Great Performance Increase for Nvidia Users! This fix is indispensable!

[Jimbo30]

So, I see core clock frequency and memory clock frequency; roughly what % can one 'safely' overclock one's card? Are there some rough guidelines?

It depends on the card. If you use Coolbits you need to test your changes before it accepts them, so its pretty safe. Just slide both bars a bit to the right (speeding up) and if the test fails, you need to move one or the other back to the left a bit (slowing down) again.

 

[Mendel]

This specific patch idea has improved Civ4 performance dramatically for me. Since I put this in (Friday), I've been able to play Civ4 for stretches longer than 2 hours at a time. It has not locked up or crashed to desktop since. It has not fixed the wonder movies, however.

Now, I can try to actually learn to play this game.

 

[bobmayer]

You CAN do this with ATI cards as well. The option is called "Flip Queue Size" setting it to 0 (zero) will do the same thing, not draw any frames in advance. You'll see more tearing, but your frame rate / mouse lag should improve.

You'll need ATI Tray tools to set the option. They come as part of the download from driver downloads on www.omegadrivers.net or you can get them here: http://www.guru3d.com/article/atitraytools/189/

Links:
http://www.omegadrivers.net
http://www.guru3d.com/article/atitraytools/189/

 

[Elhoim]

This specific patch idea has improved Civ4 performance dramatically for me.

That´s good to hear!

 

[Blazer6]

I can now see enough of the ending movies to know what that slide show was. This is a great improvement to last me until they get the low quality movies out, and I can finally upgrade on top of that next month.

 

[cthom]

This little registry entry adds a tab in the nvidia control panel called Additional Direct3D Settings. Go there and change Max frames to render ahead to "0" ... Before it was set to "3".

i don't see a new tab! i've got all the usual ones, but nothing to change max frames.

 

[DMO]

Hello! I'm not that good at PC components. I have a Geforce 2 video card.Is this a NVidia card? Will these fixes work on this kind of vc?

 

[senwiz]

I'll have to give this a try. I don't usually have issues with crashing, but the game slows down to the point of being unplayable after a few hours. I just take that time to get up from the desk and grab a fresh beverage. LOL

 

[cthom]

Hello! I'm not that good at PC components. I have a Geforce 2 video card.Is this a NVidia card? Will these fixes work on this kind of vc?

yes, geforce is nvidia. it's not so much a 'fix' as an adjustment.

 

[Sub]

So this is basically just overclocking your vid card? No thanks.

 

[romelus]

you totally misunderstood. this is not overclocking...

 

[Black Waltz]

A Little Warning

If you install this and then decide to uninstall be very careful. You will have to get rid of every reg entry and that may be rather dificult. I had to reinstall it as I found out that when I uninstalled it I did not get all of the files and it caused some nasty jumping in Civ. So watch yourself.

 

[Dusty Monkey]

I believe this tweak is helpfull on NVidia system with a low amount of video memory but not really helpfull on 256meg cards.

Reasoning:

A pixel on the primary display surface takes up 4 bytes of memory. In addition, each backbuffer also uses 4 bytes per pixel. With tripple buffering enabled, thats 4 + 4*3 = 16 bytes per pixel. With single buffering, it will only be 4 + 4 = 8 bytes per pixel. Saving 50% of the overhead for pixel color information.

On my system specifically with its 1280x1024 native resolution (LCD) its a savings of 10 megs of video memory. 10 megs isnt much on a 256 meg card like I have, but is quite a lot on older 64meg cards.

The saved memory can then be used to store textures or geometry data that would otherwise have to be shuttled over the PCI/AGP bus every frame. This not only makes the video card more efficient, it can also make other periferals (and even system memory) more responsive because there is less front side bus traffic.

 

[cthom]

So this is basically just overclocking your vid card? No thanks.

romelus is right, the new driver/registry entry allows you to alter graphics buffering. this should make the game run more smoothly. i say 'should', because i still can't alter the b****y thing.

 

[senwiz]

I believe this tweak is helpfull on NVidia system with a low amount of video memory but not really helpfull on 256meg cards.

Reasoning:

A pixel on the primary display surface takes up 4 bytes of memory. In addition, each backbuffer also uses 4 bytes per pixel. With tripple buffering enabled, thats 4 + 4*3 = 16 bytes per pixel. With single buffering, it will only be 4 + 4 = 8 bytes per pixel. Saving 50% of the overhead for pixel color information.

On my system specifically with its 1280x1024 native resolution (LCD) its a savings of 10 megs of video memory. 10 megs isnt much on a 256 meg card like I have, but is quite a lot on older 64meg cards.

The saved memory can then be used to store textures or geometry data that would otherwise have to be shuttled over the PCI/AGP bus every frame. This not only makes the video card more efficient, it can also make other periferals (and even system memory) more responsive because there is less front side bus traffic.

I think that the reason I was jumpy, rather actually crashing. I have a 6800GT with 256mb RAM.

I did, however, try this. And OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a difference. All the reg adjustment is doing is limiting the number of frames ahead that the card can write.

I turned it to zero and there was a HUGE difference in performance and jumpiness in the game, because the memory can now allocated for use differently, as in for the next video write. I am going to up the number to a 1 or 2 and see what happens.

Face it though, this game takes a lot of memory and is HUGELY video intensive. The better your video card, the better off you are, but...This little tweak can help the best system rock.

 

[Black Waltz]

Does it maybe depend on your ram? I made sure to get an upped ram. I have a gig of RAM along with my 6600GT card.

 

[DMO]

Hello again! One another question:Will I see improvements for other games using these tweaks? Have anyone noticed that the use of these drivers and coolbits improves other games?

 

[Elhoim]

So this is basically just overclocking your vid card? No thanks.

Ehhh... No? It opens up different tabs, one of them is the overclock tab, but you don´t even have to go there... It´s another different thing...

 

[Elhoim]

Hello again! One another question:Will I see improvements for other games using these tweaks? Have anyone noticed that the use of these drivers and coolbits improves other games?

Oblivion, this fix REALLY speeds up that game...

 

[jwildstr]

A Little Warning

If you install this and then decide to uninstall be very careful. You will have to get rid of every reg entry and that may be rather dificult. I had to reinstall it as I found out that when I uninstalled it I did not get all of the files and it caused some nasty jumping in Civ. So watch yourself.

I just uninstalled the drivers and reinstalled. Cleaned all the nVidia entries in the registry up.