New video card incoming...what to expect?
By
Father Xmas,
Posted on: 2011-08-18 14:41 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
Check this Link out 
It doesn't have a comparison for CoH FPS but it will give you an idea about performance increase.
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First question, what are the specs of your underlying system.|
Originally Posted by Strike_Hawk
I currently have an Nvidia GTX 260 core 192, 896MB but yesterday was able to land a pretty good deal on a Radeon HD6870 1GB. What sort of performance increase do you think I will see with this new card? Is there anyone else on here who can tell me their experience with a 6870? I know I will be playing driver roulette for the first few days until I find a stable series, but I am ready for it.
So can anyone tell me what they are getting FPS-wise with a 6870? I currently am running at 1920x1080 with ultra settings "mostly" maxed (low FA, AA and Shadows, 115% world and character detail), but I am hoping this card will put me over the top. Thanks. |
It's important because "Sticking this into my i7 970 machine with 16GB of RAM" is going to get you a different answer from "Sticking this into my Core2 Duo 2.0Ghz machine" with 4GB of RAM.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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QFT|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
First question, what are the specs of your underlying system.
It's important because "Sticking this into my i7 970 machine with 16GB of RAM" is going to get you a different answer from "Sticking this into my Core2 Duo 2.0Ghz machine" with 4GB of RAM. |
I am running an Intel Core2Quad Q6600 @3.2ghz with 4GB of Patriot Extreme DDR3 RAM, and a 7200 RPM 500GB Seagate HDD.
Also editing my OP to include the info.
Yeah, the card should put you over the top. Your framerate may or may not go up a little (CoH is a rather...strange...game when it comes to determining framerate) and I'm unsure the built-in framerate monitor works properly.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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It does. |
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Yeah, the card should put you over the top. Your framerate may or may not go up a little (CoH is a rather...strange...game when it comes to determining framerate) and I'm unsure the built-in framerate monitor works properly.
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I've verified both the ./showfps and ./graphfps functions against FRAPS.
Welcome to team Red (ATI).
You can expect unstable drivers as ATI lately has been throwing many wild pitches with their drivers lately. While they fire strikes with video cards, their drivers are well.... 
Try 11.8 and hope.
If it isn't stable try 11.4 and work your way down. 11.5 and later have an auto update pushing you to the latest and greatest drivers /sarcasm
Edit: 6870, 5770 and 5750 owner so please don't call me an Nvidia fanboy.
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD
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Originally Posted by newchemicals
Edit: 6870, 5770 and 5750 owner so please don't call me an Nvidia fanboy.
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And just so you can't call me biased.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
lol
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD
Hyper,
I can probably hunt out my old Diamond Stealth 64 (actually I can probably find the one I upgraded to the Diamond from) if you really want to avoid Nvidia and AMD 
To the OP
Latest upgrade was from an 8800 gts to a 6950 2Gb which I flashed to 6970 spec after a couple of weeks. Your 6870 will be slightly slower but not by a huge amount.
Also running a Q6600 and went from 2Gb RAM to 6Gb at the same time as I upped the graphics and I can definitely say the improvement was staggering - higher graphics settings and significantly less lag and a big rise in frame rate
Not seen any problems with the drivers but I haven't tried updating them past 10.7
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Deadly Doc 50 Dark/Dark Corr
and lots more on Pinnacle,Union and Defiant
Quote:
You can turn that off as well. It may be possible to disable it during installation but I haven't checked lately.
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Originally Posted by newchemicals
11.5 and later have an auto update pushing you to the latest and greatest drivers /sarcasm |
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
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Actually it'd be a failed dodge. Diamond was bought by ATI about 10 years ago. |
Originally Posted by Gaia
Hyper,
I can probably hunt out my old Diamond Stealth 64 (actually I can probably find the one I upgraded to the Diamond from) if you really want to avoid Nvidia and AMD |
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Thanks for all the advice so far folks. I was hoping to get a 6950 but I really wanted to spend less than $150. I pulled that off with a deal for a 6870 at $140. It should be coming in next week, and I am looking forward to it!
Quote:
um...|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Actually it'd be a failed dodge. Diamond was bought by ATI about 10 years ago.
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no.
Diamond Multimedia is it's own company: http://www.diamondmm.com/about.php
No part of their stock is, or has ever been, owned by AMD or ATi.
The extent of the relationship of Diamond MultiMedia to AMD is that DiamondMM is a purchaser and vendor of AMD's GPU parts, same as Asus, XFX, PowerColor, and HIS.
The only AMD card vendor with direct monetary investment from AMD is Sapphire Technology.
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Okay you're correct. I'm thinking of AMD's purchase of the FireGL team.
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Originally Posted by je_saist
um...
no. Diamond Multimedia is it's own company: http://www.diamondmm.com/about.php No part of their stock is, or has ever been, owned by AMD or ATi. The extent of the relationship of Diamond MultiMedia to AMD is that DiamondMM is a purchaser and vendor of AMD's GPU parts, same as Asus, XFX, PowerColor, and HIS. The only AMD card vendor with direct monetary investment from AMD is Sapphire Technology. |
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Quote:
Correct, you can go into catalyst center and disable auto update. However, its another hoop to have to jump through. Given the stabily of ATI lately, I'll let someone else be the guinea pig.
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Originally Posted by Texas Justice
You can turn that off as well. It may be possible to disable it during installation but I haven't checked lately.
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H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD
Well I got the card installed yesterday, and with no driver issues at all, I was able to play CoH. However, I was very disappointed to see less than a 10% increase in FPS over my GTX260 at the same settings!
