Team Fortress 2 - Awesome!

Why not just turn off AA nd have a completely smooth experience?

You don't really need AA since your running on the native resolution it should already look pretty sharp.

 

I found something interesting about Team Fortess 2, the performance doesn't vary very much even after change in settings. For example, Team Fotress 2, without the AA and AF i still get around 20 fps during gun fights, but there are improvement in other area; however, this created a feeling of jerkiness: the feeling of suddenly speeding up and then slow down. With 4x AA on, I get to look at something better, and the FPS won't fluctuate as much. In fact, I had 16QCSS Anti aliasing on before I turned it down to 4x AA, the min fps is still the same around 13 FPS. I also found out that resolution had little impact for frame rate during heavy gun fights, at 740 x 480? the smallest 16:10 res the game support, I still got 20 fps during gun fights. So, I just decided to leave it as the way it is, with everything tuned up.

I was watching Task manager and Rivatuner.
With Texture Setting at:
Medium: 220 - 240ish VRAM consumed, no sure about page file/ RAM.
High: 270-290 VRAM is consumed, 1.0 -1.05 Page File Usage, 1 Gb of RAM.
Very High: 340 -360 VRAM is consumed. 1.2 - 1.25 Page File Usage, 1.2 - 1.3 Gb of RAM.


In Both scenario, at all time only one CPU core is always used to the Max while the other Idles.

HDR: had little performance impact, imo, definitely worth the little FPS I lost for the look. (Boom enabled as well).
Motion Blur: No performance impact: set it base on personal taste.
V-Sync with directX Triple-buffering post minimal fps reduction as well.

It might be my driver, but I get the same general performance with everything at Max, or with some stuff turned off. So I opted for the better View, plus, even 20 fps looks smooth to me. One good reason to have bad eyes. hehe

Edit: forgot to mention I only play in full 32 people servers.

 

Isnt 20FPS a bit low though?

In 1920x1200 maximum settings no AA, 16xAF HDR on, blur on etc.. I get 45FPS average... If my card is just an overclocked version of yours, then yours is underperforming.

 

Well, it might be, but 8700m has double the memory bandwidth. Besides, I only hit low 13-20 fps, when both teams are spamming in a 32 people server in large areas.
But that is pretty interesting 1920 x 1200 and you get 45 average, can you still maintain 45 during heavy gun fights? Most people just post their average frame rate, my average frame is around 30-40 fps as well.

EDIT: my is the DDR2 version of 8600m, so your card is essentially 100% OC'ed memory wise compared to my, the core is about the same since I OC'ed it.

 

37fps usually with about 7 other players gunning each other down on screen.
Never dips below 30FPS, ever.

usually I'll play in 1680x1050 though, just to get a constant 60 FPS.

Oh, and no, the 8700m GT doesn't have twice the bandwidth, it's still just 128bit like yours.

And in 1280x800 I average about 130fps min 100fps max 230fps.

 

8700m does get double the bandwidth: (well according to GPU-Z)

My 8600m GT at Stock: 400 Mhz Memory clock only have 12.8 GB/s of bandwidth.

The 8700m GT stock: 800 Mhz Memory clock, not sure what bandwidth you have check it with GPU-Z, if you wish.

I also known for a fact that the GDDR3 8600m GT at stock has: 700 mhz Memory with 22 GB/s of bandwidth. which is about twice of my bandwidth 12.8 x 2 = 25.6, I am pretty sure the 8700m GT with a bit of OC will pass that no problem.

besides, isn't 128 bit the memory-bus? Doesn't that just constitute how much on board ram it can utilize?

EDIT: According to GPUreview.com 8700m has exactly twice the bandwidth.

 

yea.. I see what you mean now.. I just ran GPU-z, mine's NOT OCed and has 26.7 GB/s 5.6GP/s 5.6GT/s

That site also states that the 8600m GT has 22GB/s , are you telling me the difference between the DDR2 and GDDR3 versions is almost 2x?

 

Which is very decent for a laptop.

 

The bandwidth is calculated multiplying the clock and bus. The bus determine how many bits are sent at each clock of the vram. Cause the ram is ddr you multiply the clock by 2 so you get, you then divide by 8 and by 1000 to get the data in GB/s:
(bus*mem frequency*2(ddr))/(8*1000)
For the 400mhz ddr2 8600m gt you get:
(128*400*2)/(8000)=12.8GB/s
For the 800mhz gddr3 8700m gt you get
(128*800*2)/(8000)=25.6Gb/s

When they say that a card can't utilize *put a big amount of vram here* is that it is usually not fast enough to run a game/settings that uses that amount of ram.

 

Gotacha very informative. But in this case we both have 128 bit bus, so bus doesn't determine bandwidth here, but the clock does, so I was partially correct. btw, Rep+

 

Nice info vshade.

But what I don't understand is why not just make low end video cards like the 8300 have a wider bus, but even lower clocked? the outcome would be faster, and potentially run cooler, im not shure about costs though..

 

yeah, it would be pretty expensive to do something like this for lower-end cards. nvidia is able to sell cards like the 8300 and the 8400 at low prices specifically because of their small 64-bit bus.

 

The small bus requires less wiring so it can be built in a simpler pcb, which don't get lower prices during the life of a videocard, but faster memory does, so it is better in the long term to have a faster memory and a lower bus.

 

What's your favorite map?

Mine's lazytown.

 

It depends on the teams. Like I've played really fun 2Fort, and uberly boring 2Fort. CP maps tend to be more fun though.

I like ctf_turbine_v3 a lot though. Also, cp_industrial.

I can't wait for Goldrush!

EDIT: cp_mountcoaster (I think that was the name) is a lot of fun - so many people get trainraeped. XD

 

I have a question,


I bought the Orange Box( I already had a Half Life account) and installed EP2, Portal, and TF2. TF2 and HL2 EP2 have given me Engine Err message with starting the game. Uninstalled and reinstalled and i still have the same problem. What could be wrong. Portal plays just fine by the way. Thanks

 

What's the error message?

(I would just uninstall everything, including Steam, and then start again. Always get Steam installer from the website not from Orange Box disk).