The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Wow, I come back from a day or two of gorging on RTS, and thinking a quick skim of the forum is needed - and we've got some very heavy content - no skimming possible:

Hahaha. Babysitting the AI. That all started with Half Life 2 for me - you would be so relieved to finally get some citizens to hang around with, that you would try to keep them alive for the company.

Well, you're just going to have to go crazy with killing power and wipe everybody out before your pilot buddies can commit suicide through weak engagement tactics. That's the challenge of that particular session, as I see it. There should be a way to get it handled somehow. LOL

COMPANY OF HEROES - MORTAIN 30-MINUTE HOLD THE HILL!
That reminds me - I can finally beat that 30-minute tense Mortain hill of death, on expert, EVERY SINGLE TIME! I did it about 6 times in a row (yes, 3 crazy hours of adrenaline) and I'll probably do it about 10-20 more times over the next few months - it's quite a rush. And it still is tense, I'm very busy telling the howitzer what to shoot at and keeping everything under control - and giving encouragement (I actually catch myself occasionally saying it out loud, lol) "Good job guys" when the cannons blow a particularly troublesome group of tanks or infantry away.

And there are no more fatal pauses nor annoying messages urging me to now go capture the city - it ends like Easy and Hard end - 1.Failed to secure secondary objective of Protecting Mortain - but 2.Successful at Primary objective of Holding the Hill. Mission Complete!! (Then I usually stick up my hand and decisively flip off the nazis, "F you guys!" lol. I take my nazi killing serious! Come to think of it - I say the same thing to the L4D zombies, haha.)

FULL-ON DRAGON RISING by Estuansis
Wow, it looks like Shokz has got everybody stirred up.

CoD4! One of the best games of all time - that is very high praise indeed.

Sounds like I must have this game!

Damn, and I might have to get a console! I forgot about "force-feedback" which special controllers can give you. I wonder if somebody will release a usb PC gun-mouse (I have a gun mouse that I don't use but no force feedback) which will provide a similar more-immersive sensation. I remember having a force feedback steering wheel for Monster Truck Madness that terrifically added to the play enjoyment.

Wow, that's poetry! No way can I skim that stuff - I have to slow down and savor every nuance. Nobody can write a review like Estuansis - he's up there in a professional class by himself.

Jeeez Loeeeez! I don't know if I can play that game - I'll probably have a freakin heart attack!! That might be more excitement than I can handle! (I can't wait for the new rig - "Get to work Rich and make money!")

I'm almost shocked into silence by that high praise! It sounds like a MAJOR hit.

I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more it as more people catch on. For me - it's six to 9 months out, and one more big reason to get off my butt and start reviving the US economy. Nice job Jeff.

Sam - thanks for the photo - so let me ask, do you really play guitar?

And Shokz, nice screenshot - yes I see the little tiny chinese guys - amazing! That's going to look so nice on the big Dell. "Get busy Rich."

 

loving OF2. its like an uber real version of cod4!

 

It's not a real guitar Rich, it's Guitar Hero - i.e. a game!

A wild shaffaaf appears!
where have you beeen?

 

lol. BT are c***s. its taken them 3 weeks to activate a ready installed line!.

 

I am looking to buy a new video card. I do a little gaming and a little video. What I DO do is watch the video on my TV. I found awhile back that Nvidia did away with there "mirror full screen on second monitor" option (showed in detail in the link I will provide at the end of this post). I was able to resolve that issue by falling back to the previous drivers. Which I would not be able to do with a brand new card. My question is...first did Nvidia fix/re-institute this option(I can't get a straight answer out of them)? Second, does ATI work the way Nvidia used to? Third, which one is better over all. ATI or Nvidia? I was looking at the ATI 4850/4870 or the Nvidia 9 series cards.

Nvidia forum post about the problem
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=49636&hl=full+screen+overlay

System consists of...
Asus Motherboard M4A78
http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=KX5kXQSmyaQaXVEP

AMD Athlon II X2 Dual-Core Processor 245 (2.9 GHz) AM3

 

@Rich

Thank you for the high praise on my writing

Dragon Rising is definitely a niche game. Only hardcore shooter fans need apply. I already have a few friends who say it sucked XD

But I fell in love with it after about 5 minutes of play. "Oh cool, marines in an open field" *press the map button, jaw drops*. It really is a very highly polished title and you can tell they've put some work into it, but to play well you really need to have a dark quiet room with no distractions. It takes a lot of patience and time just to do one mission

 

"Which ones is better ATi or Nvidia?" Watch how you ask that one there WILL be fights

Well if you're looking for gaming power and compatibility, go Nvidia. But if you want more in-depth options and better video quality, go ATi. Both are better at certain things but overall it's down to personal preference. I don't believe one is better than the other. Heck, I use both

I'd say an ATi HD4850 512MB would be more than enough for you, considering your needs. Super overkill for multiple screens and playing video. It's even extremely capable at games and is sold as a gaming card.

