Video Card Thread (Mostly Gecube x1950xt)

Post fixed


I WANT THAT CRYSIS BETA!!!! I dont want to wait, because by the time its released (I think sometime in November) I will probably allready have my new pc... I dont know if I should trash the one I have now, or keep it running. (I am going to recycle some parts, like the 2 HDDs, the optical drives, the TideWater, and some other PCI slot cards, as well as the case.)

 

Hey Waymon, the last page is waaay easier to go through with that post fixed - good job.

Man, Ray, you said summer, and somehow I was thinking next summer. You're gonna get that system soon!!! You lucky dog!!

Look, if you play the crysis beta now it's probably loaded with bugs - let Travis help work it all out so by the time you get it, it will be superlative - just the right thing to break in your new rig with. Besides, what's the big deal, "it's just a tech demo" anyway, to quote . . . . . let's see, who said that - oh, right, SAM! of course! Lol!

TECH DEMO!!

Sam, I know you're not convinced, because of the trailers up to this point, but all the game sites think it will grab the number 1 spot really quick after it passes beta in November. Think about those Crytek guys in Germany. They've worked on the game all this time, you know it's gonna be spectacular. (And Dinc says he won't get it - he'll get it just like all of us!!

 

What are you gonna do with your Gecube?

 

Ray, maybe you overclocked it so high that it isn't REALLY stable, thus giving you lower performance.

P.S. Man if your video card was PCI-E I would buy it off you.

 

Or maybe by the time you've alt-tabbed to see the graphics clocks on the card, they're 2D mode, which they will be, because you've alt-tabbed to the desktop, when you go back into the game, they'll go back up to 648/702, and they always were.

 

Yeah, but the clocks were allways at 499/594, which is the default 2d mode. The card is supposted to switch to the 3d clocks, which are the standard ones and are higher, at 648/702. I had ATi Tray Tools running and I saw that it never changed to 3d mode when I entered the game. Also, the clocks for my overclock are 648/848 I think. I used to have the core at 702, but that was near the line where it would become unstable. (I think the max is like 722Mhz for the core) The max on the memory for me was 855 stable.

What do you think I should run my overclock at?

Heres another interesting thing: I played the World In Conflict video card stress test 2 times, with same settings each time (medium/some high, 800x600) and got the same average fps at the end, with the 2d mode enabled, and then the 3d mode. (I can do this with Ati Tool. I choose to load either 499/594, or 648/702, and as long as you dont close Ati Tool, the clocks stay that way for ever, well, untill you close that app or load a different setting.)

This is real weird... Hmm, when I get home I'll try to run the stress test again, one with the standard 2d clock, then 3d clock (standard), and then my overclock, 675/848. Ill post the benches when I get home, prolly around 730-8pm EST

 

Hmmm. I had a similar little problem with ATT not going into 3d mode (increasing gpu and Vram clocks). I wrote the author, Ray Adams about it, on his forum, and he answered back that he didn't know why. It happened after I had crashed, which was when I was running the Ati Tray tool charts. (I don't run the charts anymore.) I have a jet plane wav when it goes to 3d, and a lesser plane sound when it comes out.

Every time I rebooted, and started 3dmark, for example, it would play the lesser sound, the sound of coming out of 3d, not going in. Strange! I thought it was a bug in the program, some key left in the registry that wasn't correctly updated after the crash. Anyway, like I say, Ray Adams was also confused as to why that was happening.

Anyway, if you use 3dmark as a test for going into 3d, remember that coming out of the benchmarks back to the desktop, doesn't return you to 2d - you have to completely exit 3dmark, to get back to the 2d settings.

I would suggest, Ray, that you use a wav file to let you know when you go into 3d, and a different one, for when you come out. Then test ATT with 3dmark, until you get it working right.

Lately, because I have not been crashing anymore, it seems to always correctly put me in the 3d settings, and then take me out, playing the correct sounds each time. Plus of course I have the on-screen display (my hot keys are Ctrl with numpad-) showing me the gpu and Vram clock settings so I can also tell that way.

Rich

 

Wow, I just got 4800 on 3dmark06! That was with 675/837 and 3.75Ghz processor.

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Ok, this is starting to annoy me... I start up ATiTool and Ati Tray Tools, and load my defaults for my card through Ati Tool (648/702), and its supposted to stay like that untill I close down Ati Tool, but when I go to play company of heroes, I get around 30fps, which is nice, but thats with medium/some high settings... Then, I minimize COH and look at my monitoring graphs, and find that the gpu and memory clocks have dropped down to the 2d clocks, about right when I opened the game it seems. This is so annoying... I could be playing COH with near max details with 30fps, instead I am left playing with a couple of options on medium...


I need to find out how to make the clocks stay the same for how ever long I want them too. Any ideas?

