PC Upgrading Discussion

Jamie R · Mar 31, 2009

Nigel Atkins said:
my pc specs are a little higher than yours and i have to run EVO on low display settings and 2 AA to stop the frezzers and even then i still get stuttering on some tracks when passing the pit area.

4500 @ 2.2
8600 512mb
4 GB ram

That's REALLY odd.. I have a laptop with dual 2.0ghz, 8600M gs and 2gb ram and can play max with 30 fps on Brans and up to 100 on most others. Can put AA up but don't because of tracks with lots of trees.

Damian Henderson · Mar 31, 2009

It would be good to get your current PC fixed before upgrading. As you have experienced this stuff in GTR2 it's not the normal Evo freezes etc, ( In evo it's pretty normal to have 5 second + freezes etc ) as it's a different game and GTR2 is more stable then Evo despite being a much older game unfortunately.

So your problem sounds like it could be driver's, I think you should try a few different sets or something untill you get a good set. You chipset is fine really just for basic gaming stuff.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us

If you cannot solve the problem and you want to upgrade give me a max price you can spend.

Lee Madden · Mar 31, 2009

Damian Dainhumain said:
It would be good to get your current PC fixed before upgrading. As you have experienced this stuff in GTR2 it's not the normal Evo freezes etc, ( In evo it's pretty normal to have 5 second + freezes etc ) as it's a different game and GTR2 is more stable then Evo despite being a much older game unfortunately.

So your problem sounds like it could be driver's, I think you should try a few different sets or something untill you get a good set. You chipset is fine really just for basic gaming stuff.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us

If you cannot solve the problem and you want to upgrade give me a max price you can spend.

When you say set you mean drivers ? so the driver for the card in the link i should try this one yes ? sorry im a bit novice wen it comes to this kinda talk ha ha
cheers

Damian Henderson · Mar 31, 2009

Lee Madden said:
When you say set you mean drivers ? so the driver for the card in the link i should try this one yes ? sorry im a bit novice wen it comes to this kinda talk ha ha
cheers

Set of Driver's yes.

On the link search for Geforce 8 Series on product series, and then underneath 8600GT, press search and try the latest driver's or someting. 182.08 if you tried them try a different set.

Christopher Aponte · Mar 31, 2009

I think I see to problems on your pc (maybe some don't agree fully)
you have a Via chipset, which in this current market is really slow. And you have a 8mb cache for a 320 GB hard drive, which for me is to slow (for me you need at least 16 mb cache when you have above 160GB of hard drive space and 32mb cache for 640 GB and more)

Nigel Atkins · Mar 31, 2009

Christopher Aponte said:
I think I see to problems on your pc (maybe some don't agree fully)
you have a Via chipset, which in this current market is really slow. And you have a 8mb cache for a 320 GB hard drive, which for me is to slow (for me you need at least 16 mb cache when you have above 160GB of hard drive space and 32mb cache for 640 GB and more)

is there some program to test for bottle necks?

i`m pretty sure my HD is 16md cache and i have noticed when i get stuttering or frezzing my HDD light is on.

Dan Coldrick · Mar 31, 2009

Christopher Aponte said:
I think I see to problems on your pc (maybe some don't agree fully)
you have a Via chipset, which in this current market is really slow. And you have a 8mb cache for a 320 GB hard drive, which for me is to slow (for me you need at least 16 mb cache when you have above 160GB of hard drive space and 32mb cache for 640 GB and more)

Chris have to say I don't agree, I have a second PC in my flat which Alex Gibson joins us on a Friday for Mini night. It only has a very old 40GB IDE and the game runs smooth as butter, my thoughts are graphics drivers.

Damian Henderson · Mar 31, 2009

Christopher Aponte said:
I think I see to problems on your pc (maybe some don't agree fully)
you have a Via chipset, which in this current market is really slow. And you have a 8mb cache for a 320 GB hard drive, which for me is to slow (for me you need at least 16 mb cache when you have above 160GB of hard drive space and 32mb cache for 640 GB and more)

Chris, I have a pc that uses a hardrive with just 2mb cache, and a Pentium D CPU with low end chipset and it can play sim games ok on certain settings. Maybe don't look to good but it can play games fine. I know guys who use even older PC's ok to. This to me sounds like a driver problem or something else could be wrong.

Christopher Aponte · Mar 31, 2009

that is why I said maybe not everyone will agree on this

but it can be sometimes a bottleneck
as for drivers it is most likely that if it hasn't been updated in a while

but having experience 7 years ago with medion, it will be better resolved with a clean install (medion tends to put some or a lot of unneeded software...but that was 7 years ago :wink

if it is still a problem after the clean install with new updated drivers, then motherboard with a better chipset or new graphics card will resolve it

Marcel Hulsbergen · Mar 31, 2009

For me it's clear you will not resolve this problem by buying new components. Then you still will have the same issues as the problems are at the bottomline which is your OS and drivers.

