X800XL Major Problems

[Dracunus]

So I'm new to the boards...just got the game a week ago or so and although it looks great, I'm taking a hit in FPS and performance even with the graphics at medium! I start off at like 35fps...but then it hits and drops to 15 at times is about 25-28 during combat situations. I'm really stuck on what to do and I've been searching through some threads but none have hit the spot directly...so here it goes...

My specs on my cpu are...
2.8ghz P4
256mb Radeon X800xl with the newest drivers installed
1gb ram
80gb harddrive (roughly 36 free or so )

I've tried different catalyst driver versions such as the 5.6 and 5.10, but they dont seem to matter. My friend has a 2.8ghz system with a 9800 pro and he's running everything on high (except for lighting) at an avg 40fps.

I SHOULD be able to run this game at higher settings, shouldn't I? It isn't making logical sense to me and I don't know what other options to go to...

(I've already defragged, checked for spyware and all that, ran reg cleaner and etc etc etc...different ATI driver versions, etc., )

I run HL2 flawlessly with all the settings at high...I just don't get this! If anyone can help me, that would be awesome! THanks alot for all the responses in advance, I really appreciate it!

(Edit: I also notice when I hit SHIFT to sprint, sometimes I keep sprinting although i left go of the SHIFT key..it's like it's stuck or something (even though my keyboard is fine),,,has anyone ever had with this issue?)

[Sir. S.A.S]

2gb of ram is required to get it to play smoothly.

And i dont like using HL2 as a benchmark as your machine doesnt have to be powerful to play it on high!

[Dracunus]

I dont get how my friend can use a 9800 pro with 1gb ram and a 3ghz processor and still run it better when I have a better graphics card....there has to be some sort of reason

[Pilot Z]

hey hey ... i have an X800 series and i play on 1280x1024 with all high (4x AA) and it runs very smooth. I only have 1GB of RAM.

It may be to do with your catalyst settings. With catalyst you can change the AGP speed (or PCI-E). It may be yours is either off or on 4x.

[Dracunus]

nope...it is set at 8x...any other ideas?

[Pilot Z]

Try turning on the smart features such as 'geometry instancing' and 'DXT texture formats'. Catalyst AI is also good for games that need a beefy PC.

Did you say you have Catalyst 5.10 ? Im sure there is a higher one tehre. I have 5.13 at the mo. Always check for updates.

[Dracunus]

naw I have 5.13 now...I've been experimenting with different ones (I do the clean uninstalls too). I have geometry instancing on and the texture formats on too

[Dracunus]

I almost want to call and talk to ATI but I doubt they could help...and if the game runs other games fine like hl2, then I guess there can't be something too horribly wrong with the card itself...

[Pilot Z]

what motherboard you got ?

[Pilot Z]

Some people think that it doesnt matter but it really does. eg some games work better when all of the RAM slots are used up. I have 4x256MB chips. This makes the RAM run at 800Mhz instead of 400Mhz. My DDR 400 RAM is now as fast as RD 800 RAM.

[Gunny Highway]

Have you installed latest chipset drivers?

Not just the ones that come on install CDs with the motherboard.

Also considering that you have tried many different version of catalyst, a cleanup of these might be in order, take a look here:
http://www.totalbf2.com/forums/showpost.php?p=230016&postcount=3

Are your ATI settings set at default?? Try making sure v-sync is set to disabled.
If your PC can't produce e.g. 60FPS and you run at 60Hz, it will limit your FPS to 60/2=30 and so on. V-sync is good, if you can produce FPS above or equal to your Hz of monitor, not so good if you can't.

How long has it been since you installed XP?
Over time a Windows installation gets slower if it isn't maintained properly and cluttered with many utils etc.
Consider doing a clean install of XP, where nothing from your previous install is saved. Make sure to backup what ever you need of course.

[IndianScout]

hey hey ... i have an X800 series and i play on 1280x1024 with all high (4x AA) and it runs very smooth. I only have 1GB of RAM.


no offense but I find that statement very hard to believe..

[Sect. 8]

I have a similar problem with my X800XT. Got an AMD 64 3200+, gig of ram, and a DFI lanparty nf3 250g motherboard. On high settings (minus Lighting which is on medium) I get around 40fps. When the comabt gets really hairy, it drops to about 30-35. Wierd thing is, is that if I lower the settings to medium and drop the resolution to 1024x768, performance doenst improve at all, and sometimes even gets worse.

[Eddy01741]

no offense but I find that statement very hard to believe..
I believe it, i get 45fps average with my OCed X800XL. All high on 1280x1024 with 6xaa and 16xAF. AND i only have 1gb of memory. If u don't believe me, i don't really care since while u're trying to find out how i play with such high settings with such hardware, i'll just being playing BF2 on highest settings.;) :) :cool: :ar15: :guns: :nerr:

[Xicer]

Hey Dracunus, I have a system almost completely similar to yours (X800XL, 1GB RAM, 2.8 GHz P4) I can run on high settings with 6x AA on at 1280X1024 without lighting at medium without lag, but with lighting on high it gets laggy.

You say you have Cat 5.13? I had some lag issues with those drivers too. Right now I'm using Extreme ATi 5.13 drivers and they work great, they fixed my lag issue. I suggest downloading them, they're great (but beware if you play SF you will get artifacts in nightvision).

But I'm not sure how your freind is able to play on high with that 9800.

