The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Indeed, GTA4 really isn't that good looking a game. Complex lighting and so on, but marred by low quality textures, appalling texture memory usage and nil optimisation.
As for the Metro 2033 shot, it's supposedly a bug. Either way, bug or otherwise, when that gets fixed, I'm not expecting the benchmarks to be quite so nvidia-favourable in the future. After all, most of the HD5 vs GTX4 series benches on the game show a good 30% favour to nvidia, yet the DX10 generation benchmarks I find, are even slightly ATI-favourable...

 

LOL at the 4870's position on the graph. Makes me feel so much better about Metro

And that's not SLIGHTLY favorable if you go by the usual equivalencies. It's a landslide. Absolutely dominating win for Ati.

Also very excited about the 5850. The few short hours I had mine plugged in were magical. I can't even imagine Crossfire now XD

Anyhoo Ordering the second card next week after I get paid. Almost time for some sexy card-on-card action. Benchmarks are going to be... ahem... interesting ;P

 

Yes, I noticed that after I looked at the graph again, I just didn't bother editing the post to remove the slightly

 

yes, currently GTA IV is the only one I play. Only one installed too. I have crysis(Triple pack), Left4dead 1 and 2. I just haven't gotten around to installing them. GTA IV is such a large playing field you see. You're not bound to a set of rules. You can run around town terrorizing the citizens of liberty city for instance LOL! How many ways can nico bellic die? LOL! And then of course, when you're serious, you can actually complete missions, and submissions.
At times, GTA IV is slightly rough to me. You guys have just made yourselves out to be very hardcore LOL! I guess I knew, I just never fully acknowledged that. Much like a movie critique, you guys are very critical about games. I liked san andreas a great deal. So GTA IV is extremely advanced by comparison.

If you like, you can recommend me a game that is first person shooter(one man army), has the most advanced graphics, and sits in your top ten list Regardless of whether my GTX 260 can handle the game please. For if it can't, it will push me to upgrade to crossfire

 

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 fits the bill well. Its multiplayer functionality is pretty dire due to Activision being corporate ^&!*!&*A@&!s but the gameplay itself is, for a substantial part, one man army, modern, and the graphics are reasonably decent. The game will have no trouble on your GTX260 either.

Metro 2033 I believe also fits the criteria though it isn't multiplayer-oriented like COD, and that definitely will have trouble on your GTX260. Metro 2033 will bend a pair of 5870s over a table. Of course, the detail levels do scale appropriately though, so turn the detail right down and a 5850 will cope, especially two. Of course, how good it will look at such settings I'm not sure.

 

Metro 2033. Looks very interesting. According to one site, I barely fit the system requirements LOL! Thanks for the input. I believe I'll be picking that game up as soon as I can

 

You're probably looking at Medium Detail at 1680x1050 being the best a GTX260 will achieve at a playable fps, with AA set to the AAA setting, no higher.

 

Wow Omega you need to get playing!! Crysis should be first on your list. Easily a one man army type of game The graphics are still top-notch and the gameplay is very immersive and open-ended. Not to mention the GTX200 series excels at Crysis. You would probably be safe to try maxing it at 1680 x 1050, given the large Nvidia advantage for the GTX200 series. Warhead is another story though. All high is a safe bet but all very high will make most gamers cry

 

Oh for sure GTA is a great game. I loved the entire series and have beaten all of them at least once. San Andreas twice XD

But the fact remains that GTA4 isn't just slightly rough, it's downright ugly by modern standards. Not unbearably terrible, but it in no way qualifies in the "good graphics" category.

LOL reasonably decent. IMO the graphics are mind blowing. Even though it depends on specular, easily one of the best looking games yet made. Also, the gameplay is INTENSE. Omega, you would love it.

Yeah Metro is stupidly demanding. Depending on your FPS tolerances, you might handle up to all high at most, but Very High struggles on even my Crossfire rig.

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

Also, with the mention of FPS tolerances, I'd say I'm very sensitive to drops, but very tolerant as well. Even though Metro runs like poop on my PC, I still play it absolutely cranked. 11-17FPS minimums? Bah, I'm too busy being scared

My point being some games just aren't meant to be played fluidly. Sure, 60FPS minimum is dream-like, but I've accepted that unless a game is well-optimized, just crank it and deal with the lag. In the case of something like Metro or Cryostasis, as long as the entire game isn't a slideshow, it's still worth playing just for the experience. Though I will admit I played the entirety of Cryostasis as a slideshow, and I thought it was a great game.

