Trying to get the best out of my video card

[Crunga]

Hey guys,

So I just picked up this video card last night and I noticed that D3 and WoW are acting choppy at some points.

I was just wondering what settings I should adjust in the Nvidia Control Panel to get the best performance and quality, or if I should just leave it at "Let the application decide"

Here's my PC specs by the way.

Intel i5 650 3.2 ghz
8gb ram

Could it be that since my cpu isn't good enough to process some games which is causing me to still get a stutter and low fps?

[Deleted]

660 should be able to max D3 with no issues at all, WoW will need a few adjustments. I can't speak for WoW but for D3 I know if you're playing it from a HDD instead of SSD you can see some stutter if you're unlucky. Not that i really know if there is a fix for that other than trying to lower some settings (like shadows and the usual taxing settings).

Also did you do a fresh install of drivers? If not try this after uninstalling, then install drivers again.

[Crunga]

Yea I am playing on an HDD so that might be the issue of the stutter, D3 runs flawless on max settings besides that little stutter.

Whenever I upgrade my drivers I always do a clean install but I'll check out that program, might help a bit.

Also, I currently have the Nvidia Control Panel settings set to this:

Ambient Occlusion: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
AA - FXAA: Off
AA - Gamma correction: On
AA - Mode: Override any application setting
AA - Setting: 8x
AA - Transparency: Off
CUDA - GPUs: All
Maximum pre-rendered frames: 4
Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration: Single Display performance mode
Power management mode: Prefer maximum performance
Texture Filtering - Anisotropic sample: off
Texture Filtering - Negative LOD bias: Clamp
Texture Filtering - Quality: High quality
Texture Filtering - Trilinear optimization: On
Threaded optimization: Auto
Triple Buffering: On
Verticle Sync: Use the 3D application setting

Are those good or should I set it back to "let the 3d application decide"?

[Deleted]

Also, I currently have the Nvidia Control Panel settings set to this:

<SNIP>

Are those good or should I set it back to "let the 3d application decide"?

Use default settings and "let the 3d application decide", then adjust settings in the game. Driver Fusion just gets rid of a few extra things that the regular uninstall does not.

[Crunga]

Thanks for all the help Notarget.

Since I already created this thread I might as well ask one more question.

I'm probably going to upgrade my CPU to the Intel i5-3570K later on, if my Motherboard already supports the i5 650 it should also support the other CPU, right?

[stalkerzzzz]

The 3570k uses a different socket. You'll need a new motherboard.

[Crunga]

The 3570k uses a different socket. You'll need a new motherboard.

Damn, alright. Thanks for the quick reply.

[lordjust]

Yea I am playing on an HDD so that might be the issue of the stutter, D3 runs flawless on max settings besides that little stutter.

Whenever I upgrade my drivers I always do a clean install but I'll check out that program, might help a bit.

Also, I currently have the Nvidia Control Panel settings set to this:

Ambient Occlusion: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
AA - FXAA: Off
AA - Gamma correction: On
AA - Mode: Override any application setting
AA - Setting: 8x
AA - Transparency: Off
CUDA - GPUs: All
Maximum pre-rendered frames: 4
Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration: Single Display performance mode
Power management mode: Prefer maximum performance
Texture Filtering - Anisotropic sample: off
Texture Filtering - Negative LOD bias: Clamp
Texture Filtering - Quality: High quality
Texture Filtering - Trilinear optimization: On
Threaded optimization: Auto
Triple Buffering: On
Verticle Sync: Use the 3D application setting

Are those good or should I set it back to "let the 3d application decide"?

In D3 and WoW you can't force AA and AF through the normal driver because the game profile is flagged as "ignore driver settings". Turning these things on or off in the normal driver does (as far as for D3 and WoW) nothing at all. If you want to force AA or AF in D3 you need to do it with the NVinspector where you can change the game profile. When you don't exactly know what you're doing, just use the standard settings which are in most cases as good as it can get without using the NVinspector. In fact if you want to alter things you're more or less forced to use the inspector because Nvidia blocked a lot of settings so that people can't make a mess. The NVinspector is a very powerful tool to increase picture quality but you should only use it if you exactly know what you're doing.

Also for your stuttering problems. D3 loads a lot of data at the beginning of a new zone. Only way to fix it is to use a SSD or when entering a new zone, exit the game to character selection and resume game so that all needed data for that zone is already loaded.

For problems in WoW it can have a lot of reasons depending where in the game it stutters. In crowded areas? Could be too much stress on your GPU or CPU. Entering a new zone without phasing? Could be the same as with D3. When entering a zone with phasing or CRZ? Could be wrong internet settings. Check if you have IPv6 disabled because if you have it enabled and your network doesn't use it, WoW always checks if it is available when getting on a different server which takes a while.