Framerate Fallout: Power Supply?

[Jester_of_Cause]

Hey, I had a question that I would like answered, if possible, before I buy Planetside.

I've noticed that on games like Battlefield 1942, I will have a major framerate fallout when Im playing a map with a lot of players or bots; it happens offline and online - any map. I know its not my connection speed because it happens offline as well (my pings are also a steady 60 online.)

I know my computer can handle it: 1,280MB SDRAM, GeForce4 Ti4200 64M DDR, P4 1.5GHz, etc.
However, I noticed that my power supply has a max 150 watt output while my graphics card requires a minimum of 350 watts. I definetly need to get a new power supply for the computer, but I dont know if the lack of power going to my graphics card is the problem for the 1 FPS while I'm playing.

Any help would be appreciated,
Thank you.

[Jester_of_Cause]

Hey, I had a question that I would like answered, if possible, before I buy Planetside.

I've noticed that on games like Battlefield 1942, I will have a major framerate fallout when Im playing a map with a lot of players or bots; it happens offline and online - any map. I know its not my connection speed because it happens offline as well (my pings are also a steady 60 online.)

I know my computer can handle it: 1,280MB SDRAM, GeForce4 Ti4200 64M DDR, P4 1.5GHz, etc.
However, I noticed that my power supply has a max 150 watt output while my graphics card requires a minimum of 350 watts. I definetly need to get a new power supply for the computer, but I dont know if the lack of power going to my graphics card is the problem for the 1 FPS while I'm playing.

Any help would be appreciated,
Thank you.

>>> Further note: I posted this in the tech forum, but its not visited as much as the General, and its not really a problem, just a question.

[NightWalker XI]

How do you check how much output your power supply has? and how do I find the graphics card needed wattage....

[Jester_of_Cause]

I checked my max power supply wattage by opening up my computer and checking the lable's specification.
I checked the graphics card needed power supply by looking at the list on the box: 'Minimum Requirements.'

So.... get a new Power Supply.

[Doppler]

This could be way off the mark but it might just be your ram/bus speed might try borrowing some DDR ram to test if your motherboard supports it, if not consider upgrading I had a simialar problem, as far as I know if it were the power supply your vid card whould more likely refuse to operate period, the other thing that springs to mind is cooling, unfortunatly to install more fans i highly recomend a bigger power supply.

[Trebor95]

omg you have SDRAM on an Intel machine???

anyway, as ^ buy a new PSU to see if that solves it, if not it's something else

[teratravp]

bf1942 is a code mess and runs bad for a lot of people. PS isn't that bad, it is a resource hog though. one reviewer even mentioned that he had an uber system but turned the settings down to guarantee a high framerate. this is pretty much the way a lot of us go when playing FPS, eyecandy isn't that useful in play.

[Jester_of_Cause]

Bad having SDRAM on an intel?

[Maglin]

Well your system is seriously out of date....

I was getting OK framerates around 70ish with my old 1.4 tbird - 512 DDR266 - and Radeon 9700 pro.... I had to have everything turned all the way down to have playable frame rates in hugh battles with more than 30 people on screen....

Now I have a new system ... 2.4c PIV @ 3.3 Ghz w/ 512 MB DDR 440 - Radeon 9700 pro... Now I play with 4x FSAA 16x AA and everything is turned all the way up... I get constant 150fps in open terain and I got down as low as 60 durning hugh battles... One thing that helps all these games is memory bandwith... I'm running duel channel PC 3500 at DDR 440 which gives me a ton of bandwidth for the extra swaping from memory that has to be done due the the large tertures that PS uses it almost always needs more than 128 MB of video memory...

I don't believe that your PSU is causing your a problem... If you system is stable then your good.... You are useing an older computer so you'll have to kept that in mind.... for $600 you can build a sweet system that will hold you for the next few years....

[Nasareth]

Mag - you seem to know a lot about comps, and I know nothing. I just know I have 1300$ cdn and want to buy a comp that will make PS as fun to play as possible. Also note that I have a 56k connection (no broadband available) but could you tell me what sepcifications I would need for my comp so I don't waste my money and realise that PS runs like shit. I only know the specs on ram and vid cards insofar as the memory units go (i.e 512mb Ram or 128mb video card etc.) But if you could post ALL the specs I could bring it in and have them do a price-check for me. thanks

[Strygun]

Since you've posted this in the tech forum also, I'll just merge the 2 threads.

The current thread is now located in the tech forum.

[Daleon]

I'm not sure if there were actually P4 1.5 mb's that supported SDRAM. It should be either RDRAM (RAMBUS) or DDR SDRAM. If its just plain old vanilla PC100/133 SDRAM then even though you have over a gig of memory its not going to be very fast. Plus a 64 meg video card is not gonna run BF1942 or PS perfectly, you would atleast need to turn video down a decent bit.

Is your system a Dell or something or a hand built? Know what kind of MB? D/L cpuid and get specs on mb and memory and fsb.

As for the PS, 150 watt's is low. But if you do have a Dell, they often have these kind of really low watt ps's that will handle tons more than what they are rated. Its all in the quality of the ps.

[Jester_of_Cause]

Bought a HP Pavilion 7955 about a year ago. More detailed specs:

>> Pentium 4 1.5 GHz/400 processor

>> 256MB SDRAM PC 133 --- Upgraded with 2 512MB SDRAM PC 133 chips

>> TNT2-M64 32MB SDR --- Upgraded with GeForce4 Ti4200 64MB DDR

The power supply is a Bestec, ATX-1956D. Max wattage is 150. I dont know if I trust it much. Should probably get a new power supply anyway.

I know I was ripped off considering I paid 800 dollars. Didnt think twice about it at the time. Wish I could turn it back in for the money and build a new computer.
I really dont think its _THAT_ out of date. I know its not an uber computer, but it doesnt suck. It should run PS and BF1942 easily, but framerates get hiddeously low with lots of people -- and I dont know why.

I'll try to borrow some DDR ram and see what happens.

[Daleon]

Dude, why do you think it should play BF1942 and PS easily? Both of these games can be system HOGS on todays best high end systems. I don't play with any of the adv textures turned on or foilage. I don't do any aa or af. And my system is extremely high end. Why, b/c frames mean more to me than looks in these kinds of games.

You can pull very playable rates with your system, but with tweaked settings. Big battles, pretty much everyone lags some. For me its almost all server side b/c Emerald is a freaking dog when its at 8 dots. As far as power feeding to your agp slot though, I doubt thats your main problem.