Raise alert level to Defcon 4...

[Kenadian]

So little P has Asus responded yet and if so, what did they have to say?

 

[little P]

Hey d00key, thanks for coming on last night, cheered me up I'm currently stress testing it, but I think I've done it! Asus were a bit useless to be honest. I quote;

"In my opinion, I don't suggest you install such a good VGA card on this old module motherboard since this mobo only support PCIe 1.0. Suggest you change a motherboard for better quality. Generally, the motherboard could support most devices from some famous manufacturers which are complied with the specification of the motherboard. But in actual operation, maybe there would be some compatiblity issue happen."

This was after going back and forth via e-mail.

In the meantime some helpful guys on a thread I found on overclockers stepped in and gave me links and downloads to beta bios updates and drivers, and after (tentatively) updating the bios and all the other bits and bobs ,I booted up Arma 3 and boom, it's running on Ultra at 20fps, drop it down to high and it's smooth as silk

I did have one other issue which was screen tearing not just in Arma but in youtube videos or any movie content. I eventually traced this to windows being in "classic" mode which apparently turns v-sync off by default. Switch to an aero theme and bosh, no more screen tearing...

So, rant aside from yesterday, I didn't give up, (I was up until 4.30am last night researching) and it goes to show, where there's a Pee (and friends), there's a way.

Thanks to you and to the other guys in TS for your support, it helped me not give up.

Oh, and by the way, when you get it going the feeling is definitely worth it!



Going to run Crysis 3 now, baptism of fire

 

[Kenadian]

d00d I'm super glad you managed to get it working, awesome! Now you have no excuses for dodging us when we're all on TS lol so the real fun begins now

Incidentally I also took some of my own advice and updated my BIOS last night to the latest version. It was bl00dy cake so I'm not sure what I was so worried about, maybe still hazy from the fan episode.

Anyway, here's hoping we see you ingame this upcoming weekend.

 

[little P]

d00d I'm super glad you managed to get it working, awesome! Now you have no excuses for dodging us when we're all on TS lol so the real fun begins now

Incidentally I also took some of my own advice and updated my BIOS last night to the latest version. It was bl00dy cake so I'm not sure what I was so worried about, maybe still hazy from the fan episode.

Anyway, here's hoping we see you ingame this upcoming weekend.

What we playing! I'm in!

 

[Kenadian]

Hopefully ArmA 3. Ogami has edited this mission we've been playing lately adding better optics on the player weaponry so it may even things out a bit for us against the AI.

 

[little P]

Hopefully ArmA 3. Ogami has edited this mission we've been playing lately adding better optics on the player weaponry so it may even things out a bit for us against the AI.

Sweeeeeeet. Just let me know when it's happening d00d. Well done doing your bios too We live and learn!

 

[little P]

hmmmm. sems I'm not out of the woods yet. I seem to be getting a stuttering every few seconds or so. It's rythmic, and inbetween stutters it's really smooth. It's almost like a wheel is turning and every one revolution it stalls and stutters then smoooooth, then stutter. It doesn't matter what's going on in game, it could be nothing happening or an intense firefight, it does it regardless. Any ideas? Tried reducing gfx levels, it doesn't seem to make a difference

 

[Shilka]

Make sure it's nothing stupid. I had some microstuttering too when I just had my new pc, and it turned out it was just windows downloading 56 windows updates in a row, saving at regular intervals.
Perhaps check your running processes to see if there's anything running in the background that keeps seeking attention. Could be you see some program peeking processor use at regular intervals.

 

[little P]

Make sure it's nothing stupid. I had some microstuttering too when I just had my new pc, and it turned out it was just windows downloading 56 windows updates in a row, saving at regular intervals.
Perhaps check your running processes to see if there's anything running in the background that keeps seeking attention. Could be you see some program peeking processor use at regular intervals.

Nope, now it's completely fubared. To have a taste of decent gfx and have it snatched away - so harsh. But alas, story of my life. Oh well, time to return it and go back to the GT430, at least I know that works. Tech support from both maufacturers both saying basically the others product isn't officially supported, so they can't/won't help.

