The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Wow my single 512mb 4850 gets a 7.3 this makes noooo sense haha.

 

Well sam, I'm officially at a loss here. The Overscan issue...

Windows 7 at least offers a resolution that allows us to manage for the time being. I forget what the resolution is now, but I believe it was somewhere around 1768 x 992. They were nearly jumping up and down at how nice a blu ray file played at that resolution. Even with black bars on all sides...

At the full 1080P resolution, it crops out a good deal of the task bar, as well as horizontally(Overscan). I tried finding settings for dealing with this issue on both the Nvidia control panel, as well as settings on the tv. The tv is a complete mystery. It WON'T allow for PC settings, though it has them. They seem to be disabled in the menu. Why, I do not know. And another thing that's funny, is HDMI 1 port, also has a Audio in port for situations like this. So basically, it is supposed to allow for audio through that port and video through the HDMI port, SIMULTANEOUSLY! Unfortunately, when I attempt to run it that way, the video signal seems to override the audio. If I remove the video signal, there is then audio. NOT the way that should work. Obviously, this tv is not the best HDTV for PC solutions LOL! I corrected the audio issue, by simply running the signal to a Stereo receiver. It works good As well it should!

But there HAS to be a way to correct the overscan, without using utilities like Powerstrip?

Ha ha! By the way, Now the athlon X 2 5200 only averages 8% while playing BD files. Though I had to enable hardware acceleration So now it won't run nearly as hot. Which is very good given the HTPC's environment...

 

Many TVs don't allow PC settings unless using VGA, which is poor resolution. However, overscan is set on the PC and not on the TV.
You correct overscan in the graphics panel, or at least you should. You do with ATI cards. If you can't with nvidia cards, then that renders them very poor for HTPC use.

 

It has the PC settings, though disabled. It has no VGA connection to speak of. So it should KNOW that HDMI connections COULD be a PC connection. So being HDMI should have nothing to do with it. I even tried the DVI to HDMI dongle to see if that effected it in any way. It did not. I'm beginning to wonder if the tv is defective. Not because of the overscan, but because of the other problems. I think I'll try Powerstrip tomorrow to see if that can help any.

I'll probably contact magnavox as well...

Interestingly, I'm seeing more settings in the nvidia panel on my PC, then on the htpc. Very curious.

 

Turns out the poor performance of Battlefield Bad Company 2 was due to the AA!

DirectX9
Minimal: Geforce 7800GS/8600GT/9500GT/GT220 or above, Radeon X1800XT/X1950 Pro/HD2900GT/HD3690/HD4650/HD5570 or above
Reduced: Geforce 8800GS/8800GTS G80/9600GSO (G92)/GT240 or above, Radeon HD3850/HD4750/HD4830/HD5570 or above
Moderate: Geforce 8800GTS G92/9800GT/GTS250 or above, Radeon HD4770/HD4850/HD5750 or above
Good (No AA): Geforce GTX260-216 or above, Radeon HD4870X2/HD5830 or above
Good (2x): Geforce GTX275/GTX280 or above, Radeon HD4870X2/HD5850 or above
Optimal (No AA): Geforce GTX260 SLI or above, Radeon HD4890 Crossfire/HD5970 or above
Optimal (4x): Geforce GTX285 SLI or above, Radeon HD4870QCF/HD5870 Crossfire or above
Extreme (No AA): Geforce GTX280 Tri-SLI or above, Radeon HD4890QCF/HD5850Tri-CF or above
Extreme (8x): N/A

DirectX11
Minimal: Radeon HD5570 or above
Reduced: Radeon HD5670 or above
Moderate: Radeon HD5770 or above
Good (No AA): Radeon HD5830 or above
Good (2x AA): Radeon HD5870 or above
Optimal (No AA): Radeon HD5830CF/HD5970 or above
Optimal (4x AA): Radeon HD5870CF/HD5830 Tri-CF or above
Extreme (No AA): Radeon HD5850Tri-CF/HD5830QCF or above
Extreme (8x AA): N/A



