The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

It's impossible to say to be honest, the graphics market is too volatile.

 

LOL! that's putting it mildly

 

Just dropping in here to say the HD5850 you recommended me is great! A little pricey but so far it is well worth it. The initial drivers were a bit broken but after updating them they seem to work just fine. Crysis on high and I can finally turn shadows on in company of heroes!

Time to get 64 bit and some new RAM. (Secret check my other topic post)

 

Currently doing the Llama's X-Clamp Replacement fix on a red-ringed 360 my buddy gave me. If this works I am now a 360 owner again

EDIT:

HAHA THE RED RING OF DEATH IS VANQUISHED!!!!!!!! I WIN!!!!!! SCREW YOU MICROSOFT!!!!!!!!!!

 

Haha nice going Estuansis

 

hi everyone, i know the topic name is "Official Graphics Card and PC GAMING Thread" but i'm not really asking help about graphics card as a gamer..

I use photoshop, premiere pro, after effects, maya, and similar programs extensively.. and i have some questions:

1. How important is a video card to someone like me?
2. I'm making a very budget build pc, and listed below are my options, please help me in deciding which one would be the best for me and which one would be sufficient enough (i want to save as much as i can):
a. gt 240 1gb ddr3
b. gts 250 green ed 512 mb
c. 9800 gt 512 mb
d. 9800 gt 1gb
e. radeon hd 4770 512mb
f. radeon hd 4670 1gb

im leaning towards the nvidia cards because of cuda and physx..

again, im looking for the best sufficient card for me.. thank you!

 

As far as power is concerned, nvidia cards are slower and more expensive. For gamers, they're out. Furthermore, PhysX is exclusively a gamers' feature, 3D modelers will see no benefit from it.
Most importantly of all though, graphics cards for workstations are different than the ones used to play games. You should really be looking at QuadroFX cards rather than normal geforces and radeons. FireGLs are the ATI equivalent to QuadroFX cards, but I am unsure how much benefit they give in Maya. Most of the other programs you listed only concern the CPU.

 

umm photoshop uses CUDA quite a bit. so id get an nvidia card, a 9800GT preferably. or gts 250

 

wow, somebody (but not me yet) has some money to buy something - way to go guy!

In answer to ilovetoot, Sam and Shaff had this to say:

Hmmm - he said he was on a budget - aren't those quadrofx cards way up there in price - like $500-1000? No, I'm wrong - I just googled and I see one starting at $170 - the 512mb FX580.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hey, changing the subject back to video games, what does anybody think of this Left 4 Dead 2 weapons analysis by Urik:

. . .

A couple of things were interesting to me in seeing this chart:

1. The police stick apparently swings fast (but what about range?)

2. The silenced uzi isn't just an uzi with a silencer but rather a different gun that is MORE powerful than the uzi (per the director's commentary). Before I saw this chart I was starting to get the idea that it had more zombie-killing power than the regular uzi (which didn't make sense to me at the time, because I thought it was simply an uzi with a silencer. The specific part of the director's commentary, right at the Parish chapter 2 gate run near the ladder to the scaffold, where they lay the new weapons on the ground and talk about them, clarified that for me. According to the commentary, it would make sense that troops would be called back from overseas to deal with the zombie threat, and would employ weapons that are being used in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. They pointed out the unique camouflage on the SCAR, which according to the commentary comes from desert combat.)

3. The colt, according to this chart, fires faster than uzi, at almost 17 rounds per second using about 2 seconds reload time. I am not sure that I agree with this - since seeing the chart I have casually clocked it, and while it DOES seem to fire faster than I am used to an AR firing, I have a hard time believing it fires that fast. Having done some official time studies a while back in regard to the original game, certainly I know that the original Left 4 Dead M16 did not fire faster than an uzi - the comparison was about 16 rounds per second for uzi to 12 rounds per second for assault rifle.

But let me ask you guys - have they speeded up the M16 fire rate for the sequel?

I talked before with Miles about that kind of thing, when I mentioned to him my observation that the Counter Strike bullpup, a gun he also likes, fires slightly slower in zoom mode. I asked him, laughing, how does the gun know when you are looking through the 2x scope? That's when he explained that they DO tinker with things like accuracy, fire rate, and impact power, in order to spread out gun capabilities.

4. I did a whole analysis of relative bullet impact from the above chart, but I'll save that for another post - it's in an email I sent to Miles, the valve artist, after he shared the chart with me.

