Radeon 9600 bottleneck?

[Foxtrot Sport]

I just got a new video card from my friend for dirt cheap, a Radeon 9600, taking the place of my beloved Nvidia MX440.  The graphix are drastically better, especially for my halo experiences.  However, my FPS are still not nearly where they want to be.  I believe that my 128 mb RAM is a great contributer.  So, upgrading to 256 mb RAM i bet would do help, but is that still not enough?  Any other suggestions?

-P4 2.0 Ghz
-Radeon 9600 (256 mb)
-40 Gig HD
-Windows XP

-HF

[Dan]

Well first, I'll say this - For dirt cheap, you haven't gone wrong! Now as far as your RAM goes, its probably less than PC3200, most probably PC2700 so in my opinion you are  probably best off to replace the lot. I can't say about mobo compatibility though.

Take a look at this page.

The RAM there won't overclock very well, but it will certainly bring you an improvement. I would consider 512mb and above, I run 1Gb of GeIL.

If you have a more 'flexible' budget then you can get anything up to these, but I would think they would be wasted in your system unless your into serious overclocking. The whole range of worthwhile brands are here.
Hope that helps!
Dan

[Stormtropper]

He's talking about the RAM on his graphics card Dan...

...and if your gonna get some RAM for the computer, look at the case latancy too, and not just the RAM speed, I personally think case latancy is more important...cuz I can easily overclock my RAM to hell and back

[Dan]

-Radeon 9600 (256 mb)

upgrading to 256 mb RAM

Either I'm getting myself confused or one of us is wrong lol. He says he has got 256mb on the card, and to upgrade to 256 as well? And yes, all things are worth considering, but nowt I can think of will beat the link I gave him to the G Skill stuff!

[Stormtropper]

Hmm...lol....one of us is really confused, I thought he was talking about upgrading his 128 mb card to a 256 mb card

[JBaymore]

High_Flyer,

I made the mistake of expecting the 9600 to work miracles too when I first bought one.  Compared to what video I WAS using before then.... it seemed like it should be a WORLD of difference.  I expected it just HAD to fix the various framerate issues I was having.

I installed a 9600 pro (which is 128 M of video RAM) on my old 2.4 gig P4 w a 533 fsb and 1 gig of ddr RAM.  Surprise, surprise...... it didn't cut it with FS2004 where it really matters... short final at a big international airport with lots of AI and eye candy running.

I now have upgraded the whole machine to the specs on the trailer below...... and it STILL is no screamer by any means... but it is FAR better.  I can live with this.  But I STILL can't max out everything that FS2004 has to offer.

Up away from the ground and the AI and so on........ 70-80 fps and smooth as silk.  Of course.... there is no demand on the system there.    Now at least with MOST stuff in FS2004 maxed..... I can sustain 30 FPS in the demanding scenarios.

You for sure need to go up to at least 512 M or RAM..... preferable a gig.  But don't expect geometric or exponential increases in performance... they are more "incremental" improvements.

You can also consider investing some bucks in Ramsa's machine tuning service to get the most out of what you have......... which a lot of people swear by.

You are not alone in "the search".


best,

.................john

[4_Series_Scania]

I've been on the quest for FS performance, alas compared to my old FX 5600, the ATI 9600 is a real killer card!

For me, my 6800LE has given all of my sims a new lease of life. I don't run completely maxxed, then I see no reason not to.
At the near max settings I can now run at, FS9 is a joy.

128MB RAM is half what XP needs to function happily, on its own!

I upped from 512 to 1GB and FS9 certainly was better for it, loading times especially, are improved.
The RAM has made little to no difference games performance wise, FPS rates are up, but by 2 or 4 at the most.

Dropping back to 512MB system RAM ,just out of curiosity, with my current 6800LE does not seem to affect FS9 despite my high ish settings.

Burning CD's seems much much faster with 1GB RAM , interestingly.....  ???

[marick626]

I had that card. Its kinda funny. As I was replacing it, I compared it to my new Radeon X850XT and WTF? The damn 9600 is a midget comnpared to the x850xt. anyway. the 9600 Is a good card. I was getting 20fps at some points (with best quality). Nothing like the x850 but still a pretty nice card.

For the question about the mbs. no, switching to a 256mb doesnt make mutch diference. I would suggest changing your card to a Geforce 6600 or radeon 9800.
even though some people may think Im being mean for telling you to change the card. You could probably find the 9800 for under $300 or $200 if you search really hard.

Anyway, it still is a pretty good card. Its actually pretty good to play battlefield 1948 (but you wouldnt be interested in that)

cheers