If your into PC Gaming and want more performance out of your
Video card
, there are a few essentials you want to do which can prevent a choppy and disappointing 3D experience.
You can have a really good
Video card, but whats the use if you haven't tweaked it for performance. Dont just settle for the defaults that Windows or your
Video card manufacturer sets you up with when you first install it, tweak it!
Lets go through some obvious and not so obvious areas you want to check and do some adjustments.
The focus of
Video card tweaking is getting the most your PC can handle from specific Direct3D
and OpenGL settings. There are many other areas starting from the BIOS, Overclocking to adjusting Windows Memory settings that can also improve performance, however the easiest and most noticable tweak starts at your video cards driver and setup level. For this reason, whether you have a Nvidia or ATI chipset the bottom line is always having the latest drivers installed if possible and then tweaking them.
I'll use examples that are essentially applicable to both ATI and Geforce Cards since these are the majority types used on the market.
First thing to do is access the "Advanced" settings of your
Video card.
As you can see here when you open the Display settings in Windows to access the ATI Catalyst Driver settings it is set to "Basic" change it to "Advanced" so we can tweak it.
You will then be able to access a similar screen like this:
Similarly if you have a Geforce Card make sure you select the "Advanced 3D settings option".
You will then be able to access a similar screen like this:
Written by PCWizKid on February 14th, 2008 with no comments.
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Older ATI drivers and cards had the options for Direct3D and Open GL, today the new Catalyst Control center merges both into one category called 3D. So it here is here you want to adjust your 3D settings.
Expand the 3D settings section and select the "Anti-Aliasing" sub-category on the ATI or if you have an Nvidia, go into the "Manage 3D settings" option (Make sure you are in Advanced View check under the View menu).
Sample ATI Screen
.
Sample Nvidia Screen
Next find the following options which fall under the 3D settings categories and adjust as follows:
-
Anti-Aliasing
For an ATI card check off the box 'Use application settings' box, so that the level of Antialiasing can be set within particular games for example and won't conflict with your Control Center settings.
For an Nvidia card select the 'Force Antialiasing Off' for all games regardless of their in-game settings
-
Adaptive Anti-Aliasing
For an ATI card uncheck "Enable Adaptive Anti-Aliasing" if you have choppy frames and slow performance. If this is checked it will increase the quality of the appearance at the expense of processing power which could make it slower.
Similarly for an Nvidia card you would lower the rate to 2X or 4X or turn it off and turn off the transparency option.
-
Anisotropic Filtering
For an ATI card uncheck the "High Quality AF" box, and leave checked the "Use application settings".
For Nvidia, adjust the settings down for performance similar to as mentioned above.
Written by PCWizKid on February 14th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on 3d settings and Nvidia, and catalyst control center and tweaking and video cards review and windows display setup.
For ATI, there is a Catalyst A.I option which determines the level of 'optimizations' the drivers enable in graphics applications such as games. Ensure the disabled option is not checked off and that the slider is set to "Advanced" mode.
- Mipmap Detail Level
For an ATI card set the slider at the midpoint closer to the performance option, then later adjust the mipmap/texture filtering/texture quality levels in your game video settings to minimize graphical anomalies.
For an Nvidia card the available options are None, Bilinear and Trilinear. Select Bilinear for a slight improvement at minimal performance cost, or set it to None.
-
Vertical Refresh
For an ATI card Select "Off, Unless Application Specifies" - Vertical Sync will be off by default, however you can enable it for a specific game for example in its own video settings.
Similarly for Nvidia cards chose the option to "Disable Vsync"
- More Settings
In the ATI 3D settings section there is a "More Settings" category, select that and ensure that the "Support DXT texture formats" is checked off so its enabled for performance. Leave disabled the "Alternate Pixel Center" and enable "Triple Buffering" and leave "Force 24-bit Z-Buffer depth" unchecked.
