then when you find the highest FSB your RAM can handle, up the multiplier.

You have some of the best cooling / power supply combos money can buy, you should be able to easily hit way more than 2.2.

To test the stability of overclocked CPU, download the latest bug fixed version of Prime95:
http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

Double click on PRIME95.EXE to start the program.

Just Stress Testing (if prompted) > OK >
Options > Torture Test > Blend (if prompted) > OK


The program should not give any errors.
It may be necessary to run the program 12-24 hours to make sure an overclocked system is stable (no program errors displayed).


If you get errors only after several hours, this is a result of slight instability because the system is running with little or no margin. It's stable enough to boot and to be moderately stressed, but as soon as the system is under enough load to go over that critical point, it will freeze. To be 100% stable, Prime95 should run 12-24 hours without any errors.

The point of testing is to see if you get errors or not thus testing the stability. The meaning of errors themselves is not as important.


Running Prime95 Torture Test for 5 to 30 minutes is enough to get a feeling about general stability. If it seems to be stable, increase the FSB (with 0.025V Vcore increase if needed), or increase the multiplier by 0.5.

Reboot and run Prime95 Torture Test for 5 to 30 minutes and repeat this until the Program displays errors.
It's then time to back down and repeat the Torture Test until there are no errors for at least 12 hours.

It's OK to use the computer while Prime95 Torture Test is running in the background.


After finding your stable point you may want to then retest by going to the Advanced section, setting the password to 9876 and then setting Priority to 10. (You won't be able to use your computer while Priority 10 Prime95 Torture Test is running, but it'll confirm your system stability.)

Use 3DMark to test video card stability.

What game(s) do you play?

From your name looks like EQ

I'd say a 24hr test of Prime95 will show if it stable or not.

You have almost the exact same system I do, with the difference being air cooled versus water cooled. If you are using a quality thermal paste like AS5, have adequate thru-case ventillation and you PC is in a reasonably cool location, there is no reason why you can't get at least the same OC as me or even a little more if you like living on the edge. With that speed, you will be very pleased at how well your games perform. Remember to provide as good a cooling solution as possible on your northbridge also and some degree of cooling on your southbridge, especially if you use the onboard sound.

Hoot

Yeah about that Hoot, I asked you this q:
http://www.ocforums.com/vb/vb/showthread.php?s=&action=showpost&postid=2364487

over at http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=244237

c627627 said:

Yeah about that Hoot, I asked you this q:
http://www.ocforums.com/vb/vb/showthread.php?s=&action=showpost&postid=2364487

over at http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=244237

Click to expand...

Well, it's not like I haven't tried

As soon as I go up from 2420 Mhz, it readily becomes apparent I have stepped outside the "sweet zone". While it only took .05Vcore to step from 2200 to 2300 and another .05Vcore to step from 2300 to 2420, in stepping from 2420 to 2475, I have increased the vcore .10 and it's still not stable running Prime95 Torture Priority 10. I also tried upping the Vdimm from 2.9 to 3.0 and that didn't help either.

I don't hate my components and thus don't feel compelled to burn them up chasing a few extra Mhz. If they were free, I'd be more cavalier about pushing them. 11x215 2-2-2-11 or 11x220 2-3-3-11 both fall inside the upper limit of the sweet zone. I will still occasionally try forays above the sweet zone, but I do not consider them as long term ventures. Nor do I feel compelled to reach some high water mark for the admiration of others. There will always be someone else better, no matter what I pull off. I'm very happy with what I've accomplished so far. It almost justifies the lump of dough I have sunk into this setup

Hoot