DescentBB

My 3D performance is very very erratic. The machine runs very smoothly for some games, and completely sucks in others. For instance, Doom III runs great with medium to high graphics settings, but Fear only runs fluently when I switch to ultra low graphics (320 x 200). Everything above that, even 640 x 480 with all options turned to low, gives me 2 to 5 FPS.

Sometimes, this these drastic changes happen even within a single game. For instance, when playing FarCry it runs brilliantly when I am on the outside despite all the tress and water and so on. However, as soon as I move into a cave, everything grinds to a halt (again around 2 to 3 FPS). The same happens in Oblivion. The view of the imperial city during the intro runs fluently, but as soon as the view switches to the jail, I get unplayable FPS. In both of these instances, the indoor scenes that do not work seem to be less complex than the outside scenes that are rendered well.

It would be great if someone could give me a hint to what my problem might be and how I could fix it. I have a 3.0 Ghz Pentium 4, 1 Gb of Ram, with a GeForce 5600 FX. It's my University's computer that I am allowed to use for gaming. However, changes in the hardware are out of the question.

Thanks a lot!

Most likely its the video card, and the issues probably relate to lighing. Id try turning down the lighting options,and shadows too, if that doesnt solve it, the only other altenative would be new hardware, the nVidia Geforce 5 series are bastard children to nVidia, much like ATis 7 series, nobody knows just how those cards evolved. the only good 5 series cards were the 5700s and 5900s, they utilized a newer updated core, N35 I believe.

Hey Lobster. I don't think it's the lightning or shadows in general. The problems persist if all shadows are turned off, and - as I said - Doom III runs fine although it relies heavily on shadows and lightning (Thief III also runs fine, even with shadows enabled). So I think it must be something more specific in the way how Oblivion and FarCry handle indoor scenes (or shadows and lightning in indoor scenes).

Could be a driver issue. Try updating to the newest video drivers.

Do you have Anti-aliasing and filters turned completly off?

your card just barely cuts it for fear and farcry.

doom3 runs fine because the all lighting is done in hardware, so it frees up more memory for textures - it was targeted to use the feature set availible on the original geforce, where as farcry and fear are DX9 games wholesale.

If you can't upgrade then you are stuck with running newer games at lower settings.

I have the same grahics card here at work, and it sucks donkey testicles for gaming. You are experiencing typical performance for the card. Aint nothing going to improve FPS short of replacing it.

ouch! Seems that it cannot be changed then.
thanks everybody!