Is T:V more demanding on the CPU or GPU?

I have an AMD 3000XP(333) and a GF4 Ti4600 and 1G of RAM

Clearly the video is aging but for a 2.5 year old card, it holds up well.

I have turned the video settings in TV down pretty far and even run in 640x480 at low detail which I thought would allow the 4600 to get high fps and put the ceiling more on the CPU

The problem is - even in that mode, I am not sure I can get a consistent 60-80 fps.


I am thinking about going to the basic 6800/128MB/12 pipe card but I am not sure how much difference that will make.

Is anyone running a high end Barton and a new 6800 class? Are you getting good or excellent performance in TV?

I am wondering if I should just bite the bullet and go A64 once the dual PCIE mobos come out.


I am loving TV, but I just do not have good enough fps to enjoy it the way I enjoyed T1 and T2 once I had a machine that ran the game well.

To me, good performance is fps that almost never dip below 60fps.

I would be happy running 1280x with no AA and I would be thrilled if I could do 1600x with no AA - but I could get my on 1024x if I had to.

I am not sure going to the 6800GT would help my system much and since I doubt my next sys will have AGP, the 6800 seems right.


Not really interested in ATI - do they have something in the $250-300 range that will our muscle the 6800?

I'm so confused...

When the action gets going with all the physics calculations and geometry its more demanding on your CPU. When the particle effects from grenade/mortar/disc spam are all over your screen your GPU is king.

With a 6800 you should be able to enjoy the game with much higher res and all the fancy graphics options. I'd say expect around a 35% performance increase.

I think a video card upgrade would be better for you, over a CPU upgrade for now. But you're kind of in a hard spot. You want to upgrade your video card, but also dont want to have to upgrade it again when you go A64+PCI-E. Since you have to get a AGP card now, you will have to upgrade it again.

The 6600GT seems to be a decent card, but the 6800NU is better. Even better if you can soft mod it to a 16-pipe card.

As far as frames go and what you might expect, I have a 6800GT, and a 754 3400+@2.5gig. Up from 2.2gig, so a 3800+ or so? Anyhow, I play at 1280x1024, with glow and shadows on low/off. PS 2.0 is off. Everything else is on ultra-high. Playing at 1280x1024 I am usually around 70-80. Dipping to high 40's/low 50's with a lot of action on screen. Tropical and Cavern are really the only maps that give it a hard time. Playing at 1024x768 is much more smooth on those maps, but it looks off since my LCD is 1280x1024 native res.

Here is a CPU scaling article with 6800/X800's. It may help to give you an idea on what kind of jump you would get from upgrading your card.

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjMy

Your card is the bottleneck you need a dx 9 generation one

This engine (and many new engines) have the hardest burden on the GPU and RAM.

CPU wont make that much of a difference, especially with a decent sound card.

I was running a XP3000/9700pro. Upgraded to 6800GT, saw disturbingly little FPS increase. Upgraded to A64, saw a world of a difference. (Then retail came out and I had to turn all my settings down.)

I have an xp3000 with a 6800gt and all my games runs fantastic. If only I had the dough to upgrade my board and processor to an a64 then I would be using the 6800gt to its full potential.

AXP Barton 2600+ OC'ed to 2.4GHz, 1GB of Corsair RAM, and a 9800 Pro OC'ed to almost XT speeds.

I get anywhere between 30 and 50 FPS with most things on Ultra High at 1024x768 and forced 4xAA via my drivers.

CPU its a fact.

The 6600GT seems to be a decent card, but the 6800NU is better. Even better if you can soft mod it to a 16-pipe card.


I'd kinda like to know how you can soft mod a chip from 8 or 12 to 16 pipes...

That 4600 is your bottleneck, your CPU should be good.

Tribes games, in general, are both CPU and video card intensive. If you're too low on either end, performance will get hammered. In your case, that 4600 just won't cut it anymore.

If you just test the game on a server by yourself, you won't see the CPU load. Once you get into some 10v10 action, the CPU load becomes more noticeable.

here's another voice of reason telling you that your video card is the bottleneck

I'd kinda like to know how you can soft mod a chip from 8 or 12 to 16 pipes...