I was pretty shocked to see this, as I was hoping for at least going from 20-25 frames to 30-35 frames. My GTX260 runs with everything maxed (1920x1080) except for world detail (120%) and AAO (off) and when flying around Atlas Park I get about 30 fps. With the 6870 at the same settings I am getting MAYBE 35. And when I turn world detail up to 150% and AAO to slight, my frames drop to 25ish. When I took the 6870 into Grandville, my fps tanked (15-18 fps).
I am beginning to think it is IMPOSSIBLE to run this game at 1920x1080 with everything maxed. Is there anyone out there with a q6600 and a better video card that can tell me what you are getting fps-wise? I'm tempted to order a 580 on my BestBuy credit card just to install it and run CoH to see if THAT can do it!
Did you enable triple buffering for OpenGL on the Cad control panel?
Also you could post a CoHHelper file so we can take a look at your settings.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
Honestly I spent almost 8 hours on it yesterday, trying different settings and options, versions of drivers, anything I could think of. This was both in Catalyst and in-game. I ended up testing 3 different cards last night: my new 6870, my old GTX260, and my brothers 6970.
First I tried my GTX260 and found a happy medium of "max" settings and playable fps. I was getting 28-31 frames per second doing my "fly around Atlas" benchmark.
So I decided to try the 6870, and at the same settings (not even raising my graphics options a little bit) I was getting 30-33 fps. When I tried to turn up my options (AAO to medium, and world detail to 200%) my frames would drop to around 20 fps.
I reverted back to the exact same settings I had with my GTX260, uninstalled the 6870, installed the 6970 and tried again. Doing the same test, I was achieving 33-38 fps at the same settings.
Finally I tried the same cards in a friends PC with different specs (Phenom II x4, 4GB DDR3) and ran the same tests, all ending up at almost exactly the same results (with a variation of only ~1-2 fps per card.
I have concluded that the game is just NOT optimized to run Ultra mode at max settings (I mean REAL MAX, not just close) and keep a playable framerate. Keep in mind I wasn't in the middle of a large team like a Rikti raid or walking through RWZ during prime BAF/Lambda hours. Aside from purchasing a GTX580 and benchmarking this game just to prove whether THAT can do it, I feel like I have fairly decent comparison and benchmark of 3 cards, and feel convinced that an upgrade from a GTX260 at this point in time, is not worth it.
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I tested the cards with triple buffering both enabled and disabled. Neither setting affected fps more than +2-3 fps
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Originally Posted by Father Xmas
Did you enable triple buffering for OpenGL on the Cad control panel?
Also you could post a CoHHelper file so we can take a look at your settings. |
It would have been helpful to run a tool to see what the GPU utilization was when you ran the tests. If they are not being maxed out (sitting idle >50% of the time), then your system is not able to feed data fast enough to the GPU and your bottleneck is elsewhere (CPU, hard-drive, memory, etc).
Also, did you have vertical sync (vsync) in the game options enabled?
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Love the beginning for your signature Tex.
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Originally Posted by Tex
I am not tech support. I am not community support. I am Tex! |
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
I have a 6870 attached to a 2500K.
I run at 1920x1200 and it does run quite nicely. I recall about 60 FPS in Atlas.
The Phenom II x4 is about equal (the lower end ones) to a Q6600. Scary but AMD has been really lagging behind Intel and that Q6600 turned out to be a real gem. I still have an E6600 C2D that is still alive and kicking but I see how weak it is compared to a Sandy Bridge 2500K.
Hoping that AMD's Bulldozer is good. 
Llano is certainly welcome news for laptop gamers though.
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD
Quote:
I really hope your right because if this is true I should at least be getting 40fps with all of my settings maxed. Can you post a screenshot of your sliders ingame and your fps in the top right corner? Thanks!|
Originally Posted by newchemicals
I have a 6870 attached to a 2500K.
I run at 1920x1200 and it does run quite nicely. I recall about 60 FPS in Atlas. The Phenom II x4 is about equal (the lower end ones) to a Q6600. Scary but AMD has been really lagging behind Intel and that Q6600 turned out to be a real gem. I still have an E6600 C2D that is still alive and kicking but I see how weak it is compared to a Sandy Bridge 2500K. Hoping that AMD's Bulldozer is good. Llano is certainly welcome news for laptop gamers though. |
If anyone else could do the same, this would be very helpful to compare real results. Sometimes the people I have spoken to say they have their settings maxed but when I look at their actual settings, they arent. (One person in game said they were averaging 50fps with a 6870 and a dual core CPU, but when I saw their settings they were running minimum ultra mode at 1280x768.)
I turn off Occlusion, Bloom and Vertical Sync (don't like how Bloom looks)
8x Ani Filtering
Most other settings either max'd out or at high. Mostly tuned for how I like it to look. I have zero issues with graphics lag and if I do a quick hit of the F1 key (I /bind F1 "unloadgfx") smooths it out!
I run at 50-60 in world and 100+ in missions.
I currently have an Nvidia GTX 260 core 192, 896MB but yesterday was able to land a pretty good deal on a Radeon HD6870 1GB. What sort of performance increase do you think I will see with this new card? Is there anyone else on here who can tell me their experience with a 6870? I know I will be playing driver roulette for the first few days until I find a stable series, but I am ready for it.
So can anyone tell me what they are getting FPS-wise with a 6870? I currently am running at 1920x1080 with ultra settings "mostly" maxed (low FA, AA and Shadows, 115% world and character detail), but I am hoping this card will put me over the top. Thanks.
My other system specs are a Q6600 @3.2ghz, 4GB Patriot Extreme RAM, and 500GB Seagate 7200 RPM HDD.