Advice on increasing my Fraps for gaming

[dmj940441]

[FONT=&quot]Here is my current system:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]E8400 Core 2 Duo @ 3 GHz[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]HD 4850[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]DDR-2 800 Ram, 4 GB[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]GA-EP45-UD3R (P45 motherboard)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]SSD Drive[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]1280 x 1040 19” monitor[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
Processor is 6.5 and Gaming graphics is 7.3 on the WEI. I get about 36 Fraps playing AC II (which actually looks pretty good). If I wanted to shoot for 60 Fraps, would a video card upgrade do it or would that just bottle-neck the processor? And is there any way to tell for sure?

Thanks for your advice.
DeeJay [/FONT]

 

[Der-PC-Mann]

OK, first thing's first... it's FPS (Frames per Second), not Fraps; Fraps is a program used to benchmark, take screenshots, and grab video footage of the desktop or within a game. I actually registered more or less just to get that off my chest. lol It bugged me.

The graphics card would help, and a CPU upgrade may help, but I believe mainly the graphics card would do you the most good.

Have you tried various tweaks, such as editing any available ini files, or tweaking the CCC or even overclocking the GPU/CPU? Obviously, the latter shouldn't be done unless you have a decent enough idea on what you're doing, as OCing can damage hardware if you are reckless, etc.

My brother recently acquired an HD5750, and considering its age, it runs incredibly well, competing even with my high-end overclocked card, the 550Ti (soon to be SLI) and he only has dual core at a little over 3GHz. As for bottle-necking, well, depending on the game's design, you can usually get away with it; it's not as serious and scary as some people make it, it's just a case of lowering CPU intensive features, such as heavy CPU-controlled physics, shadows, or various other things.

I have the first Assassin's Creed (love it, and love the 2nd, BTW) and was able to tweak various settings via ini files, such as shadow resolution, filtering, etc, so I recomend you have a hunt; you'll likely find them in your My Documents folder.

Good luck.