Its been common with some cards for years now. Most of the 9500NP's were softmodable. Just using some 3rd party drivers, or software would open up the card's pipes. Same goes for some of the 6800NU's. Even the X800 Vivo's can be bios flashed to XT/PE's with 16 pipes, but lower clock speeds. You can however overclock, and get close to, or past XT/PE speeds.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=815929&highlight=soft

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=777427

Upgrade your video card, that'd do a lot more than upgrading memory or proc speed.

Well I had this same issue when I was upgrading during the beta phase and tested a ton of different things.

Base System -
1700XP OC'd to 2000XP 512RAM - Orig GF3 - 800x600 low settings - 20 FPS
1700XP OC'd to 2000XP 512RAM - 9600 SE - 800x600 Med settings - 20+ FPS
3000XP 512RAM 9600 SE 800x600 Med Settings - 30+ FPS
3000XP 512RAM 9800 Pro 800x600 High settings - 30+ FPS
3000XP 512 x800 Pro 800x600 High Settings - 50+ FPS
3000XP 512 x800 Pro 1024x768 High Settings - 40+ FPS
A64 3500+ 1G x800 Pro 800x600 Ultra Settings - 80+ FPS (Limited)
A64 3500+ 1G x800 Pro 1024x768 Ultra Settings - 80+ FPS (Limited)
A64 3500+ 1G 9800 Pro 800x600 High Settings - 80+FPS (Limited)
A64 3500+ 1G 9800 Pro 1024x768 High Settings - 80+ FPS (Limited)
A64 3500+ 1G 9800 XT (flashed Pro) High (fog Ultra) 1024x768 - 80+ FPS (Limited)

**The limited was a hard cap I finally sorted out on my system**

Once I upgraded to the A64 the frames increased by 40+ I even put the gf3 in the a64 to see what it would do and it played at 800x600 at Med at around 30 FPS.

If you can upgrade the Proc First.

For the guy running the 9800Pro at "almost: XT speeds take a look here. Its what I had to do to my 9800 Pro to allow it to comfortably flash to XT (I can run core at 420 now)
http://netquickposse.org/keeper/atimod/Picture%20017.jpg
http://netquickposse.org/keeper/atimod/

My 9800 Pro ran at 480 core.. and 420 memory.. That was three cards ago though, old news now. :)

I havent tried pushed it that far yet. I am waiting until I can find a damn Proc heatsink that will fit this board first. Going to push the proc first then really lean on the card

running the game at 800x600 all high detail, with glow/water on ultra, getting nice playable frames.

amd 1800xp
512mb ddr
gf4 4400

yall are debating stats from another game engine entirely, it should be noted.

This engine (and many new engines) have the hardest burden on the GPU and RAM.

CPU wont make that much of a difference, especially with a decent sound card.

I'm quoting myself cuz folks are saying "for a fact" just the opposite.

If it helps any, my opinion is based on people asking the same question to Epic Games folks (the guys who made Unreal Engine) and that's the story.

I think different engines might tax rigs differently, but right now... CPUs dont seem to be the primary bottlenecks for new games. Obviously an really old CPU will be one, but 2.8ghz vs 3.2 vs dual 64... it wont matter as much as a good GPU and some proper RAM.

Half the challenge seems to be texture/shader tricks, and that's why raw ram and gpu/gpu-ram power is making the big difference in rendering.

Raw CPU processing isnt really the critical issue these days, outside the fact that sound systems might bottleneck.

Put it more bluntly... in T:V, the raw processing needs of the CPU are not massive. The client physics and processes arent that much more complex than other *cough* tribes games. What is choking folks is the raw rendering and shaders... perhaps along with complex 3d sound.

I might be wrong about TV... but im gonna presume since it IS the unreal engine... the guys behind the engine sorta know best.

CPU, by far.

That's not to say a decent vid card won't improve your peformance, but the topic question was what's it more demanding on, CPU by far.