HaloMods "Classic" Read-only Archive

Just a little guide on how to overclock your video card.

Today, you will learn how to maximize your video cards potential, to get better fps and more out of your pc!


To start off, you will need the following programs.

1.Riva Tuner
2.3DMark 2001 SE
3.3DMark03
4.AquaMark3

These programs will help benchmark and determine how well your pc will perform up to specific games and game settings. As well as how many and how well your card displays particles, graphics, and how it handles areas with a high poly count.

The graphics card I used, was the nVidia GeForce FX 5700LE.

Open Riva Tuner once it is installed and go to the Driver Settings box. Click the arrow on the right hand side and select System settings. Make sure you check the box entitled, Enable driver-level hardware overclocking. Follow the instructions, and DO NOT overclock your video card yet. Instead, benchmark your pc with the other programs.

Overclocking by the Numbers.......

STOCK SETUP
2.60GHz CPU clock
400MHz FSB
333MHz DDR memory clock
200MHz video-processor clock
400MHz video-memory clock

AquaMark CPU/GFX/Overall-2,853/2,142/15,580
3DMark2001SE-8834
3DMark03-2172

When overclocking the CPU, overclock it in 200MHz increments, and run CPU Burn-in, which runs your processor for any length of time and checks for any errors.

I was now ready to overclock my video processor & memory. I used one of my favorite utilities, Riva Tuner, found at www.guru3d.com as well as all the other programs I used, to increase the speed of the video processor from 200MHz to 275MHz and the video memory from 400MHz (800MHz effective) to 456MHz (912MHz effective) using the cards stock heat sink and fan.

To find the highest clock speed, I moved the slider to the right by 20MHz increments, and ran AquaMark3. When any visual artifacts appeared, I lowered the processor and/or memory clock by 5MHz increments until the artifacts disappeared. I settled for a 275MHz clock speed for the GPU and a 456MHz (912MHz DDR) video memory clock.

OVERCLOCK with STOCK FAN/HEAT sink
2.80GHz CPU clock
400MHz FSB
333MHz DDR memory clock
275MHz video-processor clock
456MHz video-memory clock

AquaMark CPU/GFX/Overall-5,863/2052/17,460
3DMark2001SE-9100
3DMark03-2315

As you can see, the numbers shifted higher slightly, and gave higher fps rates. And on Halo, on all maps on a resolution of 640x480, with everything enabled and on high, I get 85+fps. And on 800x600, I get 65+fps. Just imagine what you could do in every other game. Just a few overclocking tweaks, and you're set to go.

i have a program that can overclock my cpu, but i stay away from overclocking... is it true that your computer is screwed if it gets an error or something?

An error from overclocking? Well, I've heard of that, but, you could probrably just reboot in safe mode and underclock whatever you did.

i might try, someday

make sure you understand the stuff fully before you do it... I dont recommend for you to just do something, when tampering with cpu settings, memory, video cards, you gotta be very, very careful or otherwise its gonna get killed! I almost did that once to my older CPU... be very careful... know the stuff inside and out

Well that's why I posted this, because I do know what I'm doing. I mean, RivaTuner tells you the maximum overclocking your card can take with its current drivers, it'll even tell you when you're over the limit.

{XS} Shaggy wrote:Well that's why I posted this, because I do know what I'm doing. I mean, RivaTuner tells you the maximum overclocking your card can take with its current drivers, it'll even tell you when you're over the limit.

I figured... I wasnt refering to you, I was referring to armed&th

Well for the person that posted this.
You can now get 3DMark05.
Also for the people wondering about OCing I suggest if you have a old pentium to try it out on that before trying it on your main rig that way you can figure out what you are doing by using old hardware. If you think you want to OC then I suggest getting a good Power Supply Unit.
Tech^

thanks but i think i'll stay away from this untill i can afford to throw away money on burned-out processors.

Well, thats the thing, you can download CPU-Burn In, a free utility that checks if your processor is overclocked too high. Just set it to test the processor for any length of time, and it'll look for errors during that time, if it finds any, you need to go back into the bios and lower the speed. And I know you can get 3DMark05, but, I didn't feel like downloading it, what I used is enough.

I find a better technique, if you're willing to wait.

Wait until much faster technology comes out. I've started replaying all my old Windows 95-98 era games (such as Shogo and Doom) on my P4 once I figured out that compatibility mode thing. The framerate is simply awesome, even though it looks like I'm playing a Nintendo 64 game.

cool

sounds good

I have a question if ya'll don't mind... What is benchmarking?

Benchmarking is simply benchmarking your system. What the benchmark program does, is run a series of teststo see how well your pc stands up to certain situations in low and high detail. Pretty much it tells you how well your pc performs, the average fps, and a four digit number, and you can compare that number to tests done with pcs with similar configs as yours, or to ones that are lower or higher in comparison. In a short answer, it really just lets you know how shitty or how awesome your pc is.

ah ok thank you. I got two programs that benchmark the thing and I just did not know what the scores meant thank ya'll.