Poor Playback of Crysis on Nvidia 8800GTS 320

[Asusrocks]

I have an 8800GTS 320mb and recently got the game Crysis warhead. Bottom Line --The game goes 'OK' on all Settings being on "Mainstream" at 1280x1024 for about a half hour or so...and then unless I change the settings to "Minimum", It really starts to act up. The screen chokes and once i got to the icy level i couldnt tell where i was or what direction i was going as if this game was literally choking the heck out of it! :bang head I read on this site that Memory is a key with this game, but i only have 320mb. Now I kinda regret getting this, because now i can get around 700mb for around the price i paid for this! Is the problem due to lack of memory, because the game requirements is below the specs of my card??

**For note: It Idles @ 134 F and Loads @ 152 F , I increased the fan during the game acting up @ 100% which lowered the temps to 145, It helped get the gameplay smooth right before the Icy Level where everything got worse! Thats when i switched to Minimum for all Settings.

**Also Note : I already RMA'd this card for object issues i had but was fixed successfully...this is the only game that seems like it needs more then my video card offers.

Game is being played in Windows XP 32 bit 4gb of ram , everything is in my sig.

[jayfella]

yeah you need to get a new card. There's nowt wrong with your current one, but its just not up to the job of playing games like that.

My father-in-law has had an 8800GTX since they first came out and he cant play GRID with everything on full. He has to play the original crysis on medium...

If you want to play the game with higher f/ps - your going to need a better graphics card. You can pick up a 4850 for around $170/£110 now or a 4870 for a little more.

[Asusrocks]

yeah you need to get a new card. There's nowt wrong with your current one, but its just not up to the job of playing games like that.

My father-in-law has had an 8800GTX since they first came out and he cant play GRID with everything on full. He has to play the original crysis on medium...

If you want to play the game with higher f/ps - your going to need a better graphics card. You can pick up a 4850 for around $170/£110 now or a 4870 for a little more.

Ok I gotchu, so the 4850 is the ATI Radeon? Would I be better off getting an ATI Radeon or staying with Nvidia? considering that my Motherboard has an Intel Chipset that supports Dual ATI's in Crossfire mode.

[Caviman2201]

Ok I gotchu, so the 4850 is the ATI Radeon? Would I be better off getting an ATI Radeon or staying with Nvidia? considering that my Motherboard has an Intel Chipset that supports Dual ATI's in Crossfire mode.

Either will work in that motherboard - if you have no preference, I would suggest going with an HD4850 just in case you decide one day you want to crossfire. If you decide to go nVidia, the 9800GTX+ is about the same price and will perform about the same.

[Badbonji]

What settings and budget do you have? Then we will have an idea what sort of card you will want. 4850 is ok but still won't handle newest games maxed, however the HD4870X2 will handle any game you throw at it max res etc... But that is kinda expensive. For a midrange card the GTX260 216 core version or the HD4870 are good choices and I would pick one of those 2 IMO.

[Caviman2201]

I don't know what resolution he's playing at, but an HD4850 with his 3.0GHz Wolfdale and 4GB of RAM will play anything I can think of at 1280x1024 with ALL the eye candy turned on except Crysis.

[newbski]

ATI 4850 or Nvidia GTX 260 IMO, but like Caviman said stay with the ATI for future crossfire potential.

[Special7]

My 320mb didn't handle Crysis to well just like you, I got a 8800GT 512MB and I can max it out @ 1280x720, the 320MB just doesn't have enough memory and/or nvidia just didn't optimize the memory amount on 320MB. Time for a new card.

[Asusrocks]

Thanks alot for the help, now im sure I should get a new card, Crysis is one my favorite games but playin it on Minimum settings is kind of wack, lol. I am probably gonna go ATI Radeon since my motherboard does support Crossfire and itll give me that crossfire option later. By what 'Special7' Mentioned, I will go with at least 512mb and hope for the best.

and really, for my budget i would probably say im looking for a midrange card, Does not have to max out Crysis, but has to be reliable enough to not heat up or give random problems after 2 hours of intense shooter games. I also play simulation games , some that require good stability. So im thinking a 4850 512mb or 1gb. If anyone can give me some suggestions what would help, im not sure how the 4850 and the 4870 differ much.

