Graphics Card For Crysis/Graphics Fix For Crysis??

[NinjaNife]

Thanks for all of the help.

Can anybody tell me how it is my CPU that is maxing out when according to Task Manager the CPU never goes over 50% usage? Is Task Manager not showing, or what?

I am definitely looking into the Phenom II 955, but might not be able to get the 5850 just yet.

 

[NinjaNife]

Also, you are recommending the Phenom II 955 (newegg price $175.99). How much different is the 965 (newegg price $195.99). Should I get the 965 for the extra $20? Or is it not worth it?

 

[gaximodo]

Finished with my exam, and I meant bottleneck, was too tired with only 3hours sleeping last night lol.

@wiak, when ppl say ATI's driver sucks they are most likely referring bad performance for recent released games, it happens for like more than 60% of the time a 4850 is pulling around 20 FPS for a new released title and its direct rival 9800GTX+ pulls around 45, and after a few weeks/months ATi comes with their newer driver optimizes these not new anymore titles to around the same performance range of its rival. And for the other 40% games, most of them don't require a lot of graphcis power anyway.
(I've got my 4870x2 killed with their driver, and even if doesn't kill cards, you need like 200%~300% the work of updating NV drivers to update ATi's (uninstall--driversweeper--restart,driversweeper again then install for me to get my cards running without any issues after updating lol, and you'll have to update due to the performance problems.)not to mention not every version works with every card)

When it comes to NV, their drivers were very reliable and has more functions until the new 190 ones. The 19x.xx ones are surely very buggy, but those buggy versions are beta drivers anyway. you shouldn't rely on beta drivers anyway. the 191.07 WHQL fixed most of those problems.

For op, your machine gives you similar performance on 1920x1080 and 1280x720 which there are more than twice of pixels are rendered each frame, leads me to believe your GFX card definitely isn't the first thing you should consider a replace.
Try read overclocking guild all around the web and try overclock a bit to see if there are any performance boost(if you are not sure just don't touch voltage settings first) I'm sure there are a lot ppl can help you with overclocking your CPU.
Or simply just get a replacement like 550 dual core or 720 tri cores.

And if you still not happy with your 250, don't buy ATI cards just YET, wait if you can(reasons stated in other post), and the DX11 capable 5xxx series are very hard to find anyway.

And there are NO dx11 games released so far anyway.

Edit: Lol. Op wrote 2 posts during I was writing this one, If I were you I would just get the 955, there isn't a lot of differences after overclocked, and only 200mhz differences if you don't OC at all.

 

[PP Mguire]

Thanks for all of the help.

Can anybody tell me how it is my CPU that is maxing out when according to Task Manager the CPU never goes over 50% usage? Is Task Manager not showing, or what?

I am definitely looking into the Phenom II 955, but might not be able to get the 5850 just yet.

I havent read alot of the thread but read your main post and this.

First of all, i maxed out Crysis on an x2 4200+ (DDR1 and S939) and an 8800GS i had heavily overclocked but that was at 144x900. If your changing resolution and there is no difference then it IS cpu bottleneck. Ive also played Crysis on an X3 720BE and 9800GTX+ (Same card as you) and ran it perfectly at 1920x1200. Difference was my cpu was at 3.8ghz.

To answer your cpu question, in simple the faster the cpu the better. Crysis can only take advantage of say, 2 cores which would explain 50% usage. Meaning its taking 100% of 2 cores. (25% is full load on a single core of your quad core cpu). A Phenom II based CPU is much faster than its older brethren clock for clock. I wouldnt say upgrade your whole setup for a 955 but if you put a 940BE and overclocked to around 3.5ghz your GTS250 should be fine running Crysis at your resolution. Im saying this based off of personal experience since ive owned almost all the Phenom II high end chips.

To answer another of your questions the difference between the 965 and 955 (not newer models) is stock clock speed and the multiplier is higher by 1.

As a side note i recently gave my dad my old AM2+ machine. It has the same motherboard you have and a 940BE with 4gb of G.Skill ram. I have him overclocked to 3.8ghz on air cooling and tossed him a 4850. He plays absolutely any game maxed right now (No AA). I wouldnt recommend upgrading your whole setup to just bump up the CPU when a 940BE (AM2+ cpu) will do you just fine.

