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Short Bio
Hello! I'm a post-college student who spends his days at home building/repairing computers and game consoles, eating yummy cookie dough, reading up on all things tech-enthusiast worthy, and tweaking/modding my devices to the max!
As for my part in the community, I have recently started helping out with editing the Hardware performance page. Mainly, I make corrections and add in missing information so that users can make proper comparisons between their hardware and user-posted results. It's my first for Wiki editing, though I do it for the greater good of users who view results and don't want to be confused by certain mistakes they may come across.
I make editing mistakes too. In that case, if you have tips for future editing based on previous edits I have made, please let me know through my talk page, User talk:Bb 20, or through an email.
~Thanks for visiting my humble profile, and have a great day!~
Pages I look after
This is here mostly for my benifet ;)
- Hardware_performance
- Hardware_performance/create
- Hardware_performance/intro
- Hardware_performance/nav
- Template:HardwareEntry
- Template:HardwareEntry/doc
My Specs
| Component | Model | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Mobo | Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H | v1.1 |
| CPU | Intel Core i5-3570K | 4.4/4.3/4.3/4.2GHz, 1.296v |
| GPU | Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 (GTX660-DC2TG-2GD5) | 2-way SLI, 1035-1100/1600 |
| RAM | G.Skill Ares 8GB(2x4GB) DDR3 (F3-1866C(-4GAB) | 1866MHz, 1.50v, XMP profile 2 |
| Storage | OCZ Vertex 3 64GB | Great buy! |
| Western Digital Blue 1TB (WD5000AAKS) | ||
| Optical | DVD+RW/DL | Never use. I mount images instead. |
| PSU | OCZ Fatal1ty 550W (OCZ550FTY) | Partly modular. Runs all my things! :D |
| Chassis | Corsair Carbide 450 Air | Cable management! |
| CPU Cooler | Cooler Master Seidon 120V | Full load temps = 57*c |
| Fans | (x3) 120mm | Creates positive air-pressure in chassis |
Userboxes
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Minecraft since 1.1.2_01. |
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Nvidia tweaks for better gameplay performance
Intro
I have always been interested in tweaking software to have it work faster for me. Overclocking, Windows registry editing, optimization utilities, ect... Those are the types of things that I like to play around with. This nice thing about the Nvidia Control Panel is that you can have profiles per executable that contain different options for how the graphics drivers work with that program. Here, I will show you some of the effects of these profile options when coupled with javaw.exe.
Testing Methodology
Currently, I am using Java JRE 8 to do these tests. However, performance is very similar to that of Java SE 7 Update 40. Also, Fraps is being used to collect these figures. The reason for this is that when you have the debuging overlay enabled while in-game, your FPS drops by a good few percent, a lot of times for me it drops by ~100FPS!
NOTE: Each test below was recorded within 60 second period.
| Preset | Min | Max | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|
| With Debug Screen | 590 | 686 | 657.408 |
| Without Debug Screen | 740 | 809 | 791.725 |
If we calculate the percent difference between the average number of frame for both of these results then we come out with a 18.53% FPS difference! I call that a hit, folks.
Results
NOTE: Each test below was recorded within 120 second period.
| Preset | Min | Max | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Java 7, Windowed | 549 | 738 | 661.100 |
| Java 7, Fullscreen | 476 | 617 | 536.550 |
| Java 8, Windowed | 552 | 842 | 707.600 |
| Java 8, Fullscreen | 486 | 616 | 531.967 |
| Preset | Min | Max | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max pre-rendered = 1, Alt Frame Rendering 2, High Performance, Thread Optimization = ON | 563 | 691 | 648.892 |
| Max pre-rendered = 1, Alt Frame Rendering 2, High Performance, Thread Optimization = OFF | 578 | 676 | 637.908 |
| Max pre-rendered = 1, Alt Frame Rendering 2, High Performance, Thread Optimization = OFF | 692 | 795 | 767.950 |
| Max pre-rendered = 4, Alt Frame Rendering 2, High Performance, Thread Optimization = ON | 547 | 651 | 618.275 |
| Max pre-rendered = 4, Alt Frame Rendering 2, High Performance, Thread Optimization = OFF | 656 | 807 | 753.392 |
| Max pre-rendered = 4, Alt Frame Rendering 1, High Performance, Thread Optimization = OFF | 688 | 808 | 783.000 |
| Max pre-rendered = 4, Single GPU, High Performance, Thread Optimization = OFF | 708 | 814 | 791.717 |
Best Settings
Max pre-renderded frames = 4,
Power management mode = ON,
SLI rendering mode = OFF,
Thread optimization = OFF,
These combination of settings above should give the player the best performance overall.
