[QrazyKermi]

I got my new computer last Friday, and it has a 6800 GTO (the "O" is presumably for OEM). I've played BFV, Doom 3 (demo), C&C:Generals, Total War: Rome (demo), and JumpGate, and so far the card is doing good. But I think it can do better. So I'm looking for any config advice you techies might have.

Some info:

My comp is a 3 GHz (800Mhz FSB) with 1gb ram and a 6800 GTO w/256mb ram.

In BFV, I run at 1600 x 1200 and it's very smooth except for a 1/2-second skip once every 30 seconds or so. When I switch to 800 x 600 (16), my frame rate actually drops a bit. This is without making any other config changes in the drivers or in the game options.

Doom 3 plays the same at 1600 x 1200, 1280 x 1024, and 800 x 600 (all at 16 bit color): There is always just a hint of jerkiness, as if I'm getting 25-30 FPS or so.

CC:G and TW:R run fine at 1600 x 1200.

When playing JumpGate at 1600 x 1200, the in-game FPS indicator says I'm hovering around 60. Somehow I thought that would be much higher, as I know people with lesser cards have reported much higher numbers.

I'm running the stock drivers that came with my Dell. They appear to be actual nVidia drivers made for this version of the card. Their version number and date put them as newer than the current Detonator drivers that are on nVidia's site. I'm thinking of trying the Detonator drivers, but I thought before I do that, are there setting that I should be looking at beforehand? I noticed that most of the options for AA, AF, and other things I don't really understand are set to "Application Control", or something like that.

One other thing: I see in the driver config that you can select preconfigured options for various games. How do I update that list of preconfigured games to be more inclusive, if possible?

Lastly, please don't ridicule me for buying a Dell . I got it through an employee purchase program: 0% interest for 2 years. Between that and the 15% discount we get from Dell, I got my machine for $1900. It includes a 20" LCD, DVD-Rom and DVD burner, 250gb HD, blah blah blah... you get the picture.

Thanks for any help.

[Jump]

I wish I had your problem.

[jelomadnes]

DON'T USE THE NEW DETONATOR DRIVERS!!!!

I just picked up a new 5800 card, loaded the factory drivers and tested it against my old numbers and figured I could squeeze a bit more out of it with the Det drivers. Please read the isuess/bugs text at Nvidea's d-load sit before installing. I spent the better part of a saturday afternoon uninstalling and fiddling around in general(in safe mode no less) and reinstall the oem drivers. My problems may not effect you...but an ounce prevention will save you a butt-load cursing.

[fluid]

Running Jumpgate at 1600x1200 might run you about 60fps if you have your rendering distance at 50k. I run my gf3 at 1024x768 at an average of about 50 and that drops quickly as I get a lot of roids/stations on screen. Remember that, as Istvan has said himself quite a few times, Jumpgate's code is a horrendous mess, so I wouldn't expect it to be snappy and efficient at high resolutions.

Also sampling different drivers (nvidia's detonator, your card manufacturer might have their own custom set optimized for their cards, trying different versions especially new betas or older WDM-certified) might give some insight as to your problem, although that takes the better half of an evening and make sure you completely uninstall each one (including the inevitable reboot to the generic 640x480 driver) before you install a new one.

[QrazyKermi]

Well, I figured out what my JumpGate issue was: I had vsync enabled which limited my frame rate to 60 (the vertical refresh rate set for my LCD). Once I disabled that, I was getting between 110 and 160 FPS, depending on how crowded space was.

Vsync didn't seem to have any noticeable affects on the other games though. But I did finally see that there are 4 default setting you can switch between: High Performance, Performance, Quality, and High Quality. There was a slightly noticeable difference in BF:V between High Performance and High Quality. I suspect that if I were using a CRT, the difference would be more noticeable.