 

[NinjaNife]

I wouldnt say upgrade your whole setup for a 955 but if you put a 940BE and overclocked to around 3.5ghz your GTS250 should be fine running Crysis at your resolution.
To answer another of your questions the difference between the 965 and 955 (not newer models) is stock clock speed and the multiplier is higher by 1.

Okay. Is this the correct CPU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103471&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Processors+-+Desktops-_-AMD-_-19103471)?

If it is, then wouldn't it be better to get, lets say, the 965 (which is 195.99 instead of 165.99 for the 940) so that IF I ever upgrade the rest of my system (and decide to stay with AMD) I can use the AM3 CPU with a new motherboard? If the 965 does work in my current system without any changes (and it is on the supported motherboard list (fastest Phenom II on the list) and I use DDR2 (not sure if that matters but WIAK mentioned something about it)), wouldn't the $30 be worth the AM2+ to AM3 jump? Along with the added 400MHz? Thanks for your help.

*EDIT*
What does the "BE" stand for when you said to get the "940BE"?
Also, if I got the 965, I then could overclock that higher if I needed to (assuming that you can OC a 3.4GHz higher than a 3.0GHz for instance)

 

[PP Mguire]

Yes you can put that CPU in your system but if you dont plan on upgrading your system anytime soon then it really is kinda poitnless. Also, if your on some kind of budget then getting the 965 is pointless as well. The 955 OCs just as well as the 965.

BE stands for Black Edition meaning it has an unlocked multiplier. You can OC without adjusting the FSB. Depending on your cooling either of the chips will pretty much get around the same clock speed give or take a few hundred mhz. Im assuming your on air. A 965 can get around 4.0ghz on good air cooling whereas a 940 can get around 3.7-3.8ghz on good air cooling. Around those frequencies and in the case of your video card the difference is not much.

To give a simple answer. Any one of those 3 CPUs will be great for an upgrade with your current machine. If you can get the CPU between 3.6ghz and 4.0ghz you would notice a great difference between the Phenom II and your current CPU. (Which sucks, no offence) It all depends on if you wanna spend the extra cash on getting an AM3 cpu or not.

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

Finished with my exam, and I meant bottleneck, was too tired with only 3hours sleeping last night lol.

@wiak, when ppl say ATI's driver sucks they are most likely referring bad performance for recent released games, it happens for like more than 60% of the time a 4850 is pulling around 20 FPS for a new released title and its direct rival 9800GTX+ pulls around 45, and after a few weeks/months ATi comes with their newer driver optimizes these not new anymore titles to around the same performance range of its rival. And for the other 40% games, most of them don't require a lot of graphcis power anyway.
(I've got my 4870x2 killed with their driver, and even if doesn't kill cards, you need like 200%~300% the work of updating NV drivers to update ATi's (uninstall--driversweeper--restart,driversweeper again then install for me to get my cards running without any issues after updating lol, and you'll have to update due to the performance problems.)not to mention not every version works with every card)

When it comes to NV, their drivers were very reliable and has more functions until the new 190 ones. The 19x.xx ones are surely very buggy, but those buggy versions are beta drivers anyway. you shouldn't rely on beta drivers anyway. the 191.07 WHQL fixed most of those problems.

For op, your machine gives you similar performance on 1920x1080 and 1280x720 which there are more than twice of pixels are rendered each frame, leads me to believe your GFX card definitely isn't the first thing you should consider a replace.
Try read overclocking guild all around the web and try overclock a bit to see if there are any performance boost(if you are not sure just don't touch voltage settings first) I'm sure there are a lot ppl can help you with overclocking your CPU.
Or simply just get a replacement like 550 dual core or 720 tri cores.

And if you still not happy with your 250, don't buy ATI cards just YET, wait if you can(reasons stated in other post), and the DX11 capable 5xxx series are very hard to find anyway.

And there are NO dx11 games released so far anyway.

Edit: Lol. Op wrote 2 posts during I was writing this one, If I were you I would just get the 955, there isn't a lot of differences after overclocked, and only 200mhz differences if you don't OC at all.

Thats not at all what I mean ATI's performance (especially the 4870x2) on older games just blows.Morrowind with quite a few mods was unplayable Oblivion, FSX, Darkplaces, Stalker (modded),HL2 with the cinematic mod same deal. They drop support for older games (not that support should be necessary) faster than they do for their older video cards. As you can tell I'm not a fan of ATI. IDK maybe if you play nothing but newer gamed and/or don't use mods.

