Planetside 2 is whoopin my PC!

I would like to politely ask for some advice on what to upgrade next due to the enablers on GWJ's podcasts. I just downloaded Planetside 2 and started it up only to find that I can't seem to pull more than 25 fps even on "low". My frames only change by about plus or minus 10 from "high" settings to "low" if that causes any red flags. Here are my specs.

windows 7 home premium
MOBO: msi model MS-7599
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 840 (4 CPUs) which i OC to about 3.4
Ram: 8g
Video card: ATI Radeon HD 5670

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

It's your graphics card:

Have a look on this hierarchy chart.

The HD 5670 is worse than the minimum recommended graphics card for PS2 which is a 4850. It may be a bigger number but it's two generations behind. I'm guessing it's a rebranded older chipset (both Nvidia and AMD do this and I don't like the practice, myself). To be honest, it's a wonder it's running at all!

If you hit Alt+F (and then alt again to get control back) you'll get an fps monitor and an indication of where the game thinks the bottleneck is.

Interesting. I thought for sure someone was going to laugh at the 8gs of ram. I knew the card wasn't "good" because it was $80 a year ago. I have fraps so that's where I'm getting my frams from Scratched, but I'll try the method you posted.

So now I need to find a Graphics card that won't piss my wife off that I can go get... and it needs to run on my 500w PSU! Any recomendations?

Tetnis wrote:

Interesting. I thought for sure someone was going to laugh at the 8gs of ram. I knew the card wasn't "good" because it was $80 a year ago. I have fraps so that's where I'm getting my frams from Scratched, but I'll try the method you posted.

So now I need to find a Graphics card that won't piss my wife off that I can go get... and it needs to run on my 500w PSU! Any recomendations?

7850 is a beastly card for its price.. you can O/C it a even get it close to a 7870

TheGameguru wrote:
Tetnis wrote:

Interesting. I thought for sure someone was going to laugh at the 8gs of ram. I knew the card wasn't "good" because it was $80 a year ago. I have fraps so that's where I'm getting my frams from Scratched, but I'll try the method you posted.

So now I need to find a Graphics card that won't piss my wife off that I can go get... and it needs to run on my 500w PSU! Any recomendations?

7850 is a beastly card for its price.. you can O/C it a even get it close to a 7870

Ya know to be honest OC scares the s%$@ out of me. I build my PC's and friends and all that but I just recently watched some Youtube and some forum reading about OC. My MOBO the MSI has a button and dial right on it for "easy" OC. So that's what I did to up the CPU to 3.4. I will look into that card though. Already presented my "dilemma" to the wife this morning and I'm still breathing.

EDIT: Oh no sir that card on newegg looks to be about $220. No can do for now. I'm looking for $100 bucks tops. Not even sure my poor PSU could power that puppy.

EDIT: Oh no sir that card on newegg looks to be about $220. No can do for now. I'm looking for $100 bucks tops. Not even sure my poor PSU could power that puppy.

You can get the 1GB version for $169.. Basically the 2GB version is the same price as the 7870 because of how easy they can O/C to a 7870.. no one really buys the 2GB version.. they just buy a 7870.

TheGameguru wrote:
EDIT: Oh no sir that card on newegg looks to be about $220. No can do for now. I'm looking for $100 bucks tops. Not even sure my poor PSU could power that puppy.

You can get the 1GB version for $169.. Basically the 2GB version is the same price as the 7870 because of how easy they can O/C to a 7870.. no one really buys the 2GB version.. they just buy a 7870.

Hmm well perhaps I'll be patient then and wait to see what I get from Santa. I'll have to go to my buddy Google to find out if my PSU can handle that guy.

At $100 it becomes really murky.. as those tend to be rebranded and who knows what.. I'm sure someone on the intraweb has done a decent analysis with some modern GPU's at that price point...but I wouldnt expect miracles..

That's a big ten/four. I think at this point I will wait for whatever holiday cash comes my way and go from there. I believe I will take your recommended card and run with it.

So after some searching I found this...

http://microcenter.com/product/38535...

I feel like that is a decent upgrade from my HD5670. I'm curious if it gets a thumbs up or down from you guys. If it sounds good them I'm on the road tonight.

That card has decent reviews. It is a cross generation card where the previous gen card slightly outperforms it but is also more expensive. This is a decent card.

Duoae wrote:

That card has decent reviews. It is a cross generation card where the previous gen card slightly outperforms it but is also more expensive. This is a decent card.

Ya I was trying to compare it to some other cards around the same price point. The store I'm going to has a few "open box" for about $107 so that's my plan. Thanks for helping me out!