Upgrading SLI Gaming System. Need Advice. | Forums

[jortiz8]

Three years ago I put together a SLI gaming system specifically to run IL2 Sturmovik. It is the only flight sim that I use. IL2, I believe, is the top dog in WWII flight sims. I am looking to find out my options with my current system and see if I can make what I have better. I know that my system is a bit old but it is capable of running IL2 1946. With that being said here are my computer specs:

MOBO: Asus A8N-SLI Premium
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 Fx-57
GPU: (2)EVGA GE-Force 7900 GTO/512MB in SLI
MEMORY: Corsair Twinx 2048-3500LL Pro
HD: (2)Western Digital Raptors 150GB/RAID 0
(one is a Raptor and the other one a VelociRaptor)
CASE: CM Stacker 830
PS: Silverstone OP Series 1000w
OS: Windows XP Pro SP2

The two components I am thinking of upgrading are the GPU and CPU. Like I said I know it is a bit old but with the economy the way it is I can only do so much with the resources I have. So I would really appreciate your input and advice on how I can perhaps make it better.
Thank you so much.

[FoolTrottel]

I very much doubt whether upgrading that system is worth the while.

It should run IL2 1946 quite nicely me thinks...
(If you are running in very high screen resolutions, changing the video cards might help... Not sure though...)

What issues are you experiencing performance wise?

[RAF_OldBuzzard]

Originally posted by FoolTrottel:
I very much doubt whether upgrading that system is worth the while....

I'd second that.

Any money spent upgrading that system would be pretty much wasted.

I guess you 'could' upgrade the video card(s), but only if you would be planning on using them in your next build. Even with upgraded vid card(s), I doubt that you would see much, if any, improvement, as that single core 2.8GHz CPU won't be able to 'feed' them info fast enough to make a difference.

Your best bet is to just start saving for a new MB, CPU, RAM, and video card.

[jortiz8]

Thank you so much FoolTrottel and RAf_OldBuzzard for your replies. I very much agree that upgrading using todays components would not be worth the expense. But here is my thinking in this. Supposing we go back to the release date of IL2 1946 which was in Jan.2007. What GPU and CPU upgrade would you have made back then to make this game better? Initially what I did when I put this computer build together in 2007 was to ask myself "What computer can I build that would run the original IL2 Sturmovik that was so popular in 2001? This is how I approached my build to save money. I got most of my parts of Ebay and saved a bundle. For example AMD FX-57 CPU initial offering was between $1050.00-1100.00. I paid $210 brand new in the original sealed box. As result I got to enjoy the original IL2 Sturmovik with all the eye candy. Afterwards came the Expansion Pack and Forgotten Battles. Then last year I finally got IL2 1946. It still plays but I did have to reduce some settings down a bit. I am running a resolution 1600x1200. The only thing that I would like to improve would be to get a better image quality without aliasing. Right now the settings offer me a compromise between performance and image quality. On the GPU side I read a thread started by ReligiousZealot entitled "Nvidia Frustration". This is an old thread of course but someone suggested the GeForce 8800 gtx as a great card to upgrade back then. What do you think? As you can see I am thinking backwards because I don't want to play any other sim except IL2 1946. When SOW:BOB comes out I will wait patiently for prices to come down and then rebuild a whole new computer to play only SOW:BOB. That way I don't pay inflated prices. In the meantime I can still enjoy IL2 1946 which is an awesome game by its own right. So any suggestions on the CPU side?
Again thanks alot for considering this question and helping someone who is addicted to IL2 1946.

[Ba5tard5word]

Well what graphics settings in Il-2 can you get? Everything perfect and maxed out? What AA and AF settings can you put in and get smooth framerates?

With a GTX 260 I can play at either 1680x1050 or 1920x1080 with everything maxed out and AA and AF set at 8x and all the other Nvidia Control Panel stuff set at max, and it runs smoothly. I don't know what you could do on an 8800/9800 since I've never had one. On my old computer with an 8600 I could only do 1152 x 768 resolution with everything maxed out, going from that to 1680x1050 with the 260 was great. I have a 470 now which is much better than the 260 for new games, but I don't see any difference with it in Il-2, I think a 260 gets about as much as you can get out of Il-2 graphics-wise. Maybe see what settings people with a strong 8800/9800 card can get with Il-2.

You'd have to make sure a graphics card would fit in your motherboard and case. A 260 is pretty massive and so are other similar newer cards like 275's, 460's etc. An 8800/9800 would be smaller.

Your CPU according to a google search gets 2.8Ghz which should be fine with Il-2. How much RAM do you have, 2GB?

[jortiz8]

Hello Ba5tard5word. Right now I am running in perfect mode but I am not maxed out. Currently I have 2 gigs or ram. Is there any advantage to getting an additional stick of Ram? I know that WinXP 32 bit can only address no more than 3 gigs or less.

I have the following in the Nvidia Control Panel:
Anisotropic Filtering: Application controlled
Antialiasing-Setting: SLI 8x
Antialiasing-Transparency: Supersampling
Max. Pre-rendered Frames: 3
Multi Display/Mixed GPU Accel: Single Display Performance Mode
SLI Performance Mode: Nvidia Recommended SLI
Texture Filtering-Negative LOD Bias: Allow
Texture Filtering-Quality: High Quality
Threaded Optimization: On
Triple Buffering: On
Vertical Sync: Force On

Everything else is off. My in game resolution is 1600x1200. Today I tried something that I never thought of before to do. I set my monitor resolution to its native resolution of 1900x1200. I always read that the two should always be set to the same values. I played some tracks and I can see the instruments, plane and outside environment looked crisp and sharp. Do you see any problems with this? For now I will leave it as is and see what happens. Any suggestions on settings would be appreciated.
Thanks you for your valuable input.

[FoolTrottel]

Threaded Optimization: On

Try set this to Off, on a non-SLI system it improves performance a lot, not sure about SLI systems.

On an LCD it's always best to run it at its native resolution... that's simply 'the best fit'.

[Ba5tard5word]

Right now I am running in perfect mode but I am not maxed out.

What can't you max out? What exactly are you unsatisfied with in your Il-2 performance?

Otherwise it looks like your Nvidia settings are about as high as they will go.

1 more GB of RAM might help. I'm not really sure how much RAM a stock Il-2 install will consume but more RAM means your computer has more memory to use to run background processes that have nothing to do with Il-2.

[jortiz8]

Since patching to 4.10m and using native resolution on my LCD 24" Flatron monitor, I can say that at the moment I am content with the image quality of the game. I revisited the NV control panel and adjusted some settings and it looks great. I may not be able to get "water=4" in the conf.ini but "3" will do for now. Thanks a bunch FoolTrottel and Ba5tard5word for your input. Case closed.
Happy New Year