The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Estuansis, thanks for pushing me to buying the 360 controller. While it didn't work properly at first(hacked controller in the install directory) it works properly now. VERY pleased here. Its gonna take some getting used to, but I think 40$ was well spent.

 

I'm glad you like it

As far as gamepads for the PC go it's the only decent quality one I've found. Try as they may, third party mfgs always screw up their gamepads. Sticky joysticks that are stuck pushing slightly in one direction, buttons with weak rubber so they stick down, and the biggest sin of all, cheap USB connectors with pins that actually PUSH OUT OF THE HEAD when you plug them in. The 360 controller escapes all of this due to the first party build quality and programming. There are drivers for it built right into Vista and 7(plus additional software to support the middle "Xbox" button in GFWL), and nearly every single new game out supports it.

 

Actually, from what I hear, the only GTX200 card to sell well was the GTX260. Perhaps unsurprisingly it's the only one left other than the GTX295.

 

Meh I'm not surprised to hear it. All of their cards are/were stupidly overpriced. It was much the same with cards like the 8800GTX which never actually saw any significant price drops over its entire life. I still regret buying mine for $550 because a year an a half later I found my 8800GTS for 1/3 the price while the GTX remained the same. I will never again make a purchase like when I bought the E6600, Evga 680i board and 8800GTX all at once. About 6 months later I felt like an idiot. It's just I had gotten my first decent job and I was excited about getting a sweet PC so I didn't think about the actual value of my components. Luckily it all had good resale value though so I was able to get my new hardware rather painlessly once I knew better because everything turned out cheaper.

I spent the last 4 years moving around on my hardware. The first year or so actually not being able to afford it but doing it anyway piece by piece cheaping out on a lot of stuff... Glad I finally went high end the right way here. I haven't upgraded for a long long while compared to before. Though I would consider the Phenom II only a sidegrade for mindless self indulgence. But at least I know exactly what I was getting and what I was looking for as far as features, chipset, cooling, connector layout, 16x/16x Crossfire, etc.

Not only that but I have already made the initial investment in all the peripherals and some good cases so I can just upgrade internals. My most expensive single purchase has been my monitor. Keeping a current system is easy if you configure it so you can carry over components and leapfrog new technology. Even my X38 still has assloads of potential and there are still MUCH faster CPUs available for it. I was thinking a Q9x50 quad when they drop dirt cheap because they will remain blazingly fast CPUs for a while still. Let one slip past my fingers before with that Q9450 but the Q6600 turned out to be a good pick anyway. Now that I'm seeing the differences though, I'm seeing what I missed.

Also, I'm strongly considering selling my LANbox because I don't find myself using it much if at all. Mostly just to try out new games on mid-range hardware to see how it runs. It might go this week actually if everything works out right. I just got offered for it so I could be getting $400 for the whole build minus the peripherals because he already has a good monitor(1400 x 1050), logitech mouse, razer keyboard, etc. A fair deal I'd say considering what else is in it and the quality of the parts. Just drop in a Phenom II and you have a solid gaming rig. Besides my Intel quad is already portable enough for the occasional LAN. I even got my LANbox largely for trade or free so it hardly cost me anything
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Dudes, I'm trying so hard to hate Borderlands for its non working multiplayer and lack of AA support but I love it so much. It's EXACTLY like Diablo in FPS form. So addicting XD

Not to mention the graphics don't really need AA too badly. The game looks very sharp and the cel shaded visuals are done perfectly. Doesn't look like a comic book, obviously a 3D game in the Unreal Engine, but sometimes it looks like a painting. Very visually striking and quite high res friendly

The shooting is satisfying and all of the ~500,000(not a typo) guns at least LOOK awesome if only a few of them are decent. Lots of variations on basic designs including elemental effects and different sights and ammo. No customization really beyond skill perks so half the fun is finding just the right gun out of nowhere when running through a random crap job mission. Lots of the "unique" guns are just slight variations in damage, accuracy or fire rate though so there are a few generic ones that a lot of baddies carry. Lots of loot and skills to level up too plus 4 unique characters that all play very differently. There are lots of cool and fun to use weapons including an incendiary bouncing betty

This is going to be AMAZING when the online co-op works.

 

Thing is though Jeff, the 8800GTX didn't need price drops for so much of its life. The only thing that rivalled it was nvidia's own products, such as when the 8800GTS 512MB came out, the performance difference was so small that the 8800GTX had to be nudged down a bit. The only thing to beat the 8800GTX for performance was the 9800GTX+, which was only by a very small handful of percent, and it had less memory, so the 8800GTX was still expensive. There was nothing to truly conquer it until the GTX280's release in June 2008, a full 19 months after the card's release. The 8800GTX goes down in history as a graphics god, whether you like nvidia or not.
As for the PC build, unlucky on buying a 680i - thankfully you got rid of it quick enough
I would technically argue that 8x/8x bandwidth wouldn't be a limiting factor for your 4870s anyway and thus there wouldn't have been a need to buy the 790FX for them, but I can understand it was perhaps done with the future in mind.