On the opposite end of the arguement, I'm not seeing much real praise for Modern Warfare 2's graphics. The game is stunning. Excellent texture quality, vibrant fireworks, BEAUTIFUL models, and well over 60FPS minimum with 8xAA. Reasonably decent? I don't know you anymore Sam

 

Ok. You guys gotta tell me now. What the heck WOULD you guys call eye candy? Would metro 2033 fit that bill?

Yes, jeff...I do need to get to playing LOL! Once upon a time, I was hooked on Left 4 dead XD Not sure what happened LOL!

 

Hmm let's make it simple and make a list.


- High resolution textures(easily the most important for eyecandy)
- High detail models
- Detailed lighting(MW2 does this, but not with a full lighting engine like most other games. Still good looking though)
- Realistic looking water
- Realistic post-processing
- High quality shadows
- High view distances

A game doesn't have to meet all of these, but at least MOST of them to be considered eyecandy territory. Of course standards change as time goes on.

A few games you would love and fit my requirements to be considered "good looking".

- Half Life 2
- Half Life 2 Episodes(Episode 1 + 2)
- Far Cry 2
- Lost Planet
- Resident Evil 5
- FEAR
- FEAR 2
- Batman Arkham Asylum
- Call of Duty 2
- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2
- Call of Duty: World at War


ALL of these, including the oldest ones, have WAY better graphics that GTA4. At one time or another, every single game on this list has competed for best graphics of all time. Hell, Half-Life 2 is 6 years old now and the graphics quality BLOWS GTA4 AWAY(not to mention a LOT of other current games.)

Also I might mention FEAR. Most current games are still STRUGGLING to match the graphical quality it gave us 4 years ago. THAT is why I am discerning. We've already had the best image quality and still they release games TODAY that don't match these classics in graphics or quality.

 

LOL! Gotta love the industry. Its all about pushing it out onto the market, in the fastest cheapest way possible. They don't seem to understand, that if they put more money, creativity, and effort into things, they WILL get their return! Not everyone wants a fix, they want something new and improved. Something new to drool about LOL!

Thanks for the list. I'll be looking into several of these. I'll probably be installing crysis to have a go at it. But my main concern right now is wiring. I have a doozy going on right now, and I think simply replacing my PSU with a more capable one is just the best route right now. Besides, the one I'm looking at is very close to future proof Oh...what's future proof anymore LOL!!!

Ha ha! I've been considering arkham asylum. And you just blessed it with praise. I believe Arkham asylum, and Metro 2033 are next on my list. Metro for benchmarking purposes, and fun of course. And who wouldn't want to play the Dark Knight?

 

Glad you like my list

Yes the state of the market is very sad these days. Very few companies are actually pushing the graphics envelope and even fewer still are bothering with optimization. I imagine we'll see a nice boost though as the consoles are replaced and tech advances. Graphics these days are usually bound to the capabilities of the current consoles because so many titles are multi-platform.

Metro does indeed fit into my eyecandy list, but loses points for terrible optimization. Arkham Asylum, on the other hand, has both excellent graphics AND is extremely well optimized. Easily one of the best Unreal 3 engine games ever released.

As far as recommendations go, I think you would love the Half-Life series, the FEAR series, and the Call of Duty series. Call of Duty 2 is especially hilarious because I consider it to have above average graphics and it came out in 2005. Of course loads of titles will top older ones technologically just because of the obvious advance of time, but art direction, atmosphere, and plain-old high res textures win out over pretty lighting any day ;P

Essentially: Image Quality -> Model Quality -> Effects Quality in order of importance for a good looking game.

