Video Card Thread (Mostly Gecube x1950xt)

The 4870s are 300 dollars Rich, not the 4850s, they are indeed only 180 dollars, less still with rebates, and twice as fast as even the PCI express HD3850. In crossfire, they outperform nvidia's $500+ GTX280.
As for the 'zero time' argument, it takes a minute to swap out a GPU, and the same for RAM. It typically takes 15 minutes to swap out a motherboard in an uncramped PC and maybe an extra 5 minutes to install the CPU if you have a simple cooler like the Freezer 7, perhaps ten for a big one. It also takes maybe 5 minutes to change a PSU. Can you not even a spare an hour one evening?

 

Man oh man, Dinc!

You and I are just never going to agree about crosshairs.

So is Rainbow Six Las Vegas a really good game? They have a $35 ubisoft bundle on Steam that includes a bunch of those Tom Clancy games, including that one in Mexico City - Ghost Recon Modern Warfighter I think, and Ghost Recon 2 - I think there are like 6 games. But probably not Las Vegas - usually the bundles don't have the new games that have just come out.

Anyway, I think I'm going to get that bundle. That will keep me busy for a while on retro games my p4 can handle until next year's new build.

Hey, speaking of Steam, does anybody want to know the secret for killing the Hunters in Episode 2 ? I know that Sam has played all the Half Life 2 stuff - right Sam? Since you named your computer after Alyx, I know you're a big Alyx fan like me. (By the way, my relative, Miles, had animated most of Alyx's movements for Half Life 2 when he was up in Seattle. Isn't that slick the way she climbs into the car from the driver side?)

I just finally got around to downloading Episode 2 last Tuesday, and without meaning to, I stayed up almost all night. I couldn't help it. I'm getting ready for the battle in the valley with the balls you throw at the striders - this coming Wednesday.

I read a walk-through because there was one part where I was stymied, and he didn't mention what I am about to say - he was just talking about shooting the Hunters, or using grenades. But I play the Half Life games on the Hard setting, otherwise I find them too easy, and on Hard the Hunters are hard to kill. But read this:

So, if you want an easy way to kill those Hunters in close quarters, (works for Guardian ants also) use the gravity gun and throw stuff at them. The best thing to throw are those old engine blocks. Inside building another great thing is the radiator steam grates - there are 4 of them in that two story building with the basement where the 3 hunters show up. When you're down in the basement, make sure you have at least two steam grates so you can grab a fresh one after every throw, which also helps avoid you accidentally grabbing a box, which doesn't have the same impact. In four throws they die! Suckas!!! I hate those things.
-Rich

 

I enjoyed both Rainbow Six Vegas games immensely, but they are very demanding, especially the first one (yes I know, counter-intuitive, but they're console ports, and the second is a lot better than the first in that regard).

Hate to deflate your enthusiasm Rich, but my PC wasn't actually named after Alyx Vance, cool though that suggestion is. It stems merely from the case name NZXT Lexa, Lexa being short for Alexandra.

The end battle with the striders is superb, but dear god, it was frustrating. It took me a good hour to complete it, and I played it on Medium.. :O

That's an interesting tip about the Hunters actually, didn't know that!

Oh, and no harm in you staying up all night to download the game. I played that strider section from 5:30am to 7am! lol!

 

WOW! Niiiice!

What would take you an hour one evening would take me a week. Maybe I'm just lazy. Or maybe for me it's about FOCUS. If I get that new stuff, I'm going to want to tinker - overclock - get fancy. I know my limitations. I don't multi-task terribly well.

And on top of all of those flaws I like cross-hairs! LOL

- Rich

 

Heh, no need to put yourself down. What takes me an hour now would have taken me no longer than an hour and a half the first time. It really isn't a time consuming job!

I'm also guilty of liking crosshairs. I know they're unrealistic, but they make life easier!

Oh and lastly Rich, in a minute I'm adding a URL to an image on this page. I think you'll like it. Stay tuned.

here we go - http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/9877/hl2e2maxov0.jpg

edited to swap to imageshack. Tinypic don't like images over a certain resolution...

 

Yeah, well even if your computer isn't named after Alyx, I knew you were a mad Half Life 2 fan - 5:30 to 7:00am on the strider battle. Sounds like it was an all-nighter to me.