(Some of the conclusions were that, as you can see if you believe the chart, AK hits about 70% harder than M16, whereas SCAR hits about 100% harder than M16, but has an overall slow-as-sin fire rate down to about 6 rounds per second, as it automatically staggers the bursts. While I tend to pick up AK most of the time, I'm forcing myself to pick up SCAR more and more to really get a good feel for what it offers. I am concluding that it's quite a good gun, although I sincerely hate the the one-second longer reload time that SCAR has versus AK or AR. I wouldn't carry it for parish bridge rush for that reason, for example. But, as I found out the other night shooting specials from the high entrance corner of the stadium, versus AK - which non-crouched has lousy accuracy, and versus M16 - which non-crouched has better but not outstanding accuracy, good old SCAR - non-crouched - full standing up, trying to shoot over my teammates' heads, has amazing specials-killing accuracy.)

Rich

 

I've seen that Left 4 Dead tank damage chart before. I thought it was here, but perhaps not. My preferred approach is fire in the hole, followed by one of my preferred heavy weapons, Combat Shotgun / Auto sniper, AK if necessary. If we're on good health and it's Versus and we're feeling lulzy, we might all close in with melee weapons.
The fire rate of uzi vs colt is non-sensical, the L4D2 Uzi fire rate is substantially increased from the old version with the ammo capacity upped, so although it lasts the same duration overall, you have to reload more often. On the fire rate I know of the colt, I would place 250 rounds fired as about 21 seconds, putting the reloads at 1500ms each. Seems reasonable, it reloads fast.
The uzi takes a bit longer to reload if I remember rightly, and using the figures given, the fire rate does seem to work out increased. Whether it's enough of an increase I'm not sure, but I imagine this is taken from game code, not from casual time assessment, so I doubt it's wrong.
Miles is correct with the zoom fire rate on not just the Aug, but also the SG552 in CS:S.

 

well i currently have a 3.6GHz E5200 so i assume i wont need to upgrade to i3/i5 yet, and with battlefeild coming out soon, from my 4870 512MB (at 1920x1200) what would be my best upgrade? i really cant see much point in jumping to 4890, as its only a few percent upgrade, and the 5850 are way over priced.

anything inbetween? or should i get a second hand 4870 and CF it?

how much will the 5830 be? any indication on performance?

 

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_jump.cfm/683586/5018757


Still thinking about 5970 vs 5870CF for my system. Also remembered that changing between Catalyst A.I. modes is instant. Disabling /enabling crossfire resets program window sizes and takes 10 seconds or so... :S

 

The new Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Beta has been benchmarked, and it's a monster!

Looks like we have finally hit the era where mainstream multiplayer games will bring PCs to their knees in the same way as Crysis did for the single player market.
I wasn't going to do anywhere near as many categories as this, but seeing just how badly lots of very common graphics cards are that are still for sale, let alone older ones fare, I decided to go all the way to rock bottom (and also as another way of highlighting just how abysmal the G210 is - see if you can find it in this chart, it's in there somewhere!)
These are just the minimums. Will add the averages later if more boredom strikes.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Beta Performance - Graphical Requirements (Threshold scale)
Test Notes: 8x AA applied, DirectX10 mode, Maximum Detail, only single GPUs tested
Data Source: GameGPU.Ru


Minimum 40fps:
1024x768: HD5850
1280x1024: HD5870

Minimum 30fps:
1024x768: GTX260-216 or HD4890/HD5830
1280x1024: GTX275 (not GTX280) or HD5850 (HD5830, speculative)
1680x1050: HD5870
1920x1080: HD5890 (speculative)

Minimum 25fps:
1024x768: GTX260 or HD4870/HD5830
1280x1024: GTX260-216 or HD4890/HD5830
1680x1050: GTX275 (not GTX280) or HD5850 (HD5830, speculative)
1920x1080: HD5850

Minimum 20fps:
1024x768: GTS250/8800GTS G92 or HD5750/HD4850/HD4770
1280x1024: GTX260 or HD5770/HD4870
1680x1050: GTX270-216 or HD4890/HD5830
1920x1080: GTX280/GTX275 or HD5850 (HD5830, speculative)

Minimum 15fps:
1024x768: GT240/9800GT/8800GT or HD5750/HD4830/HD4750
1280x1024: GTS250/9800GT/8800GTS G92 or HD5750/HD4850/HD4770
1680x1050: GTS250/9800GTX or HD5770/HD4850/HD4770
1920x1080: GTX260 or HD4870/HD5830

Minimum 12fps:
1024x768: GT240/9600GT/8800GT or HD5750/HD4830/HD4750/HD3870
1280x1024: GT240/9800GT/8800GT or HD5750/HD4830/HD4750
1680x1050: GTS250/9800GT/8800GT or HD5750/HD4850/HD4750
1920x1080: GTS250/9800GTX/8800GTS G92 or HD5750/HD4850/HD4770