I can relate to your lanbox problem, I rebuilt my NZXT system to be a work PC I'd use most of the time and just use the power-hungry QCF for games. Upshot of it is though, even after switching from the WD360GD to the WD1001FALS as the OS drive, I can't really tell the difference (other than lack of noise), and yet the XP PC with the OS on a WD10EADS is painfully slow indeed, thus it hardly gets used. To use it again I'd really need to stick a faster hard drive in there, which would ruin my nice silencing. Time to get handy with the acoustic foam :S

I quite enjoyed what I played of Borderlands. The fact that it runs needlessly badly on ATI hardware is a real put-off though. It's just too laggy to be really enjoyable on my system right now. A single HD4870 would normally be able to keep a solid 62fps in the Unreal Engine at 1280x1024 with no AA, but due to a few TWIMTBP optimisations, it will drop to 52-55 on numerous occasions. That's fine, but turn the resolution any higher than 1280x1024 and performance drops even further. No crossfire support for the game at all at the moment, even having it enabled causes severe graphical glitching, and all ATI cards, crossfire or not, suffer from missing textures. The real big hitter though is just how much nvidia coded out ATI GPUs from playing the game. Arkham Asylum was the first title to really show this, but Borderlands is worse, much worse.
Here are the direct rivals of ATI GPUs to nvidia ones in borderlands. Spot the problem:

HD5870: GTS250
HD5850: 8800GT/9800GT
HD4890: 9600GT
HD4870: 8800GS
HD4850: 7900GTX
HD4830: 7900GT

Aside from the ridiculous anti-coding, the actual game itself, what textures ATI cards will actually render, look good, but to say the game doesn't need AA is grossly misguided. Even at native res the aliases stick out like a sore thumb, cell-shading done this way really does make it stick out, I noticed the same thing with stuff like Prince of Persia. The type of cell-shading used in TF2, however, doesn't seem so vulnerable to this.
I must admit, there are different types of gun everywhere in the game which seemed a bit weird, but I really do enjoy the little SMG I found that sets baddies on fire. Fun times. The fact that real multiplayer is completely broken at the moment puts me in no rush to buy the game, and having to run it at 17" resolution or less until I buy an nvidia card is obviously a bit of a tease. Here's hoping a crossfire profile appears for it in Cat 9.11 to brute-force out of the coding issue. I could live with being limited to 1920x1200 if it meant smooth performance. From what I can gather, 3.2x CF performance (as much as I would expect from a TWIMTBP title in QCF) would make the maximum smooth res about that. Here's hoping.

Heh, the funny thing is, due to all this, Crysis Warhead on Enthusiast with 4xAA actually runs just as well as Borderlands, and doesn't have any corrupt textures

 

What version of the Catalyst drivers are you using? The Cat 9.11 betas helped me a bit. It runs 45-50FPS for me but maxed at 1920 x 1200 with Crossfire off. I hope the 9.11 final includes a Crossfire profile because Unreal Engine is normally good with Crossfire. I think the jaggies are minimal BTW. Never been an issue in all my play. The game looks awesome though AA would definitely have a large impact admittedly.

 

9.11 Beta. Better performance than other drivers, but still no crossfire profile. At 1920x1200 I will get 40-50fps through most of the game, but there are certain viewpoints (not many, but perhaps a 10-30º segment in one direction) that will drop the fps to around 30-32. Normally this wouldn't be much of an issue, but Borderlands uses advance rendering, so low fps = laggy mouse.

 

So does running a monitor at 1920 resolution, that comes recommended at 2560 sacrifice much quality? I think i've asked a similar question before :S I would probably (with the equipment you have)sacrifice frame rate, for higher resolution. But since I have no past experience with this particular dilemma, my opinion really is worthless here LOL!

 

Try renaming it Bioshock.exe. This just got Crossfire working for me

 

Doesn't get crossfire working, I'm not sure why so many people seem to think this, I have already tried it.

 

Well then it simply improved performance because now I'm hitting 60 in some spots with a minimum of 35-40.

 

You guys and your crossfires ← Jealous

 

Ok, weird, it did work that time. Not sure what I did the last time. Performance is up, and by exactly as much as I expected. When standing around not doing anything fps is 60-62, in firefights is 47-54. Not exactly smooth as the game doesn't take lower frame rates well, but it's certainly playable now at last. However, the exe namechange doesn't fix the graphical corruption crossfire brings. With luck, a genuine crossfire profile will fix that.

 

LOL Hey, skim does not only apply to milk!

Oh, yeah, I forgot about all those Montana militias. Jeff, where’d you get all those guns from, dude!

