How to figure out how my ATI graphics card ranks?

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For years, the way to figure if my system will work well with a given game depended mostly on processor speed and the amount of video ram, along with system memory.
Now however, I've been disappointed with my year old system's performance upon installing Neverwinter Nights II. My computer came with an ATI Radeon 3450, has a AMD Phenom 9550 quad-core processor, and 6gb of RAM.. Given that compared to the age of the computer NWN2 is at least three years old, I didn't expect any problems from my system. I was wrong, I have to use the lowest graphics settings to get the game playable.

Lately I've been seeing requirements for "ATI Radeon #### or better" with #### being a four digit number, but I'm not sure how the numbers work out to know if my 3450 is better or worse. Is there a guide? Ten minutes of Googleing showed me many comparisons to specific cards, but no generalized information on how to figure it out from those specs.

I've been hearing good things about Dragon Age, but after this disappointment with Neverwinter Nights II, I'm reluctant to buy anything current. Not that I'll probably get around to buying anything else until at least next year. I just managed to win four games on eBay.

 

Here is Tom's Hardware Sum of FPS Graphic chart

Tom's Hardware has a lot of different charts from different games with or with out AA....

 

If you want us to advice we need info like motherboard type.

In the meantime this similair link: http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=50716

Right here in our own thinktank!

And if money is involved:http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2569.html

 

Err? I don't see what that matters. I didn't really pay attention, but I think it's just an ATX motherboard. Probably a modified ATX.

I also didn't pay attention when I was replacing the broken DVD-burner to what type of card it had, but I'm pretty sure it was a PCI-X card.

The system is kinda odd. It's a Gateway DX4200-UB001A, and it came out of the box with a video card that the label claims is an ATI Radeon 3450.
Yet also on the back of the computer are what appear to be integrated video ports with stickers over them telling me to use the video card.

I _think_ this is the correct URL for my system. If not I can put the one that I get when entering the serial number, but I'm not sure that that should be public knowledge.
http://support.gateway.com/s/PC/DX4200/1015576R/1015576Rnv.shtml

Anyways, the only thing that isn't stock parts is the optical drive, and that's only because the darn thing broke on me less than 3 weeks after the warranty expired.

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I just found that a new version of Catalyst Control Center was released today, and when I installed it, it seemed to detect two video cards. A Radeon 3450 and a Radeon 3200. I presume the 3200 is the integraded video?

The important thing is that it gave me an option to enable something called crossfirex.

I know normally people poo-poo integrated video, but with a quad-core system and things like Neverwinter Nights 2 requiring processor affinity to one core, if I can use it, should I with the integrated?

I just finished the upgrade while typing my previous message on my old Win98SE computer, so I have no idea what I'm talking about as it is new to me at the time. I just thought I'd solicit advice while I go play around with it.

 

Crossfire X is when you have a 3200 IGP pair up with a 3450 or 3470 video card. Since your motherboard has a 3200IGP and you have a 3450 you can go ahead and use CrossX. I do recommend it as it would allow you to get better frame rates than your 3450 by itself.

 

Yes It will give you a boost.


Your link says a 300 watt power supply. Be carefull if you decide to buy a graphics card. Not much power left over.

 

It doesn't seem to be doing much good in NeverWinter Nights 2, but NWN2 is the only game I'm having trouble with so far. Then again, NWN2 is the newest game I've tried.

I don't have many modern games however. I've had a long streak where I couldn't upgrade my computers due to only getting temp jobs, and I'm trying to catch up. Especially since you can usually buy older games cheap on eBay.

So far, I've only bought Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Temple of Elemental Evil, and Neverwinter Nights 2. I just won an eBay auction for KOTOR 2, but it hasn't arrived yet.

Any advice on making NWN2 run faster? Is there a "Set CPU Affinity" option that I can use like I did in NWN 1?

My settings are as follows:
On the "Advanced Graphics" tab, I set everything to "low" and I set "Texture Filtering" to "Linear".

On the "Graphics" tab
Screen Resolution: 1024x768, really don't like 800x600. 1280x1024 would be preferred
Antialiasing mode: 0x
Texture Quality: Low
Shadow Options: Off
Gamma Correction:
About 3/4 of the slider
Quality Options: ALL unchecked
View Options:
Full screen: Check
Show Weapon Trails: NOT checked.

Horizon Distance: About 1/2. If I go much lower everything looks misty and hazy as if it is a foggy day.

I should note that "Auto detect" sets shadows to high but leaves everything else alone.

 

NWN2 is known for its performance problems so no need to panic for other games yet.

 

I managed to win several games, KOTOR, KOTOR2, and NWN2 on eBay. This should keep me busy for at least a year.
After some initial setup problems, i got KOTOR2 to run fine. I also had a slowdown problem when I got to Dantoonie in KOTOR1, but I found that that was an infamous problem and the solution.

Both KOTOR and KOTOR2 required me to insert an option in their .ini files. With KOTOR I learned about virtual stores.

The item was "Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1"
Is there a similar parameter for NWN2's .ini?

How about a processor affinity option?

I should probably repeat this question in the official Bioware forum as well.

 

It's worth asking on the Bioware (or the Atari/Obsidian) boards but you'll probably just have to live with poor performance in NWN2. The game is just a huge resource hog no matter what you do. As Merlanni said you'll probably get better settings and better FPS even from 2007-2008 games (compared to NWN2 being 2006). No matter what you do though, do NOT trust the autodetect. Shadows on High kills the frame rate even on my HD 4870 so I shudder to think what it'll do to a 3450! In general shadows seem to take up a lot of GPU power so keeping them off might be best.

 

I upgraded my GPU from a 6600 GT to a 8800 GS in 2008. My performance gain were minimum with NWN2. It was very disappointing that I spent an extra on my GPU to find out that it wasn't the GPU but the game. I've heard performance issues for NWN2 with users who have 260GTX and 285GTX GPUs. NWN2 is a resource hog.