[DustyShinigami]

I wonder if anyone (namely a computer wiz) can help me understand something? This has completely baffled me...

I've recently purchased a new graphics card and power supply - a Sapphire Radeon HD 5670 and an Antec TP-550 True Power 550W ATX12V PSU.

Every game I've thrown at it has improved in performance quite a bit. All, except one: DOOM 3. For this, performance has actually gone backwards if that's possible. On my old card - an Inno3D GeForce 9400GT - I got about 50-55FPS in the in-game frame rate test. On my HD 5670, I get about 38-40FPS!! How is this possible!? This card is only a year old and has some of the latest technology such as DirectX 11 and Shader Model 5.0 etc. What's more confusing is that the lower I put the settings the worse the results. It's crazy! This card should eat the game up for breakfast. Instead, however, it runs at an equivalent rate as a mid/high range AGP graphics card!
I've tried a number of different things. Such as: installing the drivers that came with the card, installing the latest up-to-date drivers, increasing/decreasing the game's and card's graphical settings, underclocking/overclocking the graphics card (overclocking isn't necessary anyway as the Core Clock is 775MHz and Memory Clock is 950MHz), disabling vsync both in the game and graphics card settings, disabling the game's frame rate cap, I've dusted the inside of the computer with compressed air, and the game's up-to-date...

Any ideas? What could the problem be? I wouldn't have thought the processor was to blame because all the other game's would've been affected, surely? And as I said, the game ran great on my old card.

[Dwagginz]

It could simply be that Doom 3 is incredibly broken.

[ggreen737]

That is a game well known to run terribly on ATI cards. The whole engine was adapted for Nvidia if I remember correctly. I thiink way back when they sold DOOM 3 ATI finally came out with some better drivers for it, but probably dropped compatibility as time went by. You might try looking for archived drivers, although your card is new enough that you might not find much. Try googling "ATI drivers for DOOM 3" to find old catalyst drivers. good luck!

[DustyShinigami]

I think you may be right. I've read that Doom 3 is an OpenGL game as opposed to Direct3D, and that NVIDIA's cards are more optimized for them compared to ATI. It's still strange considering how modern this HD 5670 is. You'd think that issue would've been resolved.

I've been trying to find the Catalyst 4.9 beta drivers but I've not had any luck. Seems like they have been removed for good.

I think what I'm gonna do, is sell this HD 5670 and buy a GeForce 9800GT. Apparently they're slightly better than the HD 5670 and much better than the 9400GT (my old card). I should then get the best of both cards in one.

I prefer NVIDIA anyway

EDIT: How was the 9800GT for you, Dwagginz?

EDIT 2: Thanks for the suggestion, ggreen737.

[Dwagginz]

Originally Posted by Gazzoid

EDIT: How was the 9800GT for you, Dwagginz?

Driver support was tempermental at best. It worked OK but wasn't great.

If you're buying new, your money would be better spent on a GTS450 or an ATi HD5750/HD5770.

[DustyShinigami]

Hm. What sort of games did you use with it; what were/was the settings/performance like?

Thing is, I don't really need something 'all powerful'. My system is medium range and I don't exactly play the latest and greatest games on it. I just need a card that'll run the games I do have, and newer games from Telltale, nice and smooth. Besides, those cards are nearing to the £100 price range and chances are, they would't run to their full potential anyway because of my CPU. "/

[Dwagginz]

Originally Posted by Gazzoid

Hm. What sort of games did you use with it; what were/was the settings/performance like?

Anything and everything. From Dawn of War 2 to GTA IV, from Civilization V to Dragon Age: Origins. It wasn't the smoothest card, and (Also due to my other hardware; E4500 & 2GB RAM) I did have trouble with either the poorer ports or the more demanding games. GTA IV rarely went above ~23FPS for me, Dragon Age: Origins seemed to stutter from time to time and a number of games needed me to turn the settings down a little bit. I was finding that more modern games were performing worse and worse, though, and I've been meaning to upgrade for a year or so now.