Make no mistake, Bad Company 2 is still an exceptionally demanding game for a multiplayer-favouring FPS. Fluid frame rates (M60) are beyond the grasp of almost every gamer at remotely pleasant graphics settings.
Single cards are able to achieve this without AA, for instance at 1440x900 an HD5850 can pull it off, but would you really use a card that powerful with such a small screen?
At 1680x1050, an HD5870 is sufficient to attain M60, but it's worth noting that the game is nvidia-favouring in terms of frame rates. A GTX285 can hold its own against the HD5870 just about, which is very rare outside the most biased tests.
It is also worth mentioning that the minimum frame rates are low compared to the average in BC2, with the average frame rates around 2.2x the minimums. Without a continuous graph, the frequency of these minimums is not known, and it may simply be a very brief part of the game where this occurs, and smooth performance can, for the most part, be achieved with lesser cards.
Anti-Aliasing is the bane of good performance, however. At the lowly resolution of 1280x1024, an HD5850 can cope with normal max settings, yet enable 8x AA and even the HD5970 is overwhelmed. Indeed, you need more graphics horsepower to pull off M30 with 8x Anti-Aliasing than you do for M60 without any, by a factor of HD5870 vs HD5850.
DirectX11 (when AA is enabled at least) fortunately has little impact on the game's performance, lowering frame rates by approximately 5-7%.
To give you an idea of how the game scales, a 9600GT plays the game as well at 1280x1024 as an HD5870 does at 1920x1080 with 8xAA enabled, both in DirectX10.
Brushing 30" monitors (and heaven forbid eyefinity) aside for the moment, at 1920x1200, achieving M60 without any AA will require a pair of HD5830s, less than $500 worth, but a bit hard to swallow for a more mainstream resolution, especially with no AA. Adding 8x AA pushes this to a requirement of three HD5850s at the least, so a whopping $900.
If you were optimistic enough to expect even M40 on a 30" monitor, while again, the HD5830 pair or HD5970 could do it without AA, 8x AA would be beyond the abilities of any dual GPU pairing, and 4x probably would be as well.

In the unlikely event of Fermi cards proving particularly powerful, however, this is a game that is likely to do well with them. Given that nvidia already attain a 15-25% lead by comparison, if their AA performance is up to scratch, they could prove quite successful as Bad Company 2 cards.

 

mmm gtx 285 upgrade then?

 

Considering an HD5870 is an almost identical price, I'd still say the GTX285 is the poorer offering unless you will never, ever, play anything but BC2.

 

i mean second hand

if i can get it for about £180 ish ill go for it

 

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/17873/1/


sam

 

They stocked it with the Accelero X2 cooler? That means I get a good cooler without destroying the card without having to install it!
Pre-order inc

Thing is, how well do they work in crossfire one wonders? The Accelero cooler is a giant, but that obviously also means it sits right up against the other card. My theory is that, since hd5870s work when they are right next to each other seemingly getting no airflow at all (even though they're noisier like this), the uneven shape of the AC fans from the Accelero X2 cooler are hopefully going to find plenty of airflow. As long as the cards will actually fit side by side it should work.
Amazingly, the 4GB HD5970 plan seems to have taken off. After the announcement of the Asus ROG Ares and now this, XFX have also displayed a 4GB offering (unsure if the clocks are 5870 spec, but given the other cards I see no reason why not, like the Sapphire it's an 8+8 card). In this case, the stock cooler is used, sort of. The GPUs have been moved to the ends of the card, and the fan relocated to the middle.
What's interesting about XFX's card is that it's an Eyefinity6!. That, hopefully should be the cause of the expected $1000 MSRP, not just the fact that it's an uprated 5970. If the other cards cost £780, this is going to be one expensive upgrade... :S

 

Single GPU comparison charts
(Not comparable across brands, but figures approximately accurate to compare)

ATi Chart
[4GB HD5970: 1800-3600, typical 3250]
[HD5970: 1600-3200, typical 2850]
HD5870: 1800
[HD4870X2: 1000-2000, typical 1800]
HD5850: 1575
HD5830: 1350
HD4890: 1125
HD4870: 1000
[HD3870X2: 500-1000, typical 800]
HD5770: 900
HD4860: 850
HD4850: 800
HD4770: 775
HD5750: 775
HD4750: 650
HD4830: 600
HD3870: 500
HD3850: 425
HD5670: 425
HD5570: 350
HD2900XT: 350
HD4670: 350
HD2900 Pro: 300
HD3690: 225
HD4650: 225
HD3650: 150
HD4550: 125
HD5450: 125
HD2600XT: 100
HD4470: 100
HD4450: 75
HD3470: 75
HD2400XT: 50
HD2600 Pro: 50
HD2400 Pro: 30
HD3450: 30


nVidia Chart

[GTX295: 1100-2000, typical 2000]
GTX285: 1275
GTX275: 1200
GTX280: 1125
[9800GX2: 575-1150, typical 1050]
GTX260-216: 1000
GTX260: 900
GTS250: 750
9800GTX: 700
8800GTX: 675
8800GTS G92: 650
9800GT: 575
8800GT: 575
GT240: 500
9600GT: 425
8800GTS G80: 375
9600GSO: 375
8800GS: 375
GT220: 250
9600GSO G94: 225
9500GT: 200
8600GTS: 200
8600GT: 150
9400GT: 50
8500GT: 50
8400GS: 30
G210: 30 or less