I know I'm anal retentive about graphics myself, but I'm not entirely jaded either. I can have just as much fun at 20FPS as I can at 60FPS. I just prefer the higher framerate. I have the same stance on antialiasing. I LOVE it when a game has good AA support. But usually, as long as I can run it in native resolution, AA is just icing on the cake ;P

I know Sam might have a comment on this as well so let me say this. I DO STILL CARE ABOUT PERFORMANCE. Otherwise I wouldn't be runningh Crossfire. I just accept that some games run crappy no matter what. So instead of lowering the graphics and still having crap FPS, I just crank it and have crap FPS PLUS good graphics ;P

 

All very High might be a bit of a stretch in Crysis on a GTX260 - remember ATI managed to driver out most of the game's nvidia-preference, it's only the CF scaling now that's a problem (and the fact that Crysis still only supports 3 GPUs, not 4).
As for all high, even at 1680x1050 (I forget what monitor Omega uses) you're looking at a minimum of about 22 and an average of 27fps, unless you turn AA completely off, not sure what advantage that gets you.
HardOCP recommend the highest you set the game with an HD5850 is all High at 1920x1200, but leave depth of field off (due to its affect on performance for hardly any extra quality) as well as AA.
All that separates the HD5850 and GTX480 is they turn 4xAA on, instead of none.
Call of Duty has reasonably good textures. That's about all I notice. The rest of the effects don't seem to wow me as in other games (perhaps due to the environments) and standing up close to the textures, they aren't that amazing. There's a reason why MW2 runs so well.
FEAR was a great game for its time because if you turned the detail up, the textures looked really, really impressive, that stays at 2560x1600 (something which none of the other games of that era achieved, Doom 3 does not look good at 2560x1600).
I agree with the game list, and also with the 'important details' list, especially with draw distance. This is an extremely infuriatingly overlooked feature, and something which is one of my main criticisms of Battlefield: Bad Company 2. At max settings, grass appears even when you're standing right next to it.
As for the FPS preference I agree up to a point. No real point playing a multiplayer FPS game seriously with lag, you can't play properly. Single player though, I'm willing to make a fair few sacrifices if I enjoy the game. Besides, the only time I played through Crysis it was on my HD[/b]3870[/b]. You can imagine how smooth that was.
RTS games I'm quite tolerant to lag, it annoys me, but depending on the situation I can cope with down to the mid teens before it starts to get unbearable.

 

I understand this but AFAIK the GTX200 series still has a LARGE performance advantage for Crysis. I'd say at least TRY very high before you write it off.

I advise you to spend some time in the end-game museum. You can examine just about every model in the game and the amount of detail is astounding. Of course everything is subjective, but games like CoD and Source are my all time favorites for graphics.

Yeah I noticed this as well. But honestly, what are you doing looking at the damn grass? Firebase Charlie is almost gone!!!!

Agree on this 100%. I might not run it ideally, but I have never had a single moment of actual lag. I imagine knife confrontations would suddenly turn into the robot dance XD

AHA you need to replay the game then with the graphics as high as you can stand. You can't judge the entire game by the first few levels. The "impressive graphics" I rave about are an accumulative effect ;P

Haha agreed as well. RTS games are fine at lower FPS just for the simple fact that they don't rely on split-second encounters...

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2009/02/23/sapphire-ati-radeon-hd-4870-1gb-toxic/7

When the going gets tough, ATI and nvidia are close in Crysis. Lower detail, nvidia still maintain a sizeable advantage, but less than in a few recent titles.
You can't help but look at the grass in BC2. It doesn't change the level, it literally appears in zones. Imagine a 10x10 grid of grass textures. Stand 100 feet away and it renders a checkerboard of half. Stand 50 feet away and it fills in a third of the remainder, and so on. It's really obvious and annoying.
As for Crysis, the next time I play it through is going to be maxed. If that's in 2015, so be it Plenty of other stuff to play for now. Getting all golds in Defense Grid, for example.

 

Interestingly, despite the retail release date being set as April 12th and it now being the afternoon of the 13th (well, from anywhere east of GMT-6), GTX470s and GTX480s have still yet to appear in shops for retail. It's definitely not looking good for availability, not that we care
Asus have also released a picture of two ROG Ares (Petunia cards) 5970s in Crossfire posting an enormous 3DMark Vantage Extreme Preset score of 27,321, apparently 4th in the world leaderboards. Consider that the cards have been left stock (though they are using a 4.5Ghz i7 980X) this is an impressive accomplishment.

 

i wouldnt say we dont care. we should. it hopefulyl leads to ATI thinking.... mmmm might drop prices to make it even more of an nvidia fail. or better yet nvidia dropping prices which cause ATI to.

 

True, though I don't suspect ATI will bring about a price drop even when the GTX400s are available. They're just too badly priced at the moment, as well as being pretty dump cards. Realistically I think the first big price drop for the HD5 series will be due to the HD6 series.

 

HD6 = Epic Fail