Minimum 10fps:
1024x768: GT240/9600GSO+/8800GS or HD5670/HD4830/HD4750/HD3850
1280x1024: GT240/9600GT/8800GT or HD5750/HD4830/HD4750/HD3870
1680x1050: GT240/9800GT/8800GT or HD5750/HD4830/HD4750/HD3870
1920x1080: GTS250/9800GT/8800GT or HD5750/HD4830/HD4750

[Minimum 8fps:
1024x768: GT220/9600GSO+/8800GS or HD5670/HD4670/HD3850/HD2900XT
1280x1024: GT240/9600GSO+/8800GS or HD5670/HD4830/HD4750/HD3850
1680x1050: GT240/9600GSO+/8800GS or HD5750/HD4830/HD4650/HD3850
1920x1080: GT240/9600GT/8800GT or HD5750/HD4830/HD4750/HD3870

Minimum 5fps:
1024x768: GT220/9500GT/8600GTS or HD5670/HD4650/HD3690/HD2900 Pro
1280x1024: GT220/9500GT/8600GTS or HD5670/HD4650/HD3690/HD2900 pro
1680x1050: GT220/9600GSO/8800GS or HD5670/HD4670/HD3850/HD2900 Pro
1920x1080: GT220/9600GSO+/8800GS or HD5670/HD4670/HD3850/HD2900 Pro

Minimum 3fps:
1024x768: GT220/9500GT/8600GT or HD4550/HD3650/HD2600XT
1280x1024: GT220/9500GT/8600GT or HD4550/HD3650/HD2900 Pro
1680x1050: GT220/9500GT/8600GT or HD4650/HD3650/HD2900 Pro
1920x1080: GT220/9500GT/8600GT or HD4650/HD3690/HD2900 Pro

Minimum 2fps:
1024x768: GT220/9400GT/8500GT or HD4450/HD3470/HD2600XT
1280x1024: GT220/9500GT/8600GT or HD4450/HD3470/HD2600XT
1680x1050: GT220/9500GT/8600GT or HD4450/HD3470/HD2600XT
1920x1080: GT220/9500GT/8600GT or HD4470/HD3650/HD2600XT

Minimum 1fps:
1024x768: G210/9400GT/8400GS or HD4450/HD3470/HD2600 Pro/HD2400XT
1280x1024: GT220/9400GT/8500GT or HD4450/HD3470/HD2600 Pro/HD2400XT
1680x1050: GT220/9400GT/8500GT or HD4450/HD3470/HD2600XT/HD2400XT
1920x1080: GT220/9500GT/8600GT or HD4450/HD3470/HD2600XT

 

People sure like war, don't they LOL! Well...as long as it's all in good fun, and only for entertainment purposes
Seriously though, I could be into that game. Probably gonna have a 50$ price tag at release at least! I may wait til it's more affordable. Besides, according to sam's post, I won't be able to run it the way it's meant to be played anyway LOL! Perhaps my next board, with 2 GPU's in Crossfire, and Phenom II OC'd to 3.8+ will be up to the challenge

 

There is no sign of a CPU limit in the test even at 1024x768 where the HD5870 pulls an average of 66fps and a minimum of 47fps. Of course, this is with a 4Ghz Q9650, so I can't say for certain where the CPU limit may be. Suffice to say a stock 955BE isn't going to be any lower than 30 minimum and 45 average, probably higher.

 

I think I misunderstood. That's totally playable LOL!

Looks like I'm in the recommended area too
http://forums.vgrequirements.info/showthread.php?t=7690

 

Sadly, this site doesn't test dual graphics, so we will have to wait until a release benchmark from one of the typical sites to say how well crossfire performs. However, it's pretty apparent that dual graphics are going to need to be active and working for the game to run smoothly, at any resolution. Assuming 80% crossfire scaling (highly unlikely at first, but possible after a driver patch), you would need two HD5850s or an HD5890 to get nice smooth gameplay at 1680x1050, or acceptably smooth gameplay at 1920x1080. To get absolutely fluid gameplay (minimum of 60fps) it's going to be a pair of HD5870s just for 1680x1050, three for 1920x1080, and as for 2560x1600, probably four HD5890s, when they come out, unless you clock the bals off a pair of HD5970s. The game is insane.

 

i seriously want to cry

 

Yes but if the graphics warrant the hardware this is our new Crysis

I, for one, am a Battlefield freak so this is awesome for me. I probably won't run it maxed but I bet I can find a happy medium for now

 

Wow that's crazy, did not expect to see those numbers. I was planning on playing that game too lol. According to that site I can't play Mass Effect 2 either (at high settings)