Similarly in the Nvidia settings follow the example mentioned for the ATI settings which exist aswell in the 3D settings area.
You will see other settings and options, but I would not change them since they will not affect you regarding improving performance which is what this article is all about.
See my review of the best video cards including the Geforce 9 GPU here.
Other Tips Users have watched
Written by PCWizKid on February 14th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on 3d settings and Nvidia, and catalyst control center and tweaking and video cards review and windows display setup.
Did you know that DirectX 10 is only for Windows Vista? So unless you are happy with windows XP using DirectX 9, your probably going to want to get a decent affordable video card.
For those who have using XP with DirectX 9 in Windows XP keep in mind that DirectX 10 is a rewrite from the ground up.
Since Windows Vista only has support for it, if you install older DirectX 9 games Vista has a DirectX 9 subsystem that interfaces with DirectX 10 to allow games using previous versions of DirectX to work. However running older games in Vista means it will take additional CPU horsepower. This is the argument then, is it worth upgrading the Vista then?
If you plan to use Vista or not, if your in the market for a new PC or new video card my recommendation is try not to buy a
motherboard with an integrated video card if possible.
Get a
motherboard that allows you to purchase an independent video
card. Plan to cool and ventilate the video card with additional
fans within the case since these new generation cards are known to be power hungry and heat up.
My picks for a DirectX 10 supported video cards at this time would be an Nvidia GeForce 8 Series graphics chips card such as the affordable
GeForce 8600 Series card. However pay attention to additional modifiers at the end of the model#, such as GT, GTS, GTX, XT, and XTX, since they often reveal important shader and clock-speed information. Rule of thumb you can never get enough speed and memory, since pc hardware gets outdated so fast in about 6 months time, so get as much as you can afford now.
Here is an example of what I mean. Looking at these two types of
Nvidia Geforce cards there is a noticeable difference in the clock speeds, this shows the GTS's clock speeds are more than just a little bit faster than those of the GT—core and stream processor clocks are up between 22% and 25%, and memory speeds have been boosted significantly giving you a that faster smooth frame rate while keeping vibrant graphics at higher display resolutions.
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| GeForce 8600 GTS | GeForce 8600 GT |
| Stream Processors | 32 | 32 |
| Core Clock (MHz) | 675 | 540 |
| Shader Clock (MHz) | 1450 | 1180 |
| Memory Clock (MHz) | 1000 | 700 |
| Memory Amount | 256MB GDDR3 | 256MB GDDR3 |
| Memory Interface | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) | 32 | 22.4 |
| Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) | 10.8 | 8.6 |
ATI also carries a great line of video cards which are coming down in price such as the
X1950 Pro which is worth looking at aswell for the price its a real winner. But dont get me wrong if you can aford to buy the latest and greatest, then please do and buy my dream card, the
Geforce 8800 card it can handle the most demanding, current DirectX 9 titles at resolutions, antialiasing and eye-candy settings that leaves previous generation cards gasping for breath. Visual quality is simply superb. Also the
Geforce 8800 card is ready for those highly anticipated DirectX 10 game titles like
Crysis and Alan Awake under Windows Vista, which bring visuals that are even more incredible.
However like I said, you can never be fully upto date with your PC hardware, Nvidia will release its next 'G92'-based graphics chip, the GeForce 8800 GTS 512, on 11 December, it has been claimed. As its name suggests, the new part extends the existing 8800 GTS line up with a model that connects to 512MB of memory.Today's 8800 GTS family comprises 320MB and 640MB models - the latter is said to be scheduled to be replaced by the 512. Both older GPUs contain 96 of Nvidia's Stream unified-shader pixel processors, but the new version will have 128 on board.
Written by PCWizKid on November 27th, 2007 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on 880 and ATI and DirectX 10 and Windows Vista and X1950 and Xp and directx 9 and geforce 8600 and video cards review.
If your into PC Gaming and want more performance out of your Video card
