your graphic card is handling all of the rendering, so for each unit you see, the GPU has to process and display all of the texture etc,. So yes, the graphics card has to work harder the more units there are, and that can kill your frame rate.
8600GT?
- Thread starter MGG=REVIEWS
- Start date
If your HD is beeing accessed when you zoom in it sounds like you are swapping textures from virtual memory (HD space) to RAM or GPU RAM.MGG=REVIEWS said:
I think your bottleneck is the 256Mb of GPU RAM, not the cards GPU.
Now that I have thought about this a bit, I agree with TechNoFear, if you are hearing you hard disk then ram shortage is the likely culprit. I would vote for a new graphics card, 9800 gtx and HD 4850 both offer solid performance at around $140 U.S.TechNoFear said:
Well it also depends what settings you're using. I played Empire for a bit with a 8600 GT before I upgraded to a GTX 260 and it was jittery on pretty low graphics.
Just because it let's you play the game doesn't mean it'll let you play it nicely.
Just because it let's you play the game doesn't mean it'll let you play it nicely.
First off, is it me, or does the creator of this thread not know how to type properly? Anyway, sounds like it's your video ram, or lack there of. Having only 256mb these days barely cuts it, especially with a game as massive as Empire: Total War, or any other RTS with a lot of things happening on the screen. Another thing to consider is your CPU. As much as I like AMD, they're not the best at handling games that require a lot of processing power. Think about it, your GPU renders all the units, but your CPU works just as hard making sure they do what their suppose to. It could be both, but I would definitely upgrade from the 8600. 1024mb 4870s are nice, but if you're looking for something less expensive, the 4850 or 4830 are good in their own right. If you're still getting problems after that, then it's most likely cause of a bottleneck with your GPU and CPU because of the upgrade.
