Gaming bottleneck tester?

basically im looking for something that tests what is holding the system back WHILE playing a certain game.

For example:
Say i was playing Supreme Commander, is there anything that would tell me if its my CPU or my GPU that is holding the system back. (could be the CPU cos so many units must be simulated or the GPU for graphical purposes).

Im not looking for something that looks at recommended requirements but something that actually looks at performance while playing the game.

Thx in advance

 

Usually you don't need to do that,
Post your specs.
EDIT : In 90% of cases the bottleneck is the GPU, if you consider 3DMark05 to be relevant to gaming performance.For example the 3DMark05 of A T2300E and T7600 both used with an X1600 is not much different (both are @ ~4200).So if you post your specs the bottleneck will likely be detected instantaneously...

 

thx for the quick response!
i have a HP NC8430
2ghz Core duo
1GB RAM
Ati X1600
80GB Hard drive

and i can run supreme commander at mostly low (one medium) settings at 10 fps, but its at native res (1680x1050 which i would like to run at if possible)

 

Only way I know of is to examine it yourself...

There are some tricks to help with that.
If performance is affected by changes in resolution: Your (primary) bottleneck is the GPU's pixel shader capabilities.
If lots of stuff on screen (and large landscapes) cause a performance hit, your bottleneck is either the CPU or vertex shader on the GPU.
If lots of stuff happening in the game (even if it's off-screen) cause a performance hit, it's the CPU.
And if the harddrive is being accessed and the game stalls or performance nosedives as a result, you need more RAM.

 

Is it on Vista or XP ?
On Vista the performance is less than XP (they say a 20% drawback)
And make sure you have the lastest drivers.
Turn off the AA, make sure you have it on performance mode.Killing the annoying bloatware is suggested,but above all,I don't own this game,but If this is from the kind of games that packs the data.Go to defrag utils and measure it.A highly fragmented pack file will reduce the performance greatly (specially if the game reads the tracks from packed files)

 

Speaking of Supreme Commander...

With my laptop listed below, I'm able to achieve 30 FPS about 99% of the time regardless of what happens on or off the screen. The other 1% of the time, I get around 10 to 15 FPS when I zoom about halfway in or out of the game, where the unit and building models are still rendered underneath their radar icons.

What's weird, is that no matter what I change, the performance of the game does not change. Resolution (except really high settings here, like 1920X1200), AA, Fidelity, Texture Detail. NOTHING changes the performance I get.

Weird, huh?

 

There's a lot of excellent feedback in this thread so far.

The bottleneck in your system is most definitely the video card, followed by the RAM. The Radeon X1600 is a powerful video card but the newest games will challenge it and you will have to use lower resolutions. If Supreme Commander is a newer game then there is no way you are going to be able to play at higher resolutions. The GPU simply cannot process all that information fast enough, and the fill rate is not high enough. Try 1280x800, it should be playable. You'll also be able to bump up the settings somewhat at that resolution.
Your second bottleneck is the RAM. Make sure you turn off as many background processes and services as possible before playing a game, because the newer games need a lot of memory. If your hard drive light is blinking as Jalf said, then that is a clear indication that your are running out of RAM because Windows is using the Page File on the hard drive. Extremely slow.

 

So far I have only encounted one game which challenges my CPU.

Flight Simulator X

so, your bottleneck is as stated above your GPU and then RAM.

But since your GPU cannot be upgraded, you can add more RAM which can compensate a little you may get a performance boost.

 

Aww geez, and I just saw a trailer for Supreme Commander too. Reminds me of C&C and Rise of Nations. Looks a lot like Medieval 2 graphics wise, if you don't count the huge battleships and multiple exploding projectile weapons/aircraft.

Anyone with an X1600 run it?

 

Recommended

* Windows Vista (for DirectX 10)
* 3.0 GHz Intel or equivalent AMD processor or better (A dual-core processor is greatly recommended for acceptable performance.)
* 2GB RAM
* 8GB available hard drive space
* 256 MB Video RAM, with DirectX 9 Vertex Shader/Pixel Shader 2.0 support (Nvidia 6800 or better)
* Internet connection with Cable/DSL speeds[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Commander#System_requirements

 

Thanks, but I remember the recommended specs for Medieval2 being much lower and it still ran sluggishly on my system.

Oh wait I just read the article, it's not released yet?

Wow I need to keep up with the gaming news I guess

 

I run Medieval 2 at 1280 x 800, with 2x AF, and mediumish-high settings and it runs well as long as its a medium battle, if its a large castle battle then it hangs around 15fps but thats fine for a RTS.

 

wow so many responses so quick!! thanks a lot.
The reason im playing at 1680x1050 is cos thats the only resolution that the game supports that uses the whole screen the closest apart from that is 1280x768 i think which is annoying. (demo is what im playing, ill get the full version when it comes out tomorrow)

hopefully the full version will have more res options, although im close to the recommended requirements as posted and well above the minimum reqs.