Bioshock on a Quad Core

[Darin]

I have a Quad 6600 with 4 gigs of ram, and a palit 8800gt video card...It runs near perfect except when I enter new rooms and the FPS goes down, but that's to be expected. I have Vsync on with tripple threading to make it run much better.

Anyone else hear use a Quad for this game? And how does it run for you :).

[CherryIcee]

Core 2 Quad Q9450 overclocked to 3.5GHz. Runs smooth as silk at 1920 x 1200.

[SunParlorPlayers]

I'm running on two amd athlon 9850's ~2.5 ghz. I tried overclocking, but it doesn't work so well running 2 cpu's and the temperatures go up like mad. I didn't even know you could put two cpu's until my dad brought home a motherboard from his business server.:confused:
I don't seem to get any fps drops except for when I place proximity mines all over barrels, find more proximity mines, rinse repeat until I have a bunch right next to each other and an unsuspecting splicers walks in.
I think it's my graphics card (8800gt) doing that since it bottlenecks my system:( I think I'll buy two 3870 x2's once my dad gives me more money :D

Does anybody else get enjoyment out of watching an innocent splicer wander into a giant explosion?

[thales100]

Quad Core Q9450 runs hyper smooth here, absolutely no slow down running all max settings at 1680x1050.
GTX 280 and 4 GB DDR3 too.

[searanox]

I have an AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ overclocked to 3.2 GHz, along with 2 GB DDR2 667 of RAM and an ASUS EN8800GT video card (overclocked to 675/1900 most of the time), with Windows XP Home Edition SP3 and ForceWare 177.41 drivers (some of the best I've used, both with image quality and performance, though not officially supported for my card). Ideally, I'd need to pick up some new RAM (DDR2 1066 or so) and a new sound card (running an Audigy SE, which is software-driven and takes away CPU cycles from the game) to maximise performance on my system, but I'm stuck between deciding if I should upgrade now or just wait until I replace most of the computer a year or so from now.

BioShock runs pretty well most of the time. I run the game at 1024x768, 85 hz, highest settings on DirectX 9 mode. The lowest I've ever noticed the framerate is maybe in the atrium of Fort Frolic during the splicer fight, where my framerate can jump down to 45-50 fps or so. There's a few other places, like certain parts of Arcadia, that also tend to drop for me. However, it's nothing unplayable, merely slightly distracting. My biggest gripe performance-wise is actually that I can't cap the framerate properly (I've tried using familiar Unreal Engine 3 tweaks to do so, such as bSmoothFramerate, but they don't help), which means that when I get into an intense fight or enter one of those more CPU-intensive areas, the drops are much more noticeable than I'd like.

[Darin]

Sometimes for me when I enter a new room, the FPS will drop quite a bit and get a little choppy for a second. But I'm pretty sure it's because I have an 8800GT and just need a more powerful card. My Quad 6600 should be more than enough for the game...

[trek554]

Sometimes for me when I enter a new room, the FPS will drop quite a bit and get a little choppy for a second. But I'm pretty sure it's because I have an 8800GT and just need a more powerful card. My Quad 6600 should be more than enough for the game...no your problem may be that you are using vsync. try turning it off and I guarantee you that your fps wont dip as low. I hate screen tearing too but it sounds like you are trying to run the game at too high of a resolution/settings than the 8800gt can handle with vsync on.

[Darin]

Well, i still get tearing even when the resolution is at 1024 and I get over 150 FPS, is that normal? When I put on Vsync I don't get any at all.

I have a Quad 6600
4 gigs of G.Skill ram
Palit 8800 GT
Windows XP PRO SP3

It seems to run best with Vsync on because the FPS is stable. So if I had a newer video card it would probably be much much better and I wouldn't need Vsync on.

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=27502&vpn=NE%2F880TSXT352&manufacture=Palit%20Multimedia%20Inc.

[CherryIcee]

Well, i still get tearing even when the resolution is at 1024 and I get over 150 FPS, is that normal? When I put on Vsync I don't get any at all.
Without VSync on, tearing can occur regardless of your resolution on many monitors because it isn't really tied to resolution, it's tied to how quickly your monitor can synchronize buffer swaps given it's refresh rate. With VSYNC enabled, your framerate won't go any higher than your monitor's refresh rate. So if your refresh rate is 60Hz, you'll only see 60fps at most.

Unless you are benchmarking or game performance is really low (in which turning vsync off can help framerates in that instance) it's usually better to leave vsync on if you get tearing AND have a decent card that can easily handle a framerate equal to or greater than your refresh rate. There is no visual benefit to rendering more frames per second than your monitor can display (unless, as i mentioned earlier, your framerates are really low because of lack of hardware power.)

As an example, let's say you set the game resolution to 800x600 and you get 150 FPS, you will see tearing because your monitor is not able to keep up with the buffer swaps. You would need a monitor with a theoretical refresh rate of 150Hz in order to not get tearing.

[searanox]

Generally, more image tearing occurs the higher your framerate is. If you can cap your framerate in a particular game, without v-sync, I highly recommend it, because you get essentially the same effect (I always put it 2 fps higher than my monitor's refresh rate, i.e. 87 fps maximum, although for some games I cap it to 62). Unfortunately, BioShock has no such option.

[Darin]

Exactly why it looks better for me to have Vsync on. Also...should I enable tripple threading in my Nvidia control panal.

[searanox]

Triple buffering, you mean. :p

[CherryIcee]

Exactly why it looks better for me to have Vsync on. Also...should I enable tripple threading in my Nvidia control panal.
If you have VSYNC on, then turn on triple buffering.

[Chezmat1]

I have a Quad 6600 with 4 gigs of ram, and a palit 8800gt video card...It runs near perfect except when I enter new rooms and the FPS goes down, but that's to be expected. I have Vsync on with tripple threading to make it run much better.

Anyone else hear use a Quad for this game? And how does it run for you :).

why is this in technical support? shouldn't someone move this thread to its appropriate forum?

[CherryIcee]

It doesn't really fit into any of the other categories. Since it has to do with the tech specs for the game, I'd say this is probably the best place for it. Well, maybe BS Off topic would work for it to.

[Darin]

Yeah man, to me it is a "Technical" question.

[trek554]

If you have VSYNC on, then turn on triple buffering.triple buffering from the video card control panel only works in opengl games not directx. you will have to install a 3rd party program to force triple buffering in directx games such as Bioshock.


http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_10.html

[CherryIcee]

triple buffering from the video card control panel only works in opengl games not directx. you will have to install a 3rd party program to force triple buffering in directx games such as Bioshock.


http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_10.html
Yeah, I just meant in general it usually helps with performance to have it on when VSYNC is turned on. I should been a little more specific lol.

[Darin]

trek554 was correct, I noticed when using triple buffering in the D3D Overrider I got no choppyness, the FPS still goes a little low sometimes but it never jumps.

Thanks =)

[Darin]

Wow triple buffering helps alot! It helps me alot in COD4, it gets a little slow sometimes but it's never choppy, I am impressed...