Well this coming Wednesday, after a lot of frustration with the strider section, I know that I will start falling back on the quick save - play a section about 30 times on Hard until I kill one of the damn things and still have some decent life left - quick save - then do it again.

Anyway Sam, now you know my secret about throwing stuff at the Hunters and the Ant Guardians. (I learned that in Half Life 2 when fighting the first big ant guardian in the prison - I accidentally threw a sink at it, and it almost keeled over - that's when I realized that throwing stuff is way more powerful than shooting - I played that section many times just throwing sinks at the thing - no problem.)

So one day why don't you try that part where you're trapped by the combine in that house I was talking about. Try it on Hard. You can go to options and change the game to hard and back at any point in the gameplay.

I was also thinking this morning - I played most of the first part of that battle upstairs - until the white combines came in behind me. I was wondering to myself if I could have blocked the passageway with boxes - or maybe kept the boxes in the hall until the hunter left (his little darts would have exploded them) and then blocked the upper hallway above the stair so the white combines couldn't ambush me. I am not sure how many boxes were down in the basement that I could have brought upstairs while Alyx was holding everybody off.

I don't know if you remember the prison in Half Life 2 where you have to guard 4 entrances to the cell block, but you have only 3 turrets. I couldn't get past that section on Hard. In fact I couldn't even get past it on Medium. But going back to it later, I found I was able to block off one of the entrances with boxes stacked on top of each other, and even on the hard setting I whizzed right through that section. STRATEGY!!!!

-Rich

 

It was actually... I forget why I decided to stay up all night, usually I can't manage it and end up going to bed at 6am or something ridiculous!

Ugh, trapped in the house, I remember that well, that section also has a few Freeman corpses in it!
As for the prison, again, you're making me remember all the sections of HL2 that frustrated me! lmao

What did you think of the picture? That's how Ep2 looks and runs on my 3870 at 2560x1600, absolute max. Soon you'll be able to do that too!

 

Nice image Sam!

That's the part where you have to finally jump from the truck to the roof and grenade all the combines inside - I remember it well.

I don't know if you're in the game right now, but what about the part - it's just after Dog kills the strider, and you go back to get the car, and then you climb the hill that curves around to the left and you leave the stream, and you enter the missile complex.

As we climbed the hill I stopped the car to sight-see. (Alyx said "I'll wait here.")

I got out and climbed up on the left side of the road, and looked back on the stream and all the trees and boulders and the range of hills behind them - it was stunning! I used the suit zoom Z a few times to admire the water. I would love to see that image on your equipment!

-Rich

 

BTW - I play Half Life at 1600 x 1200, the limit of my sony monitor. The x850xtpe will handle that okay. I use a low AA setting. I get good framerates. I am not fully maxed on all the video settings of course, and of course I'm not at 2560 x 1600 - that will come with the new build - another $1000 for the Dell.

All of Half Life looks really good at 1600 x 1200, (even better I know at 2560 x 1600) and I played the first Half Life 2 at that resolution on the old ATI 9800 card (I was really pushing that card - my frames often dropped below 20 I know because I could see the lagging even though I didn't have ATI tray tools at that time.)
-Rich

 

Hey all, I got a quick question and need a quick answer too.
My friends dad has a Pentium D 840 currently on a motherboard with DDR and AGP. He has this fan cooling it: http://www.ultraproducts.com/product_details.php?cPath=17&pPath=345&productID=345

Now his computer is currently BSOD-ing constantly and we have attempted to replace the RAM with some from a good HP computer, and taken out the video card (6200) and used the integrated video. It still BSOD'd once but that was without video drivers installed.

I then tried to update the BIOS with gigabytes @BIOS utility and it gave me numerous erasing and writing errors and the only way out of it was to reboot. It rebooted, beeped and shut off. We restarted and it finally started. With all these problems, I have a feeling that the source of the BSOD is the motherboard. It is a Gigabyte board.

Now we are attempting to overhaul that computer in a $75 budget. A new motherboard, a basic one, is something that we need.

My Question, what board should I get? Do I need a new fan? I ran a stress test and it hit 64C instantly but idles at ~40C. My friend now also wants the "overhauled" computer to be able to run "Halo 2 under Windows XP"

Is this possible and how would I do it?