 

[PP Mguire]

Well like i said i gave my dad a 4850 and it plays anything flawlessly and he plays quite a bit of older games.

 

[NinjaNife]

Yes you can put that CPU in your system but if you dont plan on upgrading your system anytime soon then it really is kinda poitnless. Also, if your on some kind of budget then getting the 965 is pointless as well.

I am somewhat on a budget, but if faced with the choice between a 3.0GHz and 3.4GHz for a $30 difference, I think I will swing the $30. It is just safer that way (I don't have any experience with OC, so getting the 3.0GHz and trying to OC to 3.4 or higher might be dangerous lol. Rather spend the $30 and not have to risk frying my computer just for 400MHz more ).

*EDIT*
Both CPU's are "BE", so I guess both have good (better than my current CPU lol) OC capabilities in case I ever want to OC them.

 

[PP Mguire]

With an unlocked multiplier the point of it is for easy OCing. You raise one number to increase cpu frequency. If it gets unstable add a little vcore. As one said, anybody (or a little Google) can tell you how to simply OC a bit.

 

[xBruce88x]

OCing really isn't that hard. like PP said, you just increase the multiplier on a BE to get a faster speed, or increase the FSB, or both. To make it stable you add more volts (a tiny amount at a time). The biggest thing you really have to worry about it heat.. make sure your cpu fan is up to the task. You can usually get decent after-market heatsink/fan kits for around $30.

here's a good one for overclocking Katana $30

 

[MatTheCat]

Two questions today:

1. I have recently gotten Crysis, and have been having some major lag/fps issues (using the crysis benchmark tool 1.05 I get an average of 15~19 FPS). I don't know if it is my graphics card or something else that is the problem. If anyone knows how I can improve my performance please let me know.

2. If the above problem is because of my graphics card (specs below), what is the "best" (maybe under $250?) video card out there (ATI or nVidia) that can play Crysis (and other high-performance games)?

My system specs are:

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
CPU: AMD Phenom 9600 2.3GHz
RAM: OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 8GB (4 x 2GB)
Graphics Card: EVGA GeForce GTS 250 1GB
Motherboard: ASUS M4N72-E AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI ATX
PSU: OCZ StealthXStream OCZ700SXS 700W ATX12V / EPS12V
Monitor: ASUS VH242 24"
Case: Cooler Master HAF 932

Whilst it is true that certainly your CPU is not up to standards for modern day gaming, I wouldn't go getting in a mad upgrade dash over Crysis. Dude, you could spend around $900 on new gear and still find that you are not getting the super slippery performance you would expect for that kind of money. Crysis is just one of those games which isn't brilliantly optimised and I would imagine that it will take another 'generation' of hardware to come around before there are mainstream PC's that can finally drag Crysis of its knees and having it running full pelt.

As you will be able to see from the various benchmarks on the internet, even with a 5870 and some high powered Quad Core running at 4Ghz, Crysis running maxed out @1920.1200 with any kind of FSAA enabled, this game is running somewhere between 30-45FPS.

 

[Jaffakeik]

I installed crusis patch 1.2.1 and when i play all AI moves strange dont shoot me,but when i shoot em they start to fly(i mean when i kill it he just holds in air and try to fell down but he cant)and looks very strange without patch it was normal.

 

[NinjaNife]

I also have had trouble with the 1.2.1 patch (from what I can find Windows 7 is incompatable with it; I couldn't play at all until I reinstalled without 1.2.1). Try reinstalling and it should work.

Hey does anyone know what the system requirements for Crysis 2 will be?

 

[Jaffakeik]

so 1.2 is ok and1.2.1 is bad?

 

[NinjaNife]

I am not sure if it is "bad" or not, just that it is incompatable with some operating systems (such as Windows 7 in my case). It is only a hotfix for online play anyway (fixes some security gaps between the client and server I think), so if you are playing single player you shouldn't need it.

After installing 1.2.1 on my pc, Crysis wouldn't even launch, and when it did I couldn't change any settings without crashing (and gameplay was worse than it is now lol). After reinstalling I no longer have those problems (besides the ones with my CPU and Graphics; the 1.2.1 problems were gone).