[AZwldcats]

You say you have Cat 5.13? I had some lag issues with those drivers too. Right now I'm using Extreme ATi 5.13 drivers and they work great, they fixed my lag issue. I suggest downloading them, they're great (but beware if you play SF you will get artifacts in nightvision).


Where did you get the drivers from? And your 3dmark05 is pretty low. Have you benchmarked it with those drivers?

[Eddy01741]

Where did you get the drivers from? And your 3dmark05 is pretty low. Have you benchmarked it with those drivers?
Ya, i got like 5270 with my setup with the X800XL. But that's cause i did things to increase performance, i put the AA in teh catalyst control panel to none, and same with AF, and catalyst AI and such off, and i overclocked to it's limits.

[MWHRowdee]

Is it just me, or do ATI cards have more trouble with this game than Nvidia?
God bless Nvidia....Damn you ATI

[MWHRowdee]

Is it just me, or do ATI cards have more trouble with this game than Nvidia?
God bless Nvidia....Damn you ATI

[Xicer]

I haven't benchamarked recently so that's why it's pretty low (I think the last time I did it I was using 5.8 or 5.9). Plus Eddy overclocked his, I haven't yet (already tried but had huge heat issues, that card was reaching 80-90C because of my terrible cooling).

[FWeller223]

I will concur with Gunny's previous post, my system is only 9 months old and I ran into major probs with the new patch. I tried EVERYTHING at least twice, drivers, game reloads etc. Finally I just said F#@K it and did a complete OS(XP PRO) reload making sure I had all of the latest drivers first. Once the pc was back up and running on the web, run- DO NOT WALK- to the windows updates and update EVERYTHING for the OS before loading any video drivers. Could be as much as 100mb or more of os updates. Once that is done then load video drvrs, I did not go to 5.13 due to SpecOps prob, stayed with 5.12 then loaded game(s) and patch. Since then no probs. It is definitely worth the time to do this if all else fails.

[Eddy01741]

I haven't benchamarked recently so that's why it's pretty low (I think the last time I did it I was using 5.8 or 5.9). Plus Eddy overclocked his, I haven't yet (already tried but had huge heat issues, that card was reaching 80-90C because of my terrible cooling).
Ya, i overclocked mine and made AA and AF to off, that's why i got high scores.

[Dracunus]

I just ran 3dmark05 on my comp and I only got a 4855....is that really low or is that normal for an x800xl?

[Eddy01741]

I just ran 3dmark05 on my comp and I only got a 4855....is that really low or is that normal for an x800xl?
Ok, that is quite low, i got like 5000 on my first try at it (no OC) do the following, google atitool, download it, start OCing if u like, do the 'find max core speed' thingy, and same for the max mem thing, and once that's done, go to ur catalyst control center via start menu, or the control panel if u downloaded drivers w/o the control center. ANd switch the and go to 'standard settings' under 3D. Switch the slider to 'performance', run the 3dmark05 again, u should have AT LEAST 5000 now.

[Dracunus]

should I have that set to performance all the time? Or should I keep it at quality when I run games such as bf2? could that be the problem? lol

[Dracunus]

I really don't know anything about overclocking...should I do it or no?

Also, do you recommend going into my BIOS and switching the aperture to 256? I don't think I ever did that and I have a 256mb card...is it necessary? Thanks for all the help!

[Dracunus]

In response to the Finding Max Core and Max Memory....how long do I let the thing run for and where should I set it at? I haven't done this before...so sorry if it's a stupid quesitons. I'm using the ATITools thingy

[redearedslider]

Nvidia is the devil... anyways keep in mind that like a 1000 points in 3dmark only is about 10 frames so stop all the performance ****ing and start to play man... i mean it almost killed my fun ...

[redearedslider]

dont overclock too much, wouldnt go beyond the 50 and thats tops... because a friend of mine ran ati tool with his 9800 pro... he overclocked it to 50 memory and clock... la la la ati tool didnt give any artifacts for like an hour... than he played battlefield for an hour and somewhat minuts... all weird lines on the screen that wouldnt go away... burned out his videocard.... so watch out with overclocking....i hope that i took away all of you overclockers good night sleep :)

[Dracunus]

it seems to be running a lil bette rwith the agp aperature turned up to 256...

I still don't know how to use ATItools...How long should I run the Find Max Core and Mem? I don't want to overheat my card so I don't want to go crazy with overclocking...but it'd be cool to do a lil.

THanks again for all the responses!

[Eddy01741]

Let the max core and max mem run until they stop going up (it'll prompt u of that automatcially), then, press 'New' near the top of the window, name a profile, then, once u have named it, press save, that's ur profile for that overclock. Anyways, answer to ur other question about if u should always run ur standard settings at low, no u shouldn't, basically, it turns off all the AA and AF u have, so only do it for 3dmark05.

[Dracunus]

Eddy, what drivers are you using? I'm using the 5.13 cats and things are still ****ty. I don't know what to do...I don't think I should be getting performance this bad and I really don't want to do a clean install of windows as I just did that a couple months ago. BLEH. I go out and buy what I think is a decent vid card and it works like crap.

[XgrimreaperX]

i usally get 35-60 on mine with 1024X768 on all high 6X AA but i have 2 gigs. the thing with the stuttering i found for me though was my audigy card. i took it out and went back to a old SB live and it works and sounds better. i might just have a bad audigy card or incompat with mobo/vid card though. and getting new mobo/video though soon but i would think something is out of wack with your settings somewhere. couldnt begin to tell you where to look though. sorry :(