As you only got a recovery cd it is not a good idea to recover it with the same stuff.

Indeed Medion adds a lot of bull**** on their systems, thats why i prefer a self made system only.

If you can find someone who has a Vista Home premium original dvd then you can reinstall your pc with that and you can try to put the OEM license into that. Don't know if that works but it's worth a try. You can find that license number on the Microsoft sticker, or read it out with a tool like Everest.

Another solution may be stripping all the Medion software from the pc, it's to hard to explain which folders and files should be deleted, i need to see the pc for that.

Once deleted all bull**** try to find out which drivers you need and reinstall all drivers. It can be handy to split your drive into 2 or 3 partitions, then you can always create an image or backup easily.

Lee Madden · Apr 1, 2009

Mmmm i have reloaded the latest drivers today and i was prompted to overwright the same files so i had the latest drivers for the card to start with v182.08 so im getting rather concerned now.
cheers for your input guys it is much appreciated

could it a virus or something ?? or could it be my card? its heat sink not fan assisted!
as to the reinstall it is possible form the disc i have but i will need to format so untill i back up my files an games mods to disc ill need to wait
failing that ill have to have it looked at by a shop ha ha
cheers once again !!

Lee Madden · Apr 1, 2009

Once ive sorted out the problem I was wondering if this 1 would work with my board ? or am i making a too bigger jump ??

NVIDIA GEFORCE® 9600
XFX NVIDIA GeForce 9600
GPU Clock - 580 Mhz
Memory Bus - 192
Memory Type - DDR2
Memory Size - 1536MB
Memory Speed - 800Mhz
Thermal Solution - FANSINK
Outputs - HDTV, Dual-Link DVI
Card Dimensions - 8.4 x 4.376 x 0.75
Feature - CUDA Technology, PhysX Technology
Bus Type - PCI-E 2.0

Damian Henderson · Apr 1, 2009

Wait till you done the format with Vista and then see how your system is running before upgrading any hardware.

Lee Madden · Apr 1, 2009

ok will do thanks

Lee Madden · Apr 2, 2009

ok format done... so tonite im gonna throw all my sh*t back on but b4 I do I was wondering if there is a way I should do it as ive never done this b4 or just chuck it all back on in any order?
what I was gonna do.. Is to start with card drivers 1st ! , progs ,files, games, addons, ect ect is this right or ok
cheers

Dan Coldrick · Apr 2, 2009

Lee Madden said:
ok format done... so tonite im gonna throw all my sh*t back on but b4 I do I was wondering if there is a way I should do it as ive never done this b4 or just chuck it all back on in any order?
what I was gonna do.. Is to start with card drivers 1st ! , progs ,files, games, addons, ect ect is this right or ok
cheers

I always update windows first, then drivers, then programs. Once your fully installed run http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/ and defragment.

Lee Madden · Apr 3, 2009

Ok.. format is done all is loaded back on just need to defrag
and its test run time later on tonite...
any recomendations as to what i should run game on to get best 1st
impression results for my setup?
and what to do if it has not solved the problem !
Its took me 2 nites to get to this stage and I was up till 2 am this moring
after installing 70 vista update and 1 service pack + all progs and file (some left out too) and a recovery format ..SO
If this dont work ill be pretty

issed-off: hah haha
thanx again for all your help and input to this thread
fingers crossed !!!!!
Ill keep you posted on how its gone after 12 midnite (GTM) hahha

Damian Henderson · Apr 3, 2009

Try medium setttings in Evo, maybe with Shadows off and a low draw distance.

In Nvidia control panel turn AA off and switch most stuff on Performance rather then quality.

This way your card should play the game very well with good FPS. You got fraps to to check the FPS? http://www.fraps.com/

Quick tweak quide for Vista here to:

http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=13708

Lee Madden · Apr 4, 2009

I installed fraps did a couple of them vista tweaks not all .. set AA off and game on med ,no shadows, normal draw ...
seems to work ok i think yeh fps was in 1000s on title screen then settled
to around 600s-800s. load sceen dropped to round 8s-15s and on track was around 30s-34s / 60s-78s then a scan started an dropped on track to round 10s-15s lots of stutter BUT never froze up !!!
so.. i thinks it worked ok :clap:

ill give it full lenth testing tomorrow an see how its runs when it been on a lenthy time. .. see how it goes

cheers

Lee Madden · Apr 5, 2009

I dont beleive it !!!

race07 keeps crashing in load screen just b4 you land in the garage and this is only since updating my momo wheel driver :mad2:
ive even unistalled it and it keeps doing it :mad2:
ive now uninstalled race to re-intall and try again
if this wont work im giving up