Try reinstalling. If it doesn't help, you can always install the patch again (only losing the time waiting on the install). Good luck.

*EDIT*
Just noticed I didn't answer part of your question. I have no troubles with 1.2, just 1.2.1. Hope this helps.

 

[skylamer]

buy x4 965

 

[NinjaNife]

Hey someone mentioned how my 4 CPU cores aren't being used while playing (said 2 cores are at max and the other 2 are min for instance). I just tested again and found that only 1 of my 4 cores is being used. Why is that?? I thought that Crysis was made for a dual or quad, so wouldn't it use at least 2 cores? Is there a setting in Crysis or Windows that is making this happen? Any way I can make it utilize all or more of my cores?

 

[Binge]

its your graphics card and cpu
you should upgrade to a Phenom II 955 and a Radeon HD 5850 and you will notice the boost

the GTS 250 is OLD, heck its just a renamed 9800 GTX that is also a renamed 8800 GTX (2007)
and you also has a old cpu from 2007, then you have a 24" with 1920x1200 resolution that will make your graphics card scream

It's not old. It's a different GPU than the 9800. It has the same specs, but it is a diff GPU. The problem is the resolution at which he's playing the game and probably the settings he's running the game.

 

[Bo$$]

well video card is weak, my single 9800gt gets 13-19 in crysis warhead

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

It's not old. It's a different GPU than the 9800. It has the same specs, but it is a diff GPU. The problem is the resolution at which he's playing the game and probably the settings he's running the game.

It is the exact same gpu as the 9800gtx+. It is an 8800gts on a die shrink with a speed bump. He should have no problem with Crysis on medium. It's his cpu. I used to play on high with a 9800gtx 65nm and an e8400 but that card clocked like a beast.

so 1.2 is ok and1.2.1 is bad?

1.21 is just a multiplayer hotfix.

 

[PP Mguire]

Hey someone mentioned how my 4 CPU cores aren't being used while playing (said 2 cores are at max and the other 2 are min for instance). I just tested again and found that only 1 of my 4 cores is being used. Why is that?? I thought that Crysis was made for a dual or quad, so wouldn't it use at least 2 cores? Is there a setting in Crysis or Windows that is making this happen? Any way I can make it utilize all or more of my cores?

Most games of today still arent made to utilize more than one core. Thats why i personally tell people if your making a PC just to game a high frequency dual core will do just fine. It just so happens that most quads today can clock as well if not better than most duals. (Not mention the e8600/8500 )

Just to show you what i mean. Crysis is pretty much only taking up one core on very high on the rig in my specs.

 

[NinjaNife]

Your CPU usage is nearly identical to mine. Glad to know my PC isn't glitching or something lol. I guess that also means that a Phenom II X4 965 3.4GHz will perform MUCH better than my Phenom 9600 2.3GHz, correct? Even without doing an OC to 4GHz (on the 965)?

Is that a SS of you playing or from a benchmark tool? If a benchmark tool, which one is it?

*EDIT*
You are running 2 eVGA GTX280's in SLI, correct? What kind of strain is put on them (I mean, one of your CPU cores is at almost at max. Does the game put more stress on the graphics card or the CPU? If the graphics, what kind of usage are you running on your settings) compared to your CPU (example: if CPU = 1 core almost 100%, then GPU = ??% at the same time)? Thanks.

 

[PP Mguire]

2.3 to 2.3 the 965 will still be alot better because the architecture is just that much better than Phenom 1. So at 3.4ghz youll see a major increase.

I took a screenshot of a benchmark. Its Crysis Benchmark Tool. They use in game to bench so i figured it would be best than to actually try and play the game in windowed mode.

For the test to help you understand better i used one 280 and a res of 1280x1024 because lower res puts more strain on the CPU. Higher res requires a higher quality GPU. The game itself is highly unoptimized (Not more than GTA4 mind you) so it puts a heavy strain on both CPU and GPU. But with your system specs its easy to pinpoint the problems with your performance is deff the CPU.

 

[NinjaNife]

Good to know. Does anyone know of a good (freeware preferred but not required) GPU usage monitor? I am using nVidia System Monitor right now, but it doesn't seem to be working properly (says I am using 4% of my GPU in Assassin's Creed lol). Any suggestions would be appreciated.