9 replies to this topic

[KitK]

I guess of the forum options, this seems best for a hardware question. Perhaps a hardware savvy fellow MW will have some insight.


In short:

Had a Nvidia 550 Ti. It died. Medium video settings across the board. 1980x1020 (native for monitor) Windows 7. Meets recommended requirements except RAM @ 6MB.

Replaced with a Nvidia GT 730. Low video settings across the board if I want to play. 1980x1020. It even produces choppy rotation of the mech in the home screen.

So, what is the performance drop issue? Clearly an old machine, but I didn't expect the performance hit.

___________
Out of curiosity, I ran the Windows Experience program today. Gaming graphics index dropped from from 7.3 to 6.5. So, I guess its not just MWO, but here is where I noticed it. Interesting that 4 times the video memory does nothing. It must be something else with the architecture.

Edited by KitK, 28 March 2020 - 01:48 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

Ouchie, a GT 730? Is this a SFF?

Did you clear the heatsinks and made sure all fans are running okay?

Power Options, set to High Performance

Nvidia UI, Power Management mode, set to Max Performance to ensure it is using the Nvidia GPU and not the CPU GPU.

DId you do a complete uninstall of the Nvidia drivers before reinstalling?

AA turned off in game?

What is the rest of your system specs?

[KitK]

SSF?

These are some good suggestions to follow up. Thanks.

I did not uninstall my old Nvidia drivers. I have been looking at that closer. The new driver installer claims I have the wrong OS (it is wrong). So I am a little hesitant to do that. But I suspect it is going to be required.

It's an old rig but worked fine for 6 yrs.

AMD Phenom IIx4 945 on Asus MB
RAM 6 GB
Windows Home Premium 7-64bit SP1 (up to date)
652 GB free storage

Edited by KitK, 28 March 2020 - 08:20 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

SFF small form factor. Not a full size case thus only GPU manufactured to fit said cases would work.

And yeap, there was an issue with the driver saying wrong OS, this was from a player who was running Windows 7 and upgraded to Windows 10. 730 is an old card. Which driver version did you download and try to install?

https://www.nvidia.c...incompatible-w/

Download GPU-Z and confirm which version of 730 you have. All but one version of the GT 730 are considered legacy GPU and newer drivers will not work/install. Okay, the Nvidia website, if you go looking for newest drivers will be providing you with drivers which are not compatible with your GPU (version dependent) but it does not take that into consideration. I believe the last driver which is compatible is the fermi version of the GT 730 uses 391.35, after much research.

https://www.nvidia.c...px/132838/en-us

https://nvidia.custh...legacy-products

Effective April 2018, Game Ready Driver upgrades, including performance enhancements, new features, and bug fixes, will be available only on Kepler, Maxwell, and Pascal series GPUs. Critical security updates will be available on Fermi series GPUs through January 2019.

[KitK]

Tarl, first of all, please let me express my gratitude for your research and passing on your knowledge. Thank you.

Your research is right on the money. The card has reached end of life. But it does not appear to be listed under "Legacy" on Nidia's main driver search. Both the driver search and the Nvidia Experience software assume the last surviving variation of the GT 730. Thus the install fail for newer drivers.

That GPU-Z program is good tool. Also, I have set the power management setting as suggested. I also preformed a clean install of the last good driver. I haven't seen substantial improvement in performance, but I am still investigating. I suspect that the GT 730 is just far enough down the architecture path that my older MB and processor are not properly utilizing it.

[Mochyn Pupur]

Heh. Due to the age of my PC, I'm running an NVIDIA GeForce GT 545 @ 1920 x 1080 with a custom set up of mainly low and medium settings (wouldn't go above that due to superfluous clutter of plants, smoke etc. anyway) and hold a 65 - 80 fps on an old i7. Drivers are as per NVIDIA's Experience dashboard/auto downloader. Big difference is that I have 16GB of fastest ram my old motherboard will carry, may want to look at that - plenty of cheap ram out there if you look.

[KitK]

Well, this has about concluded itself with a disappointing outcome. On the surface, the 3-year newer, 2-series more advanced, 4x the video ram Nvidia GT 730 looks like it should match if not exceed the performance of my dead Nvidia GTX 550 Ti. Truth is, the old Ti out performs the 730 in most categories, especially the ones that count. So, I guess for now, I will have to tweak, tune and cope.

https://www.game-deb...0GTX%20550%20Ti

[General Solo]

Amount of memory is important in terms of texture sizes but its size of the memory connection (in bits) to the GPU that determines how quickly the GPU can access stuff in video memory; Memory Bandwidth.

Nvidia GT 730 2GB or4GB - 128 bit Memory to GPU interface, Memory Bandwidth: 22.4 GB/s
Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB - 192-bit Memory to GPU interface, Memory Bandwidth: 98.5GB/sec

As you can see you card maybe an upgrade in terms of quantity of video ram but you can access the contents of that Video Ram at a lower rate then your old card.

And since GPU's render in real time that means lower FPS.

Be sure to check Memory to GPU interface which determines Memory Bandwidth

Best to check reviews before you buy

Edit: Cards with 64/128 bit memory buses shoud be avoided
Personally I'd for go memory size over memory bus width, the wider the better, 64 bit < 128 bit < 256 bit bus etc

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 02 April 2020 - 04:44 AM.

[D V Devnull]

Hello, KitK... Sorry that I'm late to your thread, but do I see correctly that your System only has 6 GB of RAM usable by it?

If so, I would seriously recommend a RAM Upgrade to 16 GB Total. It is definitely worth the money. Running that much here myself on an antiquated system that runs MWO, and it took away a lot of lag issues caused by lack of RAM availability.

If on the other hand I am not reading you correctly, then could you please re-list your System Specs that don't appear to be entirely present here? I think I saw a little about them above, but I'm not sure I read them properly.

~D. V. "just a couple of helpful thoughts regarding System RAM for you" Devnull



[Edit by Post Author for a misworded thought.]

Edited by D V Devnull, 08 May 2020 - 10:40 AM.

[KitK]

Thanks Homer and Devnull.

Homer, that bandwidth issue is huge. I've been playing my old, old Nintendo NES on a tube TV instead of MechWarrior - the graphics are on par.

Devnull, yeah the RAM issue could help several areas. My board maxes out at 8MB. I've upgraded everything but the board at least once. I guess I got money out the Mobo by now! (Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe, so a good 10 years old).