Conclusion
Changing Nvidia Control Panel options is something you will want to look into if you want to squeeze more performance out of your machine. This is great for if you can't immediately upgrade your hardware components, overclock or if your machine can't be upgraded for that matter.
RAM frequency, does it matter for Minecraft?
Intro
This series of tests will determine if low RAM frequency, or and overclocked set of DIMMs for that matter, has any bearing on Minecraft's performance. I'm putting this in here for all you people, but the idea for doing this is to help me figure out if this information belongs on the Hardware Performance page or not. That is to say, just make things more organised, easier to understand and compare against/with without all sorts of useless information! I will be doing a series of tests similar to that of what I did above with my Java experiments.
A note before preceding!
I've mentioned this before, both in my previous Nvidia tests and on the Hardware Performance page, but make sure that when you are benchmarking to not use the debugging HUD whenever possible! The reason I say this is right below:
NOTE: Each test below was recorded within 120 second period, using the same methods of testing as on the Hardware Performance page.
| Preset | Min | Max | Avg | Frames |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| With Debug Screen | 453 | 519 | 498.642 | 59837 |
| Without Debug Screen | 590 | 645 | 618.733 | 74248 |
Again, the FPS hit is big, some 21.49% in fact! This is why it is a good idea to use a program, such as Fraps for instance, to collect the frame rate for you. When I talk about consistency, this is a great example of why the same settings for everyone benchmarking Minecraft matters.
Testing Methodology
With the same testing methodology as written on the Hardware Performance page in mind, the only differences as to how I collected these result are as follows:
- Only used default window size
- I could have done these tests at 2560x1080 or with a maximized window, but I felt that the higher the frame rate I had for each result and using that to compare against other results I created would yield more accurate percentages .. if that makes sense. Also if someone wanted to quantify my results with similar hardware then they wouldn't be restricted to having to use my monitor res to get the same results (one less thing to worry about).
- "Facing: north (Towards negative Z) (180.0 / 0.0)
- This ensures I will always have consistent results! I should just get everyone to do that, ja? :P
- Always day
- I didn't want mobs like Zombies and Skeletons suddenly appearing around me should night come, which could potentially affect my frame rate. (That requires testing out though)
Results
| RAM Frequency | Min (FPS) | Max (FPS) | Avg (FPS) | Frames (x34) | Frames (x42) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 800MHz | 563 | 691 | 648.892 | 27947 | 34032 |
| 1066MHz | 578 | 676 | 637.908 | 29929 | 36091 |
| 1333MHz | 692 | 795 | 767.950 | 31127 | 37693 |
| 1600MHz | 547 | 651 | 618.275 | 30290 | 36694 |
| 1866MHz | 656 | 807 | 753.392 | 29734 | 36727 |
| 2133MHz | 688 | 808 | 783.000 | 30763 | 37912 |
Curiously, when I hit 1600 and 1866MHz my frame rate went down. Not sure what happened there, though it looks like the sweet spot is 1333MHz for Minecraft. I'll follow up with more benchmarks (in time).
File:Frames 120sec.png File:Avg frames 120sec.png
NOTE: The average frame rate and number of frames drawn per 120 seconds matchup, which in turn means that frames drawn were consistent.
Conclusion
In the end, and I've seen this before with other benchmarks, when I hit 2133MHz I got the same performance as 1333MHz. This means that beyond this there is likely not benefit to amping up your RAM frequency. Although, it looks like increasing your CPU frequency or multiplier can at least do some good!