[jayfella]

i have a HD4850 (ASUS EAH4850 512MB) - and i can play crysis with ALL settings on HIGH. Admittedly the FPS goes down to 14 every now and again, but if you OC it on stock volts to 700/1050, it doesnt drop past 25.

I havent tried Very High yet - but im happy with high.

[Asusrocks]

i have a HD4850 (ASUS EAH4850 512MB) - and i can play crysis with ALL settings on HIGH. Admittedly the FPS goes down to 14 every now and again, but if you OC it on stock volts to 700/1050, it doesnt drop past 25.

I havent tried Very High yet - but im happy with high.

High settings on Crysis sounds good enough for me. That says it can handle alot (More then my video card can at least :o). sorry, but i dont really know anything about FPS numbers, I know its Frame rates per second, but what exactly does that mean? Whats a Good Number and a Bad Number?

[jayfella]

anything above 35 fps (strictly its 24, 30 or 36, depending on what you read) and it will appear smooth. It is better to have 60fps+ so you can lock the v-sync and have it ultimate-solid.

When you scroll around, you can notice "screen-tearing" - to get around this, you need to lock the v-sync. This means your monitor refreshes 60 times a second, or 60Hz - so your computer locks the frames per second to 60. This puts your frames/monitor in "sync" with each o ther so you do not experience any tearing. In games such as soccer games (fifa/pro evolution) where scrolling is happening all the time, it is most predominant.

As a general rule though, anything above 30fps and it will nice and smooth.

EDIT: I just tried crysis with everything on "very high" and it wasnt bad at all! - very playable. I could even turn on 2x or 4x Anti-Aliasing which i cant complain about, though i did turn the AA off just to get a few more frames. 8x AA just drops it down to 14fps or lower, planet stutters-ville.

[Badbonji]

Frames per second just means how many images a graphics card can render every second, such as the TV and dvd's play at 25 frames per second, so the image on the screen just changes 25 times each second.

60FPS is ideal for gaming, but anything over 30 is considered playable by alot.

If you want to play crysis on high, I would recommend getting a HD4870. It isn't too much more expensive and handles the game just that little bit better. Although, if you aren't going CF in future go nvidia. Crysis prefers nvidia cards which is clear from benchmarks, where the 9800gx2 usually beats a HD4870X2 and the 9800gtx+ over the hd4850

[jayfella]

Frames per second just means how many images a graphics card can render every second, such as the TV and dvd's play at 25 frames per second, so the image on the screen just changes 25 times each second.

60FPS is ideal for gaming, but anything over 30 is considered playable by alot.

If you want to play crysis on high, I would recommend getting a HD4870. It isn't too much more expensive and handles the game just that little bit better. Although, if you aren't going CF in future go nvidia. Crysis prefers nvidia cards which is clear from benchmarks, where the 9800gx2 usually beats a HD4870X2 and the 9800gtx+ over the hd4850


I just said 2 posts ago that i can play crysis on high, and its even playable on very high. I own the 4850. And why would he go nVidia when ATi beats down all of those cards? ATi owns the mid-range scene hands down.

[Rinne]

A hint for Crysis: You can download some graphics configs that deliver near "Very High" image quality but keep performance very higha s well..

I'm personally using the "Mster" config and it gave me hardly less than 30fps with my 4850 at stock on Very High settings in DX10.

There are even more of those configs, you should have a look into them at the crymod.com forums.. just searcha round a little..

If you go for ATI.. I'd go for the 4870 for crysis, as it has around 4x the memory bandwith available compared to the 4850..

