CPU bottleneck???

[shadowkiller696]

I was wondering if the fact that games on my pc run at exactly the same fps on 320x200 and 1280x1024 (new games like ut3 and gears of war all settings high) was bacause of my cpu. Ive got a Pentium D 3.2ghz, 3gb ram(667mhz) and HD 3870. For example, i get 40-60 fps on ut3 no matter the resolution, and even so shouldnt i be getting a lot more fps than that with the 3870?

[randomness]

Yeh definetly.

Pentium D's suk so much and produce alot of heat with low performance.

Im sure a HD3870 would be alot more powerful than 40-60FPS

Whenever you play a game on or below 1280x1024, the CPU is usually the bottleneck, whereas when you climb up in resolution, the graphics card[s] become the bottleneck.

[Darthtanion]

A maximum of 60FPS regardless of resolution would lead me to believe you have the Vertical Sync enabled on your graphics card driver. It is a moot issue if you are running an LCD display, but if you just want to be able to see what the system can do, then disable VSync in your driver control panel. You will find the check box under the #D label in your Catalyst Control Center.

[Aguiluz]

Or... In games like Need For Speed Most Wanted, Carbon and presumably, ProStreet, the VSync is in the options menu.

Personally, I like it to be ON since the VSync synchronizes between your monitor's refresh rate, and that's the maximum FPS the monitor can handle anyway.

You won't notice the extra FPS on normal gaming, and the high FPS is good for benchmarks only.

Ahem... I ony got an AMD Semperon 1.8 GHz, 512 MB RAM and Integrated ATI Xpress 1100 64MB Vram. 55 3dMark06s. Nah, feels OK anyway.

[Irochu]

You shouldn't really complain about 40-60fps on new games like gears or ut3, especially on high detail. You won't notice any more than that and its pure eye candy anyway. Try Crysis :P

[Johnny123]

High FPS is good in games because you get some moments where it will significantly drop due to heaps of things happening on the game which have to be processed.