Need help overclocking my PC's

[Tikker]

I have a 1.5Ghz P4 system, with 750M of RAMBUS and it plays WOW extraordinarily well on high settings. I run an old ti4200 Nvidia card and I can crank everything up.

I just ran it through statspack and the CPU wasn't even 50% utilized while playing WOW.....

I've got almsot the same box as you (1.7 cpu, 1024 rambus, 4200ti) and I would hardly call 20fps while staring at the ground running extraorinarly well


Shit, when I hit PvP, it drops right down to 5fps

I'm curious how you define running "extaordinarily well on high settings", cause sub 20fps doesn't really scream that to me

[vonkaar]

Do you realize how hard it is to push a CPU at a constant 100%? We overclockers used to have to find PI crunching utilities just so we could test the stability of highest-end overclocks. Running games, outlook, office, photoshop etc never pushed it at 100%... or if it did, it was never long enough to get a true burn-in. A CPU that runs at 100% all the time is like an engine that idles at 5k RPM. You never want a CPU to run that high unless you are crunching something. If WoW at 100%, your CPU would be your biggest bottleneck and you WOULD need to upgrade it.

Even still... you are ignoring the performance bonuses of an extra 300Mhz. Run benchmarks... check FPS... I've done this for 6 years and the numbers don't lie.

[Lyion]

Somethings not right there, Tik. I have high settings on that box and I never go sub 20 FPS, save VERY occasionally in cities. I've been in raids and not seen a drop at all in performance.

My box is slower than yours and I'm not at all CPU boound. The only time WOW lags for me is when I go through the server side freezes.

You aren't running an assload of processes in the background, are you?

[Tikker]

on my gaming machine I run


WoW
Ventrilo client
AVG


I'm consistently in the 18-21 fps range, except when a lot of people get around me, then I drop right back down to 10-12, or worse

[Tikker]

this the right stuff vonk?

pc stats

[vonkaar]

Yup.

Also, what video card do you have? If I missed it... sorry =p.

I'm researching posts on your board to see the potential on its overclockerabilitisticals.

[Tikker]

geforce 4 4200ti

[vonkaar]

brilliant! That's the workhorse of overclockable video cards... possibly the greatest OC value in video card history =p.

I'll be back with infos soonish

[Tikker]

<3

[Harrison]

Something is majorly wrong, I get higher FPS with a geforce3ti500 (overclocked to high hell but it's going to die one day because of this)

Less than 20FPS, that doesn't add up...

[vonkaar]

What is your card clocked at? The Ti500 wasn't a bad card... depending on the brand, the stock cooling might be sufficient to last the 'usable' life of the card.

[Lyion]

brilliant! That's the workhorse of overclockable video cards... possibly the greatest OC value in video card history =p.

I'll be back with infos soonish

Get working, Chief. I might screw around with my Ti4200 just for fun

[Harrison]

It's at 255mhz (any higher will give me artifacts)

I can't tweak the memory, it fucks it up even 1mhz.

I still don't see how the next generation titanium series card he has is running worse than my PoS backup card.

[Tikker]

It's only WoW that performs semi poorly


I can run farcry at medium settings np

[Harrison]

Ok that makes more sense.

It's likely just WoW being a shitty game in general...

[Tikker]

I dunno, in general WoW was supposed to run on older hardware better than most games

it's certainly possible that it's a PEBKAC error, and something's misconfigured


that being said, I still want to overclock omg

[Tikker]

any luck?

[Harrison]

Do you know how to overclock your video card alone? That can produce a decent amount of FPS and still be stable.

Windows+R

regedit

Software > NVidia Corporation > global

right click > New Dword Value or entry, forget what it says.

Name it "Coolbits" no quotes of course.

right click > Modify (set the hex value to 3)

Refresh the registry

All set~

Right click your desktop now, go into your advanced controls for your display drivers and the coolbits overclocking tool built into your drivers will be under a menu.

Here you can overclock your card's core clock or memory. I don't suggest OC'ing the memory because it seems in every card I have tried it doesn't seem to bump performance much at all and/or doesn't work (tearing, artifacts etc when under high load)

Try moving it 5mhz at a time, do anything graphics intensive to test it for a period. Note your FPS here too.

Repeat, increase by 5mhz or so. Test...note FPS.

Continue doing so until the point when you begin to see white spots (usually the first artifact present when card is clocked too high for stock cooling)

Black horizontal lines, tearing, white spots are the most common...if you see any of these, move your speed down until they disappear.

At that point, run something graphics intensive for a longer period if possible. If it doesn't crash, lockup, create artifacts etc... you are good to go

[Harrison]

I know halflife isn't very graphics intensive, but the mod I run is pretty advanced for HL1's engine.

I used to get 30-40fps until I OC'd the shit out of this card (from stock 225 to 255mhz or so)

I now max out at 99FPS at almost all times. (unless massive amounts of grenade launcher spam is going on)

I consider that worth it for my backup card...if it dies I'll just have to pony out a couple hundred next time I get it for a new card.

[Diekan]

Get it to work?

[Narrock]

MB voltage +1?

Post your specs Tikker. Get the steppings from your processor if you can.

Good link

This is one of the few 'tech support' topics that I'm all over =p. I used to be a regular on those forums but haven't posted in a long time (go die, Mindia, I know what you are going to say). Regardless, it's a GREAT place to go for the apprentice through journeyman level overclocker.

+.1 I mean. Like if your default voltage is 2.6, bump it up to 2.7 with a 5-point increase in FSB.

[Tikker]

Find anything Vonk?

[vonkaar]

yeah... moving into my new place and no internet at home so... probably tomorrow I have something for you np

[Tikker]

good stuff, thanks sir

[Tikker]

help me Vonkaar, and you shall be my god for true