Video Card Thread (Mostly Gecube x1950xt)

You know I was playing half life lost coast and I didn't notice a difference in between 1024*768 and 1600*1200. The quality looked the same. I'll have to try this in other games as I never used to turn it above 1024*758.

 

Nice, Sam!

And your "silent" ways are catching on:

I would guess that everybody is wearing headphones at a Lan event like that. What kind do you use - I have the 5.1 Medusa from Germany.

Sam, I'm not too concerned about the 3dmark6 scores, but we're trying to do an fps matchup between Ray and Abuzar, like we did before with Ray and Travis. This time we don't have the same systems.

Ray has a P4 and the gecube, and Abuzar has a really fast core 2 duo with DDR2 memory, and the x1900GT. So Abuzar totally dominates cpu-wise, but his GT is only about 2/3 the fill of the gecube. It will be interesting to get him and Ray on the same server at the same time with the same resolution and other settings and see how the fps compares. Abuzar thinks he'll have the better fps, but I'd like to test that theory out!

By the way, Ray and Abuzar, the demo version of BF2 for sure is multiplayer, because I used to play it quite a bit. I believe it offers just one map, the one with the aircraft carrier off the coast, and the airport with helicopter and jets - including jump jets on the aircraft carrier. I had just learned how to reasonably control the helicopters and jets (damn tricky!) when I stopped playing it - it was taking all of my time lol!

Abuzar, I have always played the Half Life 2 games, including the new Episodes, at 1600 x 1200. They look good. I just tried adding anti-aliasing, and I noticed the improvement in the look of the game - and I was trying it on lost coast. Your GT is about 20% stronger than my x850xtpe apparently from the fill tests, so 1600 x 1200 should work well for you, especially with your monster cpu. By the way, Episode 2 is out, I think, does anybody have it?

 

I know but I was just saying I didn't notice much of a difference. I'll download that demo in a bit. Playing Bioshock right now lol.

 

I have EP2, but I only had EP1 before..

So now I'm playing through HL2 before progressing onto EP2

 

Abuzar: I ran it at 2560x1600 and it looked superb. I've yet to play any game where I can't notice a change in resolution. 1680x1050 to 1920x1200 isn't usually too easy, but I've always spotted it.

Rich: Hmm, considering everybody that had recently required an HR-03 hadn't even met me until then, I can't take the credit!
For frame rate in games, I think the AGP card will come out on top, especially at higher resolutions, but for some, the Core 2 will win out, where CPU takes effect.
Note that the CPU should not matter for increasing resolutions.

 

I just tried out Bioshock with the omega drivers and the frame rates seemed about 5-6 fps worse. Gonna have to switch back to the ATI drivers.

 

Can happen sometimes...

 

Hmm, I wonder why. Sometimes ATi makes drivers that are actually good, but most of the time the drivers make your card perform worse. I guess its a guessing game as to which ones work well and dont work well.

 

I've never had any performance issues with catalyst, so I stick with it.

 

Wow Sam, your resolutions are high!! My brother's cinema I'm using only maxes at 1600 x 1024 - you're running 250% more pixels. What do they want for the Dell monitor of yours these days!

I hear you Sam: for high resolutions, it's strictly the graphics card, cpu doesn't matter. That's good to know. By the way, what kind of headphones do you use?

Yeah, Abuzar, the omega helped Ray on BF2, but when he and Travis had the matchup on same BF2 server, their fps numbers were the same, and Travis is on stock ati drivers (but without catalyst I recall.) So, no definitive results on which set of drivers is best.

Kardson, yeah, you need to play through half life 2 before you can appreciate the episodes. Hey, Travis, want to do something funny? Watch the credits roll in the very beginning of HL2 at the train station, until you get to Miles Estes, my close relative. I play tested HL2 on the big plasma screen in the conference room up there at Valve in Seattle when I was visiting Miles, for his surprise birthday party, before HL2 came out, in Sept. of 2003? 2004? That makes me hot sh*t right? LOL! -rich estes

 

These
http://reviews.cnet.com/headphones-headsets/sennheiser-hd212-pro/4505-6468_7-30469535.html
Very comfortable, and the sound is excellent.

The 30" Dell is around £800 in the UK, not sure about the US.

As for your notso tenuous link to the rich and famous, nice one!

 

What is the Cinema?

EDIT: Is it the Mac monitor? I don't really think apple makes quality products.

 

I hope that wasn't in response to my post. Should I have written the Dell in capitals?

 

No not talking about you Sam lol.

 

Here are my new scores:

I ran them at the highest stable I could get without increasing the voltage to the Gecube. 702/828

http://img143.imageshack.us/my.php?image=3d061vm3.jpg

 

Hey is it possible to do volt mods on the X1900 GT? I have the secong revision so the volatge is not software adjustable

 

Ah right, nah i've not seen any monitor with that res, I think he must mean home cinema rather than Apple cinema monitor.

As for the X1900GT, not sure, I wouldn't, but then I paid far more for my GPU than you did.

 

Found it. Kinda confusing though, how do I pencil it to read less?

http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=99081

 

MaccerM Mike
Kardson Travis
Abuzar1 Abuzar
Sammorris Sam
Waymon3x6 Ray
Harvrdguy Rich

Sam....................6755..........................E4300-3ghz...........2gig..............x1900xt 512mb
Mike....................5982......(5600)...........E6320 2.11ghz......2gig...............gecube
Abuzar................5562 .........................E6400-3.44ghz.....1gigDDR2........x1900gt 256mb
Ray....................4758...........................P4 3.2 oc'd 3.75....3gigDDR400....gecube
Travis.................4499 ..........................P4 3.0..................2gigDDR400....gecube
Rich...................2260...........................P4 3.2..................1gigDDR400....x850xtpe 256mb

 

Funny that, I saw one of those in person, thought "I want one". A few weeks later I looked on ebay, found one for cheap and bought it...
What I'll say is while it's an awesome monitor, you can't just attach one to any old PC...

I've never messed with conductive pen, there's so many chances for you to do it wrong, and on most GPUs or CPUs they've changed the material so conductive pen can no longer be used.