Best way to find a PC's bottleneck?

**~~insanegammer109~~** · 01-24-10, 01:02 PM

Background
Ok me and Evil monkey have the same PC except for when I upgraded to windows 7 I upgraded my ram to 4gb, And monkey has an aftermarket soundcard while I'm using onboard.
The Problem
In TF2 monkey seems to have signiifigantly higher FPS than me, and I get very low dips into the 20-30 fps from highs of 100+
Specs
E6850 3.0ghz Core 2 Duo
2GB/4GB PC6400 800mhz RAM
EVGA 8800GT Superclocked
Windows XP 32 bit/Windows 7 HP 64 bit
Question
What is the best way to find a PC's Boddleneck, and what resouces does Windows7 Take significantly more of that is restricting me.

**masterPAINb** · 01-24-10, 02:00 PM

Sounds like a software/settings issue then. Make sure you have multicore CPU-ing disabled in the TF2 options - it is known to cause slow downs rather than productivity increases :|. Check what background applications you have running in Windows and also compare Evil's video settings to yours. Keep us updated =]

**finc.hairy** · 01-24-10, 03:03 PM

Does win 7 32 bit suffer visa vi ram the way a 64 bit OS does?

**HeavyG** · 01-24-10, 05:56 PM

Have you benchmarked the two PCs to see which one runs different things better? 3DMark Vantage for comparison maybe? You are comparing game to game, which may have to do with the settings you are running as well. Do you run identical detail, AA/AF setings? HDR?

There are some unknowns that you should check.

**Ruukil** · 01-24-10, 06:04 PM

Check to see what services and programs are running outside of the game.

**JimboIncinerator** · 01-24-10, 06:19 PM

TF2 is CPU bound big time. To test what your bottle neck is IE graphics vs Video. Do this.
Turn all your vid settings to low and change your resolution to 800x600. Now if you still get in the low 20-40's its your cpu causing your issues. If your fps increases significantly then its the GPU.

Now when you do this test, make sure you have about the same number of players on the server, because that makes a big difference.

Side note. I have e6600 normally at @2.7 ghz (stock is 2.4). I was getting into the low 40's during heavy battle.
I jumped it to 3.15 ghz and my lows now is about 58 fps. Huge increase.
I also have a 8800GT. Cpu is my main bottleneck at the resolution I run.

Just for curiosity sake what resolution do you normally play at.

**HeavyG** · 01-24-10, 11:04 PM

When I had the same CPU (E6850) as Insane and a single ATI HD2900XT, I would overclock my CPU from 3.0 GHz to above 3.6 GHz, my memory from 800MHz to 1060MHz, and a slight overclock with my GPU. I would result in tremendous performance gains at 1680x1050 resolution, upwards of 50-75 FPS for Source engine games.

While I was fortunate to have the hardware to support +20% overclocking on my CPU, +30% overclock on my memory, and the patience and knowledge to get the highest performance out of my hardware, others may not. This was a great overclock as I was getting the performance of a high range rig at mid range prices, it was simply too much for Source engine games at 1680x1050 resolution. While at stock clock speeds, my FPS rarely dropped below 60 FPS, which is fine for playing Source games. I did however see gains when playing Crysis, Far Cry 2, Bio Shock, and even Company of Heroes, so I kept the clock speeds high so I could enjoy all of these games at the highest performance.

That being said, Insane's CPU should certainly be beefy enough to run TF2 at acceptable FPS. While it is old and consumes a crapload of power, the E6850 is a workhorse and I can guarantee when playing TF2, it has plenty of processing room to spare. The 8800GT is a good card, but is extremely outdated. I am willing to bet that his GPU is his bottleneck if he wants an increased FPS. Here is an article that can shows the elasticity of FPS at different resolutions when adjusting both the GPU and CPU clock settings. The article also uses an Intel E6850, but pairs it up with an nVidia GTX285.

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=13454

It is probably time to pickup a new graphics card, Insane. You can probably get one that will blow away your outdated 8800GT for less than $150. You could also try to sell your other one on eBay and try to pick up a few bucks to subsidize the new purchase. Even if you were to consider purchasing a different CPU, I would recommend holding off until you do a full platform upgrade and get out of the 775 chipset.

Also, I recommend overclocking your graphics card, but I know you have had problems with your GPU overheating to the point of having to RMA the card in the past.

**~~insanegammer109~~** · 01-24-10, 11:17 PM

I also have the BSOD problem which I still don't know if the RSMA sent me a faulty card, Or why monkey gets better performance.

Does win7 or a 64bit OS in general really take that much more power, Mainly CPU side

Or could just be crappy windows 7 drivers.