Hey boys and Girls, Being a big EVE online player I seem to need a little guidance with my setup. I'm currently running a sapphire 6850 1gb in my games system. It drives my 2 x Dell 24" monitors very well. Giving me 3840 x 1200 with no issues at all whilst running a single EVE client. However, when i fire up a second client (for my alt char) my system slows badly. Dropping to 2-3fps. I've monitored the system RAM usage (2.7gb) and the CPU (under 50% on all 4 cores) whilst i've got 2 client running. These figures don't seem to be the issue. Given that my GPU only has 1gb of RAM do you guys think going to a 2gb card would be the answer ? Cheers Pete.
To be clear, When using one client, you're playing across both screens, maximised? Or on one screen, and the other showing, say, a browser or desktop? Then when you're running two separate EVE clients, they're each maximised in their respective monitors? TSB
^ He's spanning a single client over both displays. The second question is what I'm also wondering. Are you running two clients each on their own display, or both maximised across displays? If that's the case then yeah, 2GB would definitely make a difference running 2x 3840 x 1200... but I'm not entirely sure it's just a RAM issue. A single 6850 isn't exactly a powerhouse, have you checked the actual GPU utilization% with something like GPU-Z? It might also show you VRAM load depending on the card which should clarifiy your situation.
I was under the impression EVE wasnt the most taxing game for a GPU. Personally i think if you are running 3840x1200 then it could be VRAM issue. Oh, i presume you are running a 64bit OS right? 32bit OS's arent recommended for beefy 1GB GPU's. Just trying to eliminate any bottlenecks. EVE is more CPU and RAM taxing than most games.
Yeah, i'm running both clients at 3840 x 1200. Alt-tabing between them as necessary. As for the OS I'm still on 32bit XP . I will take the jump to 64bit Win7 soon. I've not tried GPU-Z. I'll give it a try report back. Thanks for the comments so far.
Ok, GPU-Z is reporting the gpu at 94-96% when running 2 EVE clients. I'm assuming this is not good What card would you guys recommend to be able to drive the 2 clients at 3820 x 1200 ?
This is why I asked If you're only rendering one at a time, fullscreen, not windowed then it's probably not actually your GPU holding you back, although yes vram usage may be high. Considering you're on a 32bit legacy OS, with a 1Gb graphics card, that leaves 2Gb of RAM to run the OS and two clients at this high resolution, where we assume textures for both clients will be plentiful enough to fill your VRAM and start to use system RAM as well, not forgetting that each client additionally requires resources other than to purely render. Knowing how bad XP is at memory management, could this be the crux of the matter at hand? Textures going to pagefile or something? TSB
A drop to 2-3fps definitely sounds like a memory "issue". You are either running out of Vram or system memory with both cases swapping to page file on the much slower HD to make up the difference. If you run both clients on separate screens do you still get the same issue? If you don't it is probably a Vram issue, whereas if the problem still occurs it will more likely be due to a lack of main memory (or more precisely usable memory).
Thats your problem right there. Your overall system memory is limited with your large GPU RAM at the 32bit memory limitation. Only solution is to get a 64 bit OS which means a complete reinstall of everything, but you need to if you want to use more RAM/VRAM. Getting a bigger GPU with more RAM on it will only make the problem worse. Ditch XP and get on the win7 train. Then you can upgrade your RAM and GPU as much as you like without worry. Any other solution you try before then will not really help, you are running out of RAM and your OS prevents you from using more. Short term pain, long term gain. I would upgrade as soon as finances permit (although set aside a day or 2 to install, update the OS, programs and games), or limit yourself to 1 game at a time.
Thanks for the reply's everyone. The system has 4gb of RAM installed, but of course the OS is limiting that. I'll make it my first step to upgrade the OS to Win 7 64bit and see how that goes. Cheers.
64bit OS is the norm these days. Make sure you go for Home premium or higher, as the Basic only allows 8gb of memory, and home premium allows 16GB. Professional and Ultimate allows upto 192gb of memory. Cheers, Simon.