 

Well yes, Rainbow Six Vegas is a good game.
It has got many things that other games don't have.
Like the essential non-run&gunning tactical teamwork you have to do
Or the tactical way of moving throughout the environments.
So as you can guess this is a really tactical game.
And you die really easy.

Which is on the other side one of the things on the "bad-list".
You die quite realistically, besides the regenerating health.
But for example, the AI is like really accurate in a freaky weird way.
Especially up close they will run into you blindly and kill you in less than a second.
Then on the other side, grenades barely do damage when you stand next to them.
But I guess they did that on purpose for the mostly small spots in the maps.

It has many good things and many bad things on both sides.
There is too much to cover right here.


As said for the performance, this game does require a lot from your system.
For me personally, it is barely playable, but again júst playable.
That is in "Terrorist Hunt" (coop vs AI) with 2 other players, with 3 other players it gets just too bad performance.
That also is at the very lowest settings, at 800x600.
And on top of that some manual tweaks to lower filtering and lag and such things.
Also this tweak to lower the bloom or something, it's been a while ago.

So as you can see, this game is actually one of those that persuaded me to get a better videocard, with me ending up buying that GeCube months ago.
Only it didn't improve anything, and it made the computer crash by overheating.
But I actually thought Vegas 2 would demand just a bit more since they used the same engine but then expanded it more.
Then again, like sometimes happens, they could have improved the performance at the same time.


Oh yeah, I do really have to mention this:

You cán play online against other players.
However, I do not recommend this for the 3rd-person-view in the cover-system as many have complained about.
This gives the game a major imbalance in gameplay.
Because someone can sit behind cover and see anything behind it in 3rd-person-view.
While someone that might come walking up and doesn't see a thing, will be dead in a flash.
Sure you just don't walk down somewhere, but to have to camp on every little corner just to see if someone won't come out of cover is just ridiculous.
Plus, I'd rather see everything from the first-person-view for the experience.
Like hanging upside down from a rope, peeking through a window or whatever else.
But then again, that's useless against the AI since a lot of times they instantly shoot your skin of at sight with 100% accuracy.

Don't get me wrong, it's NOT that I don't like the cover-system.
I don't like the first-person-view, it's just so unlogical to take the camera out of the player's head and let it float behind their character.
Only because they really had to create this "cool cinematic look" (which I'm sure is just major marketing).
Sure, it's nice to get tactical with to tell your AI-teammates what to do in single-player and get some nice view of the action.
But I'd rather just take on the challenge to observe with my own eyes and do it more "professionally" than have this inhuman power to see whatever object I'm locked behind.

Besides, a lot of times you can't get the right aim because of the weird angle.
And the crosshair being incorrect, because the actual 3D-weapon would be sticking through the wall or something in real-time.
It's just weird, sometimes the camera is like even right next to your character's head.
Why not just keeping it in there? Just to show off cinematics?
Game-developers are really weird sometimes... they probably live in fantasy-world, and get stuck when creating what they would call a realistic game. XD

- - - - - - - - - -

I don't know if and even doubt if they are the same creators for 'Far Cry 2', but those guys get to the point.
Everything is "realistic", besides like I said some points, for example the really fast weapon-switching, which was on the other side much better done in 'Rainbow Six Vegas'.
But at least everything is truly in first-person-view.
Even down to getting into vehicles and even switching between the driver's seat and the gunner's position for example.
You see your arms move around, and your body when you see your body when moving around.
Not just jumping around inside of and in and out of vehicles.

That's a feature that should have already been there for example in 'Battlefield 2' in 2005, or even in 2004 for 'Joint Operations'.
And it's extremely ridiculous that 'Crysis' didn't have that feature for the type of game it is.
Now don't get me wrong as if I'm one of those guys that are like "Dude, Crysis is 100% realism.".
Not at all, it's half science-fiction, set in a realistic world.
Because of (most of) the physics and the looks of things, but the stories and facts just aren't real.