Also, there is little point to mirroring your screen. You can try dragging the video onto the next screen if you have an extended desktop, or simply use the TV as your primary monitor. Mirroring it doesn't make any sense, why have one video playing on two different screens? If you drag the video to the other screen, it also leaves your PC monitor open to continue using.

EDIT: Ah sorry just read the forum post. AFAIK ATi cards do not have this problem at all. I can play fullscreen video on either of my monitors.

 

Sounds about right for the BT thing, ah well, sorted now I suppose
Jeff: Power no, but compatibility (games at least) probably yes. HD video though, ATI have that sewn up really.

 

What it used to do is, automatically go full screen on the second display (TV) when watching video?? They called it mirror full screen on second monitor. After they messed with it, it would just have a black screen where you should have video. I do have one more question about vid cards. Are all s-video outputs gonna work on a standard definition tv? "YPbPr to s-video" is just regular old s-video right? I am asking cause Asus refers to it as HDTV out in the specs of this card.
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=uhwarwIzFUpVVGdI

Also if anyone has had the problem I am referring to with the Nvidia "mirror full screen on second monitor" and now knows if it is still an issue or not with the newer cards let me know.

THANX a lot for your advise Estuansis.

 

I know this is similar to an issue ATI drivers used to have with dual monitors, but if i remember correctly it was solved in a driver update about 6 months ago - I can't speak for nvidia about this though.

YPbPr S-Video is RGB, so will only work with TVs that accept RGB output - bear in mind however that few TVs accept S-Video connectors, usually you need adapters.

 

My TV does have a S-Video input. Is all S-Video YPbPr? There is not two different S-Videos for high and standard right?

 

The issue with the screen going black with full screen video on one monitor is still not fixed with nvidia. One of my screens gose black when i full screen a movie on 1 of my monitors. Score 1 for ATi lol.

But when useing any other software on full screen it gose black but when playin music in windows media works fine full screen and i still get my desktop on the other monitor.So it half works, might be software related and not a driver issue. Thats a big May be.

 

I understand it has to do with overlays. Whatever the heck those are. But I assume the graphics WMP generates with music does not use them.

This is from their (lack of) KnowledgeBase. But it does not say anything about newer cards. Note it only speaks of series 7 and older.

Question:

Full Screen Video Mirror option is not present in the NVIDIA display properties

Answer:

Full Screen Video Mirroring is available for Geforce 7 series GPUs and older series when using the NVIDIA Forceware display drivers 174.xx and below under Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. Full Screen Video Mirroring is not supported for any NVIDIA based GPU under Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system. Future Release 177 drivers and above will no longer provide support for Full Screen Video Mirroring for Geforce 7 GPUs and older GPUs. Full Screen Video Mirroring will be directly accessably through certain applications which will require this option.

 

Whaaaaaattt!!! My 8600Gt Nvidia was capable of playing a movie/video on one screen (FULLSCREEN), while capable of other things on the other screen. I was running in Expanded desktop mode though...Not sure about this Mirror mode your talking about.

 

Actually yes there are, 4-pin (L/C) and 9-pin (RGB)

 

Thank you. hat just saved me some disappointment. The asus card IS 9 pin. My TV is 4 pin.

 

Wait. NO it is a 7 pin. Good grief there is a bunch of different ones.

 

None of my screens have ever gone black from what I've had on the other. I can play games, watch full screen movies etc. and still have the second display available for use. I think the difference lies in how the second device is connected, I'm using DVI while it sounds like you use S-video. With that in mind all I can say is that with DVI everything should work beautifully.

 

Yes, I would agree with that. The way dual displays are setup is very crucial to it running properly. I never ran dual displays via S-video...Not that im running 100% correctly LOL! Im still using VGA connections

 

In this instance I was running "clone" mode. And the point of the option was that when you started a video, it automatically was full screen on the second display. ATI still seems to have this option in theater mode.