I'm burnt out with it all now. Feckin computers Dagnammit

 

[Shilka]

Well, what's the best thing you could get on it that IS supported?

 

[Kenadian]

Did you try posting this over at the other forum to see if they have any insight?

The other thing to keep in mind here is this is an old computer and we're doing our best to help you resurrect it but there will be limits to that process unfortunately. Afaik, a gaming computer only has a shelf life of 5 or 6 years if you don't mind low frames and low quality; anything more always requires a rebuild.

ArmA3 is one of those games that has always required system specs that don't even exist yet to run smoothly. I don't think there's a PC that you can build that will run ArmA3 butter smooth at a constant 60 FPS with AI pathfinding required.

You've already gone this far, why not pick up a MOBO, decent CPU Cooler and RAM to suit and I'll mail you my i7 CPU. Ivy Bridge is on sale now for low $300's so I'll upgrade my CPU and give you my current one.

 

[Kitlope]

Sounds like a good deal to me, I'd take it Lil' P. Also, here's a great little program for getting rid of driver remnants in the registry - everytime I change drivers I always run this. Driversweeper: http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/driver_sweeper_download.html

 

[little P]

I can't accept that Duke, especially as I can't offer you anything for it, I am so skint with all these course fees I haven't a pot to piss in. It's amazing that you would offer to do that, I'm really quite humbled. But I can't accept, it's too much. You're something else you know that? I know we have a lot of banter but that just shows what kind of a person you are. Manhugs to you.

 

[Kenadian]

I leave it up to you my friend. I know you've put a lot of energy into trying to get this up and running so I'm very much feeling disappointed for you.

In truth I want to upgrade my CPU anyway at some point in time, now just seems to be a good time because the Ivy is about $40 off.

 

[HaJa]

Silly Q but you do have the latest chipset drivers for the MB?
It seems as, if looking on other forums that there is a number of people
having problems with nvidia cards on this MB but radeon cards work.

 

[HaJa]

I've poked around on the forums and it seems like the possibility to
run AM3 CPUs is present with the last BIOS upgrade on your card.

That is if I'm correct that it is the M2N-SLI DELUXE with BIOS 5001.
If so you can run the Phenom II X4 955 BE 3.2 GHz CPU as highest.

To get the correct CPU clock you have to use Nvidia tool to tell the MB
that you're running a high clock CPU.

 

[little P]

Hi Haja, you are correct and yes it was suggested by them that I update the mobo drivers so I did that too. It is looking like whatever I do this card won't run on this motherboard. If I did have Dukes old cpu when he upgrades, what motherboard do you all think I should get? Doesn't need all the fancy stuff, just the ability to run a pci 3 card, an i7 sandybridge cpu and ddr3 ram. I'm on a very tight budget! Thanks guys

 

[HaJa]

I'm fond of Gigabyte and it should work as a charm with the Gigabyte GPU
that you have. I don't know what socket Duke has on the CPU but these
are 1155 sockets i5/i7 boards and both have PCIe 3.0.

Around 50 €
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4150#ov

Around 90 €
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4326#ov

My board is PCIe 2.0 version but it runs the PCIe 3.0 GPU without problems.

Best of luck to you in the venture. Oh and BTW the prices are Swedish so
so perhaps cheaper in the States or UK.

 

[little P]

Thanks, the gigabyte one looks good, will it do SLI? It says crossfire and I think that's an AMD tech isn't it?

It's weird, I'm getting the stuttering now with my old gt430 gfx card back in. It's definitely exactly the same stutter eg. watching a vlc file, HD, the sound will get stuck for a second or two and at the same time the video will stutter. This was the same issue as I was getting with the 650ti gfx card in games etc. According to Nvidias site the cards both use the same drivers, so that's useful to compare I guess.

Something tells me I'm missing something really simple here, maybe during the bios flash or something?

 

[little P]

Just seen this in the specs as well, would that apply to Duke's old cpu?

1. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16)
   (The PCIEX16 slot conforms to PCI Express 3.0 standard.)
   * For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot.
   * The PCI Express x16 slot supports up to PCI Express 2.0 standard when an Intel 32nm (Sandy Bridge) CPU is installed.