- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Posted by: Kohlrak
Exactly what is overclocking? (and what are the disadvantages and how can you do it?)
I have a premade computer by Dell. (I was not prewarned of making one yourself.) I hope actually upgrade this thing. Other than when the plasma rifle and pistol overheats my computer slows down dramatically and that i crash every once in a while on single player, i have absolutly no problem running halo on highest detail i can get. But i noticed when i enable sound card buffering, when i have my head phones on i have to put my left on my right ear and my right speaker on my left ear. Also i have outside halo issues like when my CPU usage goes up or go into a full screen game, my mic volume all the sudden shoots up an extra mic boost on teamspeak. (as if you could mic boost +40 instead of +20) Always have issues with recording programs throwing up that mic volume.
Anyway, mine is... (I'm not proud of my peice of crap. That's what i get for being an utter hardware moron, software on the other hand, don't you dare start anything. lol Note: DxDiag readout.)
Video: Nvidia Geforce MX 420 (if you upgrade your drivers, never do it through automatic updates, compy will crash.)
Sound: Creative SB Live! Series (yes, i'm ashamed.)
Memory (Random Access): 256 MB (Sad, right?)
Memory (Read Only AKA Hard Drive): About 60 gigs. (Sick, but i really don't need all the ROM.)
Page File(Probably what makes the damn thing handle all that i put it through): 3635 MB
Processor: Intel(r) Pentium(r) 4 CPU 2.53 GHz
What i put it throuh:
Halo (High Detail), Trillian 3 (with plugins and all my names = 46924 mem usage on task manager. NOTHING else eats up that much or even gets a 4th. And if some one not on my bl ims me, comp goes into major lag.), my horrible C++ programming. Other than that i don't do much accept keep over 10 windows open at all times. Actually, for a company made computer, this isn't bad at all handling it. But maybe my brain runs with as much lag as my comptuer so i don't always notice it.
my comments:
overclocking is making hardware run faster than it's rated for. Premade computers such as dell lock the settings needed for overclocking. The main thing to overclock for gaming is the video card. Check your video card manufacturer's website to see if they have an overclocking application. The main enemy and mistake of overclocking is making it run so fast that it overheats, so only make the speed slightly faster at a time (5 Mhz steps), run it for an hour or 2, and see if you get errors. This may void your warranty sometimes, so check that out too.
slowing down with plasma overheat: excessive particles during the overheat is normal.
reversing headphones: make sure that a sound card setting isn't switching the L and R signals. I do not think buffering is the main cause.
mic volumes: dunno. i don't use teamspeak or have a microphone to use.
you should upgrade your ram before anything else. Maps and stuff are loaded into main ram, not video card. video card just holds textures for the map and stuff. I just got a half-life 2 demo, and it stutters occasionally because of my ram. I looked at my free space on my ram with half life 2 demo running, and i only had like 3MB left.
you should only have the page file set to 1.5x of the ram you have. more than 1.5x of your ram is really just wasted space.
You might get a slight boost in performance if you:
scan for viruses and spyware
defragment your hard drive regularly
shut down unnecessary background programs (instant messenger, special control panels)
[Edited on 7/3/2005]