 

Use ATI Tray Tools, when it starts tell it to disable ATI Hotkey Poller
Or you can find the option located at ...
Tools & Options --> General Options --> Advanced Tab --> Near the bottom you will see the option to Kill ATI Hotkey Poller.

What this does is prevents ATI from changing the clock speed on you.. Its how it detects if your in a 3d game and upclocks for you.

Then, in ati tray tools, go to
Hardware --> Overclock Settings... --> and set your clock speeds in there.

This SHOULD work

 

Oh thanks! That took care of it! So I have to do that everytime I want a game to run in the 3d mode? Thats gonna be a pain... Oh well!

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I am starting to reconsider the 2900XT now, after seeing benchmarks of Company of hereos with the 8800GTX, the Ultra, and the GTS. I think I might go with an Ultra, but not intirely sure yet, I still want the 1GB of vram.

Do any of you know when the nvidia's and ATi's next series of cards are coming out?

 

They say Q4 2008, so the last quarter this year. Seems like they should be out before the holidays. Not a long time to wait, till then you can hold out with an old video card or just hold off building your PC.

 

Which benchmarks did you look at? The 1GB version of the HD2900XT is streets ahead of the original.

 

I was just watching some Crysis beta videos that people had posted, and there was one where he wasnt playing it with any AA, but then he switched to the max AA, and he got like 5 frames through the whole game.

Video part 1: http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...l=8&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2

Video Part 2: http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...l=8&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

It looks pretty good in the first video, before he turns the AA on, but I guess when they say "the 8800GTX can play crysis maxed, without problems", then they mean with full AA too.

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I was just looking for a picture of a graph where the 2900XT isnt that good, and couldnt find one lol. I found so many before, but from what I can remember, I think it was Company Of Heroes, and the 2900XT 1GB got the worst out of the 8800s... Maybe it was driver issues?

Maybe thats it? Driver issues? I was watching another video with the 2900XT in lost planet, and at first he was getting about 5fps, and then he switched to some other driver (cant remember which one, sorry) and he was getting above 20fps constant, or at least thats what it looked like.


EDIT: here is one of the graphs:

I guess that was driver related too?

 

well crossfire is still problematic in most games, but bear in mind the drivers for that card are new, so expect some problems early on. The 8800GTX is still the mainstream product though. The 1GB 2900XT is kind of like the X1950XT AGP in respect to where it sits in the market, and we all know what software issues we had with that. I'm not saying it'll be as bad, but it's worth bearing in mind.

 

Well I was just reading about the new nvidia 8950GX2, and now I'm thinking about that. It's coming out in november, and its $600USD, which is where the 8800GTX is priced right now. The 8950GX2 is 2 cards in 1, so it has 1GB of GDDR4. I am thinking of that...


Heres a link: http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2007/02/15/geforce-8900gtx-and-8950gx2-details-listed

What do you think sam?

 

I was never a great fan of the 7950GX2, simply because it required SLi to work. I know support for SLI is improving, but I didn't like the fact that in some games I would just have to accept a graphics card being half as powerful. The 8950GX2 is just a more powerful version of the same.

 

but its 2 8800GTX in 1, and you can hook to of the 8950X2s up in SLi, and have quad sli, which I would never do, way to expensive. I guess we'll just have to wait and see for the reviews...

One more thing sam, do you think the antec neopower 650watt will handle that card, a quad core and 3 HDDs?

Btw, I reupdated my list:

WD Raptor X 10,000rpm
Antec NeoPower 650watt
Crucial DDR2 800 pc 6400 RAM
ASUS P5W Deluxe mobo
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.44Ghz
here is something new:
Swiftech H20-220-APEX-GT CPU Liquid Cooling Kit


No graphics card yet, but I'm looking at the 8950GX2

I am thinking of that cpu cooling kit, looks pretty good, and do you think I could overclock the Q6600 to 3Ghz? I saw someone over clocked theirs to 5Ghz, and got the new highest 3dmark06 score.

What do you think?

 

My only concern is, if the 8950GX2 is two 8800GTXs in one, there'd be no point in buying the separate cards. That means nvidia stand to lose a lot of money, since quite a few people run two 8800GTXs and you can bet anything the 8950GX2 won't be anywhere double the cost of the 8800GTX. Are you sure it's not two 8800GTSs? After all the 7950GX2 was two 7900GTs, not 7900GTXs.

 

Thats what the article said, so I am assuming that it is 2 8800GTXs, but in the size of 1 card, like the 7950GX2, which was fairly slim. If you bought 2 GTXs today, they would be around $1200USD, and for half that price, in november, you can get the 8950GX2 for 600. I hear Ati is coming out with something like that too.

 

All the info out there is rumour and speculation, I wouldn't take anything as certain yet. Also don't forget how much heat the 8800GTX puts out, it wouldn't be realistic to have that much in one card.