The 9800GT isn't in production anymore, and for the price you'd get a 9800GT there's better cards out there. You don't need to go silly, but you can get a card that blows it away for not much more. I'd seriously consider the HD5750 as it'd keep you going for quite a while - Longer than a 9800GT, at least. The 9800GT is basically a rebranded 8800GT, so the card hasn't changed in years, and it's really outdated because of it - Not to mention that a HD5 series card would be so much easier to find.

I don't know what else to suggest, really, as £100 can get you a lot of card at the moment. If you're looking at things like the GT240/9800GT or HD5670 then you're getting OK performance, but having that little extra in reserve will help keep it going for even longer. Well, I suppose it's a £10 boots every year or the £40 boots for 5 years situation. You can get a GTS250 (Better than the 9800GT, but not hugely so) for a somewhat reasonable price, so it might be worth looking into that.

[DustyShinigami]

There are some 9800GTs being sold on ebay for about £65 - new and boxed etc. They're energy saving ones and don't need extra juice from the PSU. I think I'm gonna go for one and see. If I'm unsatisfied then I can always stick it back on ebay and sell it again.

Y'see, those games you've listed can be bought on the 360 (or I have on the 360) and I'm satisfied with that. I'd never consider getting those kind of games on PC to be honest.

Like I said, I'll get one and see for myself. I reckon that card would be ideal for my rig anyway. I'll confirm the results when I have it.

Thanks for your suggestions anyway.

[Dwagginz]

Originally Posted by Gazzoid

Y'see, those games you've listed can be bought on the 360 (or I have on the 360) and I'm satisfied with that. I'd never consider getting those kind of games on PC to be honest.

Dawn of War 2 and Civ V are PC only I like the modifiability of the PC, to be honest. I like tweaking games to work for me, and the freedom can be fun.

Originally Posted by Gazzoid

Like I said, I'll get one and see for myself. I reckon that card would be ideal for my rig anyway. I'll confirm the results when I have it.

No problem!

[DustyShinigami]

Originally Posted by Dwagginz

Dawn of War 2 and Civ V are PC only

...

I knew that...

[ggreen737]

Yeah you really can't go wrong with the GT series from Nvidia. All good cards if underpowered. My 8800GT lasted me a good 2 1/2 years before it was pretty obsolete.

[shreashdat]

Yup..but my 8800GT is kind of satisfactory performer....i tweeaked it a little

Originally Posted by ggreen737

Yeah you really can't go wrong with the GT series from Nvidia. All good cards if underpowered. My 8800GT lasted me a good 2 1/2 years before it was pretty obsolete.http://flexbeltexposed.com
http://digestitrevealed.net
http://dermatalreview.org

[DustyShinigami]

Dwagginz, I've had a change of heart. I've decided to take your advice and get a GTS250 from amazon. This one in fact.

I should be getting it tomorrow so I'll let you know the results.

[Dwagginz]

Oh, very nice! Best of luck with it

[DustyShinigami]

I have it. And I'm very happy with it.

Here's the card's spec:



All my games now run great/excellent. It's just what I wanted: a combination of my 9400GT and HD5670 all-in-one (which I'll be selling on ebay very soon).

It's also whisper-quiet. Idle, the card's fan is at 25% and only increases when you bump up game settings that require more juice. The HD5670's fan is also very quiet, but is at 40% when idle.

The only niggle I have is that it isn't particularly great at overclocking. However, the default clocks are more than sufficient anyway. I won't be upgrading the card again after this; I doubt I'll need to. With an even better CPU and PSU, in a future PC, this card will last me even longer.

Thanks guys for your help, input and suggestions!

[ggreen737]

Yeah, that should be a good buy. I like to buy mid-high end cards that are actually solid across the board. That way you can play games for a few years instead of dropping a fortune and having it be obsolete around the same time, or not spending enough and having a consistently under-performing card.