Hey in real life, is the AK as powerful as it is in Counter Strike?

Hmmmm. We have here an expert.

Ok, is the Deagle a 357 magnum? Sam said he liked the magnum a lot in the demo - I say the same - it rules. You can take out a charger with four shots. Is the demo fairly accurate on the power of a 357?

Well, it's you limeys that are to blame. Ol king whoever said "no right to bear arms!" so we revolutionists had to do the opposite - "right to bear all the goddamn arms you can possibly fit in Jeff's gun rack!"

Why does it not surprise me that "top xfire gun of all time" shaff would say that

Yeah, those atomic bombs over in Shaff's parent's home country are perfectly safe too, lol.

Wow, I was just gonna ask how Lucid is doing with that big bang. Hmmmm.

To which sam provides a great link. VERY INTERESTING!!!! I saved the link and I will speed read it and skim it later - not today - today is game day!! Nice work Sam!

You have to have the entire story to really judge whether or not they are idiots. As one who has gone through two years of 3 case studies a day - these decisions involve working capital, market forecasts, incipient technologies on the horizon, plant capacity, and all manner of variables. And then, ultimately, you may be right - some of these guys may be idiots!

Jeff, I see Kevin is thanking you for the advice about the xbox controller - I'll end up getting one too I'm sure! (Now that you guys finally clued me in that it's a PC add-on product.)

Wow! High praise coming from a true graphics aficionado. Maybe we'll be privileged to get the Jeff "special review" one day.

Hmmmm. Now wait a second, isn't that the game Sam was in when he refused to join me last Wednesday in the L4D2 demo "No Rich, already beat that an hour ago on expert with a bot and health pack left over - moved on by now - leaving you behind to eat my dust!"

Yeah, maybe it WAS. Those evil nvidia guys again, up to their old tricks!

Hmmm. You used the word "until." That's several times now you have hinted about buying an nvidia product!

God, how am I going to remember all these tricks when I build the new rig???

Ok, got to go - I'll be on steam all day today if anybody cares.

Boozer, if you pop in again in the next few weeks - tell us about those cars you bought!

Shokz - I was thinking of you the other day, a possible client is moving to Sydney for three years. I said "Oh, everybody rides kangaroos right?" and they thought I was stupid. Were you lying to me, Shokz?

- Rich

 

Well, how many shots does it take to kill a charger in real life?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0yn23wXtbw

Great link no. Controversial link certainly.

I've hinted at it several times. When there's one worth buying I probably will. Going to be waiting a long time for that though...

 

;P I'll never tell. Only that they're legally purchased and naught more.

The AK is indeed powerful and somewhat accurate but the M16 is MUCH lighter and more accurate.

There are two versions of the Desert Eagle. One is indeed a .357 but one is a .50 Caliber ;P

The Smith and Wesson .357 from Half Life 2 is the most accurate representation of the 357 magnum. Aside from it blasting guys back(which MIGHT be possible) its sound, killing power and recoil are fairly accurate. My friend with the M16s has the same exact gun from the game except that the sight posts are red, and even he says that it's pretty much the same. I suppose my Ruger is much the same thing but it doesn't have a rotating drum. You need to load each round individually.

 

Hahahaha. The right to have a pair of bear arms hanging on your wall! Good one Sam!!

In real life, how many magnum shots to shoot a charger? I don't know, let's ask Jeff.

Here's the gun expert now:

Thanks Jeff, very interesting. So have you played the L4D2 demo, and if so, would you guess 357 or 50 caliber? Just curious since I'm gonna buy one tomorrow to support the second amendment, and since Sam can't go buy one because of king whatshisname.

More from our very own Jesse James:

So you're saying it is not a revolver. You actually have to take each bullet and chamber it one at a time like an old-fashioned rifle? Interesting. What's the caliber of the Ruger?

Oh, last thing, are we going to change this to the After Dawn Official American 2nd Amendment Rifle and Gun Thread?

Rich

 

im jsut gonna have a one minute silnce on how MW2 has killed every game out there.

 

Rich I worded that wrong. My Ruger is a 357 Magnum(basically a 38 special with a huge amount of power) and IT IS a six round revolver. But the drum doesn't swing out so it doesn't facilitate for speed loaders. So in the traditional sense, no it's not a true wild west revolver, but it actually is still a revolver... if that makes sense... You have to pull back a small slide, push the bullet in, and when you release the slide the drum rotates around to the next chamber. Lather, rinse, repeat. It can actually be loaded quite fast and there are some cases of gun slingers using this type of loading, but the swing out drum made for speed loading is quicker and easier.

Also, I'm pretty sure the Deagle in L4D2 is a 50 cal considering the amount of ammo normally needed to take the charger down...

 

Aye, a one minute silence marking the end of an era - multiplayer tactical real-world FPS games on PC.