New video card results, GTX550 Ti

[SuperFudd]

Hi all,

I upgraded My video card (see system, below) from the GT220 that came with the PC 2 years ago to an Asus GTX550 Ti and the results are suprising.
For reference I used Tidewater Point at the yard between the fueling station and the town. This area is a challege for my PC/GT220. I was getting 13 fps with 1280x720 resolution and Alias = 4, OpenGL, no shadows. It was worse with 1600x900, the monitor's "natural" resolution.
Now, with the GTX550 I get, (are you ready for this?) 13fps at 1280x720.
The good news is I now also get 13fps at 1600x900 and NO hesitations at either resolution where it was a minor problem before.
So, what may we deduce from this? Perhaps TS2009 SP3 is more CPU dependent than GPU dependent, at least at 1280x720 on my PC. Also hesitation was a video card issue.

 

[SuperFudd]

Futhermore:

I tried DirectX. 23fps at 1600x900, 25fps at 1280x720. The water looked fine, using driver 285.62. However there was some hesitation at both resolutions.

EDIT:
The GT220 would idle at 90 F. Under maximum load with Trainz, 160 F.
The GTX550 under all the load I could muster with Trainz, 90 F.
I was measuring with "Speed Fan".
It seems, again, the limiting factor in this situation is not the GPU.

 

[fran1]

This week

I'd been staring at msi afterburner when using a gtx560ti looking at gpu use. Rarely above maybe 13% with GL and poor fps 15max, DX will use more gpu up to 40% and 30 fps.
I've rolled back drivers to 266.44, no hesitation in framerate, the 275 drivers were ok. The latest 285's gave jumpy frame rates.

Re the cpu theory, this week I changed a E8500 3.16g core duo for a x9650 quad extreme @3ghz. CPU usage was about 60-65%, now down to 30-35%.
No better frame rates though.
Temp for gpu 34-45 degrees c

 

[CRO]

Very interesting. I am thinking of upgrading my video, from Nvidia GTX9600 to the GT450/460 range, but now I wonder if the lack of improvement will justify the expense. I'm running an Intel core Duo quad core, so my GPU already has plenty of grunt I'm thinking. I have set FPS to 30 in TrainzOptions and achieve that most of the time, but get stops and stuttering. Guess it needs more research. Another possibility is to upgrade to an SSD drive. My windows experience score would indicate that my Western Digital HD's are the bottleneck.

Cheers

BOB (CRO)

 

[Euphod]

I can't provide benchmarks right now, but I've replaced my aging 8800 GTS 512 with a GTX460, and the naked eye results are impressive! I run a core 2 duo as well.

 

[lewisner]

Very interesting. I am thinking of upgrading my video, from Nvidia GTX9600 to the GT450/460 range, but now I wonder if the lack of improvement will justify the expense. I'm running an Intel core Duo quad core, so my GPU already has plenty of grunt I'm thinking. I have set FPS to 30 in TrainzOptions and achieve that most of the time, but get stops and stuttering. Guess it needs more research. Another possibility is to upgrade to an SSD drive. My windows experience score would indicate that my Western Digital HD's are the bottleneck.

Cheers

BOB (CRO)

The GTX 450/460's are starting to become (comparitively speaking) antiques now.
I obtained an ATI Radeon 6950 a few months ago and the results are top notch, theres absolutely no lag and FPS are very high. If you want to seriously test your GPU download 3Dmark Vantage and it'll give you the benchmark figures which you can then compare to other PC's with different cards.

 

[clam1952]

To replace a 9600, you need a 256 bit card or higher, the 550TI is only 192 bit and performance is down on a GTX460 which is 256 bit but better than a 450 which is only 128 bit.
You also need to check it has fast memory as in DDR5 as some, usually cheap cards, are still using DDR3 or even DDR2 depending on the card brand.

Just because a card is a newer / higher series doesn't mean it is better than all the previous series, you have to consider all the factors.

Using Wikipedia which lists all the cards specifications is a good place to start.

 

[Euphod]

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

 

[bobhahn]

Total eclipse

I have a Win 7, quad core AMD Phenom II. With a GTX 9800 I was getting frequent "blackouts" -- the game would pause and the screen would go black for 2 or 3 seconds. Then the game would resume. That happened on GL or DirectX, on TS2010 or TS12.

Replaced the 9800 with a GTX 570 and the blackouts went away. Still get occasional stuttering... I don't think the GPU is the bottleneck there.

 

[SuperFudd]

Hi bobhahn,

Perhaps the 9800 was overheating due to dust build up? Was the problem only recent?
As for current stutters, are you using DirectX? Try OpenGL. Perhaps change Drivers (GPU, not Trainz ).

 

[SuperFudd]

I just now took a look at the results of Win7's "Performance Information".
It is found at Contol Panel> Action Center> bottom of left column, at least on my PC. It rates performance on a scale of 1 to 7.9.
My CPU has been and is 7.2.
My Memory speed, 7.4.
My GT220 GPU was 6.5.
My GTX550 Ti is 7.3.
This may indicate my PC is now well balanced.

 

[GP30Fan]

FYI...

Windows 7 with an I7-920 and ATI 5850

My CPU has been and is 7.4.
My Memory speed, 7.5.
My ATI 5850, 7.3.

AL

 

[johnwhelan]

I just now took a look at the results of Win7's "Performance Information".
It is found at Contol Panel> Action Center> bottom of left column, at least on my PC. It rates performance on a scale of 1 to 7.9.
My CPU has been and is 7.2.
My Memory speed, 7.4.
My GT220 GPU was 6.5.
My GTX550 Ti is 7.3.
This may indicate my PC is now well balanced.

This is sort of, some software is more dependent than others on CPU or GPU or even hard disk speed and amount of memory.

I've seen a twenty fold increase in speed just by adding memory for one particular application. Memory speed etc stayed the same.

Cheerio John

 

[lewisner]

My current Windows Experience Index is 7.7 determined by -

Processor 7.7

Memory (RAM) 7.8

Graphics 7.9

Gaming Graphics 7.9

Primary Hard Disk 7.9

My previous CPU used to be an AMD 64 X 4 which unfortunately set my WIE at 5.0
I was told that the only way you could get 7.9 was by adding an SSD but that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

[SuperFudd]

I just noticed my PCIe bus is 1.1. I supose 2.0, as I assumed it was, would have been better.

 

[Gandalf0444]

I just noticed my PCIe bus is 1.1. I supose 2.0, as I assumed it was, would have been better.

Yes as it would allow the card to run at max speed(what it was designed for) The card will work just fine, but will be throttled down to the max speed 1.1 supports.
Looks like you may have more upgrading in your future.

 

[SuperFudd]

Thanks.

Still, I have noted improved performance at highest resolution and with shadows on. Also stutters/hesitaion has noticably improved.
At least I wont be overheating my video card. It seems there is no point in overclocking it.

 

[Gandalf0444]

Thanks.

Still, I have noted improved performance at highest resolution and with shadows on. Also stutters/hesitaion has noticably improved.
At least I wont be overheating my video card. It seems there is no point in overclocking it.

Indeed there would be an increase regardless. Before my computer I have now I inherited my grandfathers computer which had PCI-E X16(notice no revison) and stuck the card I am using now (GTS450) and it was like night and day between that and AGP.
It was absolutely ridiculous what I was missing. Then with my current machine my jaw dropped again when I was able to run games in 1080p.