My computer I bought back in early 2008 is having trouble running an older Need For Speed title. It runs a couple newer titles ok, but not on high quality graphics, just typical medium quality settings.
NFS Most Wanted - Runs good on medium graphics settings.
NFS Carbon - Lags badly, even with EVERYTHING turned to low.
NFS Undercover - Runs good on medium graphics.
NFS Hot Pursuit - Runs good on medium graphics.
The card is a Nvidia GeForce 8500GT. It came as a stand-alone card on a HP computer. I can't remember the processor details, but it has 3GB of RAM. The processor is some type of AMD Quad Core processor.
Two questions come from this.
Have they streamlined graphics programming so the new titles don't need as much stuff processed or it's processed differently?
If the new titles run better than the older ones, will upgrading my graphics card help?
Thanks
JM
The very poor performance of 'Carbon' could perhaps be a drivers issue. Might throw your problem at the Google and see what the tech and game forums have to say about it.
Will a more biggerer and betterer graphics card help? Always worth a shot. A nice card should let you bump up the pretties on the game that you're running on medium, and maybe you can get 'Carbon' playable through pure brute force.
Yeah, drivers are definitely the first thing to check with an issue like this. Nvidia probably isn't updating drivers as frequently for your card as when it first came out, but I would imagine they haven't quite stopped support for it yet. If the issue persists after you know you have the latest drivers, then follow Zarn's advice and check with the Googles and see if anyone else has encountered a similar issue and if/how they resolved it.
iirc, nvidia just releases "reference" drivers for their chipsets and the actual card manufacturer may have a more appropriate driver.
that said, the most recent driver release for that card/chipset from nvidia is from last month. ;D
I'll grab that driver update and start there. I did some searching, and it seems like there are some problems with Carbon and Vista. A driver driver update will at least get me started resolving.
Thanks!
JM
Actually, NVidia is on a 6 week release cycle for drivers. Pretty common for them to be "last month's" drivers.
The card manufacturers are a horrible source for current drivers. They mostly defer to NVidia for latest drivers. Why spend the money to develop something someone else already is and is giving away for free for you?
Zarn, the OP is sort of hamstrung by his computer on a better graphics card. The oem power supply in that computer is most likely a ~330watt part and is a lowest common denominator. HP sells their hardware under the assumption that the average user will buy a newer computer vs upgrading components. It can be done if you are very careful but outside of the most basic current cards, you run the risk of overloading the power supply. The G/GT series NVidia cards are meant as low power budget cards and most of those would be possible upgrades that wouldn't require a whole lot more power. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600007321%20600007855&IsNodeId=1&name=PCI%20Express%202.0%20x16 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600007321%20600007855&IsNodeId=1&name=PCI%20Express%202.0%20x16)
OP, after google searching and asking around my circle of techy racing sim friends, Shift seemed to be the problem child in the Need For Speed series not Carbon. The possible issues could be with the install of the game itself if all the other ones work mostly fine. I would try a reinstall of the game (you can save your profile/progress elsewhere and then copy it back when the game is reinstalled) and see if that helps.
Most of the "older" NFS games you are playing share the same game engine and while it has improved, the core remains the same and all of those games should behave the same.
Quote from: ZLTFUL on November 27, 2011, 04:12:18 PM
Zarn, the OP is sort of hamstrung by his computer on a better graphics card.
Didn't think about it at the time of my post, but this will be true. The better graphics cards will be PCI Express, which I'd be kind of surprised if his motherboard was equipped with.
When I bought, I was careful to buy with a stand alone graphics card. I checked, and it says "PCI Express" right beside where the card is installed. It's not AGP or PCI, so I'll assume the card is in an Express slot.
Swapping a power supply isn't hard at all. I'll check the wattage on it. I don't need a super powerful card, just better. The computer won't last more than another year or two. Dropping more than $100 isn't worth it.
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn168/the_journeyman/Misc/DSC_0313.jpg)
Off to price check cards.
What happens, is the game runs fine until In a race or pursuit. Once there are lots of thing to process, stuff slows down to a crawl.
A reinstall likely won't change things. I have random background display issues in NFS Undercover and the occasional graphics bottleneck in NFS Most Wanted. The only one that doesn't give my any problems is the OLD, REALLY OLD Hot Pursuit 2 and the new Hot Pursuit.
JM
Yeah PCI-E was the standard by 2008. The link in my post above lists all of the cards I would suggest on a stock power supply.
If you do end up swapping the power supply be mindful that in small form factor formats commonly used by Dell and HP, they use a propreitary power supply chassis. There are manufacturers making direct replacements but your typical ATX power supply may not always work.
Those cards in that link should all work well with a stock power supply but again, I reiterate that those things are always a lowest common denominator type thing.
BTW, $100 would be ridiculous for a modern equivilant to your 8500GT.
Personally, I would pick something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814134133 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814134133) for a swap. It's a current version card that is more than powerful enough to run anything your throw at it for racing sims.
Do you know what version of DirectX you are running? It looks like after version 10, things get dicey for backwards compatibility and Vista in particular. If a driver update doesn't help, a DirectX update might. Failing that, you could install a different OS on a different partition, to try to narrow it down to hardware, software or OS.
Running DirectX 10 I believe. It's weird. I have the worst problems with Carbon, then some with Undercover, then a few with Most Wanted. The OLD Hot Pursuit 2 works pretty good. The NEW (2010) Hot Pursuit works great.
I turned off shading, road reflection, car reflection and moved all qualities to low. That made a big difference, but I still get bad lag when there is a large group of racers in my vicinity.
I don't have a different OS to install for checking.
I found a Nvidia GT 520 for $60 on Best Buy w/ 2GB memory. I might toss that in and see what happens.
JM