NVIDIA really is stronger in Crysis, but as far as I know not by a wide margin anymore.. They are all quite good cards in the end, and I think you can't go wrong with either.

[Asusrocks]

anything above 35 fps (strictly its 24, 30 or 36, depending on what you read) and it will appear smooth. It is better to have 60fps+ so you can lock the v-sync and have it ultimate-solid.

When you scroll around, you can notice "screen-tearing" - to get around this, you need to lock the v-sync. This means your monitor refreshes 60 times a second, or 60Hz - so your computer locks the frames per second to 60. This puts your frames/monitor in "sync" with each o ther so you do not experience any tearing. In games such as soccer games (fifa/pro evolution) where scrolling is happening all the time, it is most predominant.

As a general rule though, anything above 30fps and it will nice and smooth.

EDIT: I just tried crysis with everything on "very high" and it wasnt bad at all! - very playable. I could even turn on 2x or 4x Anti-Aliasing which i cant complain about, though i did turn the AA off just to get a few more frames. 8x AA just drops it down to 14fps or lower, planet stutters-ville.

Thanks for the clear explanation, but how could I monitor The Frames per Second i get in Crysis? Or any other game for that matter. It sounds like this is what you keep an eye out if your overclocking? yes?

[don'tknow]

Thanks for the clear explanation, but how could I monitor The Frames per Second i get in Crysis? Or any other game for that matter. It sounds like this is what you keep an eye out if your overclocking? yes?

Use EVGA Precision or Rivatuner, you'll need them to up the fan speed anyway.

And for Crysis/Warhead I've tried lots of custom configs, best ones for me are Nature Mod for Crysis and Gamer-Max config for Warhead. There's some which give a little higher fps but sacrifice way too much in visuals; the ones I mentioned give almost Enthusiast quality with a few tweaks, and run at Gamer/High speeds.

[EmAn]

Thanks for the clear explanation, but how could I monitor The Frames per Second i get in Crysis? Or any other game for that matter. It sounds like this is what you keep an eye out if your overclocking? yes?

You can download a program called Fraps

http://www.fraps.com/

It will put it in one of the four corners of the screen and you can change that on the fly as well...

[Mustanley]

Another thing to check when crysis gets real choppy... exit out and run a utility like GPU-Z to make sure your PCI-E slot is running at 16x speed and not 1x speed. My Asus P5K Premium has a nasty habit of choking the 16X slot to 1x for no apparent reason.

[Asusrocks]

This is Awesome, My Zalman 9500A Cpu Cooler came in today, Popped it in and not only did my cpu temps go down to 20 Celsius (68 F) Idle, but i was able to play Crysis on Gamer and even Enthusiast! lol Now with Enthusiast i was getting a 18FPS and was kind of choppy but didnt slow me down one bit. I also had to turn off AntiAliasing all together, but didnt bother me at all. I guess getting a better cpu cooler did the trick, My Video card is still victorious...

[jayfella]

im not sure how a cooler could make your computer faster unless you overclocked your PC more?

[Asusrocks]

im not sure how a cooler could make your computer faster unless you overclocked your PC more?

Well On my stock heat sink one of my chips holding the heatsink on the motherboard chipped and the temps were real hot on Idle for a week or so until i waited for my new HS to come in, so i figured after poppin this HS in the cool temps gave the cpu a little more breathe room, either that or mabe cuz i turned Antialiasing off. But on another game of mine the chopping got somewhat less.

But no doubt im still getting a bigger memory GPU cuz i cant hold high settings for very long on Crysis.

[Amtrak]

or mabe cuz i turned Antialiasing off.

I would think that would have a larger effect.

[Rinne]

the only way that cooling improves performance would be that your card did either run too hot and throttled itself down earlier, or that it ran unstable, but stable enough not to crash the game (which is very very unlikely in crysis)..

But yea, disabling AA would give a big improve in framerates on that card!

[Asusrocks]

thanks for the info didnt know AA made such a big difference!