 

had a LONG session of BC2.

at DX10 everythign high, no aa or AF, i was getting about 20 avg, jumping to 10 with big fire fights, so now i am on medium and getting 40ish, jumping to 20. about to try DX9, everything low to see that

 

Had to show that low low score of the 210 didn't you

 

Interesting, though still concerning.
A little more on Fermi, more support added to the prices stated previously about the GTX470 and GTX480. Both will be 1536MB cards, the GTX470 will be priced around £300-£350 (HD5870 territory in other words) and the GTX480 will be priced at £450-£500 (so as said, a bit behind the HD5970). Power consumption of the GTX480 is likely to be similar to the HD4870X2, both at idle and at load. The cards are powered by 6+8 connectors, but will perform to some extent with only 6+6 fitted, limiting their power usage in a typical environment to 225W. It's worth noting of course that under normal usage (i.e. outside Furmark/OCCT) even the 4870X2 only reaches around 250W.

Amazingly, despite the stratospheric price and power usage, the GTX480 appears to be equipped for triple or Quad SLI.

The price of the XFX 4GB HD5970 Eyefinity6 is likely to be around £700. The price of the Sapphire 4GB HD5970 is as yet unknown. It could be anywhere between the £575 for a standard HD5970 and the £700 figure for the XFX. Either way, high-end graphics performance no longer comes cheap.

Omega: It's only on there because it's been tested.

 

Uh huh. Sure LOL!

 

Haha this bodes well for me then. The performance figures aren't as bad as I expected. With a quad core and 2 4870s I should have no problem getting a mostly playable framerate with some details cranked. Considering I intend to run the same settings but in Dx9(unless 10 runs better, which I kinda doubt), you can basically double Shaff's FPS(as a guess for crossfire plus quad core plus dx9) and you're in my ballpark.

Shaff, your figures are at 1920 x 1200 correct? If so then...

As long as the game scales better than Crysis, it should run better than Crysis. And I get a solid 41FPS with my "tweaked" settings(basically dx9 very high) in the benchmark.

If Bad Company 2 is optimized at all I should be in the clear. Though it looks like I'll still need 5850s to run it full tilt.

 

yes 1920x1200

and with DX9 at medium im getting 60, with dips to 40.

not bad, but still not good. with MW2 i get in the 80s, and cod4 in to 90s, so i guess its okayish. deffinately i think ill jump on a Q6600 and another 4870. hopefully that will be better.


remember this is with no AA or AF and no HBOA aswell

 

The CPU demand of BFBC2 is very high, but a 3.7Ghz Phenom II should achieve a minimum of at least 50fps, which given the graphical demands, is likely to be all that is needed. To back that frame rate up graphically requires an HD5850 for 1680x1050, an HD5870 (or, assuming good crossfire scaling, two HD4870s) at 1920x1200, in DirectX9, with AA disabled, but otherwise high settings.
Apply Anti-Aliasing and enter DirectX10, however, and you will need two HD5870s to achieve 1280x1024. 1920x1200 is the realm of either three HD5870s, or Quad Crossfire.
In DirectX11 with Anti-Aliasing applied, the same restrictions apply, but the actual frame rates achieved are 5-10% lower.
The game is even more forgiving than it already is for nvidia users in DirectX9, with typical pairings like HD4870 vs GTX260-216 and HD4830 vs 9800GT seeing 30% and 25% skews respectively. Given these conditions, 1920x1200 at M50 is easily within the grasp of the GTX295.
This trend becomes slightly weaker in DirectX10, at 20% and 20%.
On this basis, Fermi setups should prove particularly potent in Bad Company 2, as given the native advantages, a triple-SLI config with GTX480s will be able to withstand the 150% demand increase of enabling DirectX11 and 8xAA and push 2560x1600 at 40fps minimum.
However, I'm really not going to advocate Fermi setups for the moment on the back of the horrifying rumours. Such a configuration in this example relies on the game being 20% biased to achieve something a reasonable amount better than what the Radeons can pull off, and will require an astonishing 1000W PSU, and cost well over £1000. Three HD5870s can be had for less than £1000, and with the use of adapters, will run fine on a 750W PSU.


Also, I stand corrected on the price of the Sapphire 4GB HD5970. The price is said to be at least $800, which, assuming no markup, would be £623. Given the percentage markup on current HD5970s, it could be £660, or possibly even higher, given the likely rarity of the card. I never thought I'd be contemplating almost three rent cheques worth on one graphics card. I wanted two of these!

 

http://lab501.ro/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/DSCF1371.jpg


LOL read it it shows the gtx480 yet on the description says hd 5000 series

 

LOL fail shoop is fail!