And in 'Far Cry 2' even the weapons get damaged over time, they lock up randomly, things like that.
Of course that's not necessary in Rainbow Six, since they use different and more professional weapons, which are probably thoroughly checked before a mission.
And like a developer said quote "Cars don't go like booom, but they get damaged and get to a halt."
'Far Cry 2' just has that raw "as-is" nature, which I love.
And I'm also disappointed that other recent "realistish" games didn't have that.
Let's hope 'Far Cry 2' raises the bar and makes other games have to use these kind of features.

 

core2kid: That cooler's poor, because it's essentially the same as the stock Core 2 CPU cooler, and the D840 is one of the hottest running CPUs ever made.
You can get a basic microATX board as a replacement, along with a Freezer 7 Pro to better cool the CPu for around that $75 budget, but you'll have no chance of running Halo 2 in XP with either a 6200 or integrated graphics. You'll need to spend at least another $60 or so on a better graphics card.

DInc: Wow, lag at 800x600... ouch. I can run the game pretty much topped out at 1600x1200 on my card with a reasonably mediocre frame rate. Note that I can max out HL2:Episode two at 2560x1600 with AA (which Vegas doesn't even support) and get reliably 30fps+. When I maxed vegas at 2560x1600 with no AA, I managed to get 4fps at one point. The game's absurd. The lowest I've seen maxing Vegas 2 is about 15fps, not particularly playable but with a minor settings adjustment it is.

I have to say I agree on the strange 'cover cam' and see immediately why that would cause a problem for players online, it's basically map hacks!

As far as I'm concerned, I don't expect a game to be 'truly realistic' shall we say for years. Physics are improving for games like crysis (I hid behind a propped up metal sheet, they threw a nade in my vicinity, it blew up, knocked the sheet over and they spotted me) but real world physics are very first-generation right now, it will be a few years before they're seemless enough to work, and then there's graphics. Crysis is a pretty game, but not a 'good looking game'. There are plenty of jawdropping environments, yet there are also plenty of random low-res textures. Why? Why would you do that?

harvrdguy: I'll have a look for that section and upload a picture of it when I find it.

For now, here's a screencap of Crysis at maximum settings. I scored 2fps when creating this image... eek. It looks very nice apart from the hills in the distance, they're a bit meh, to be frank.

http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/8980/onslaughtactionshotabsoeg0.jpg
Here's a screenie from Rainbow Six Vegas 2:
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/3120/vegas2oldvegasabsolutemyr0.jpg
I get a more respectable 23fps here, absolute max.

 

Yeah, but it's (RSV) to get it smooth enough to play and concentrate.
So I do get a good amount of frames, but not like 30+ or something.
Maybe occasionally, but I have to think about the intense moments of course.
When there are a lot of effects and stuff going on, then it does get stuttery a bit.
But I've had many exciting and amazing moments where I got away with the riskiest stuff.
Sometimes just playing with mere feel and instinct to the next best recovery.

But a game like Half-Life 2 isn't something to brag about or anything.
That game is lighter than anything for the acceptable graphics for this age it has.
I can also run it really well on medium to high settings.
In fact, it's about the only game I can say it has multiple dozens of frames per second at good settings, while not the highest.

That also counts for Team Fortress 2, only it's heavier in the sense of 3D-models on screen and effects I guess.
Because when I walk up to 1 character, the framerate just crumbles down halfway.
So you can imagine how kind of "laggy" it gets with up to like 10-20 or more players on screen.
Plus the extra effects and objects there come from each character.
However, I never get a moment that it just really stutters like pauses.
The framerate, even though sometimes júst too low, is always smooth.
Not like image-stop-image-stop like it happened for example with BF2, it just keeps going.

Source is just a really smooth engine, unlike again for example BF2's crap engine.
It's very unforgiving, even at medium and lower settings.
I've been struggling with the crap game ever since the beginning, and it's always been a *fill in word* to me.
And when slightly overclocking the GPU, it began to show weird stuff too, as the only game of all the ones I have played.
Like flashing (or rather disappearing) background-terrain while shooting, *ratata* *on-off-on-off*. (wth?)
And I believe some other stuff...
Actually, TF2 started showing weird stuff too, but only sometimes after playing really long.
But it's not as nasty as like BF2, because it's not constantly.
In TF2 I can just tab out and back in to fix it, like refreshing the memory or whatever it does.

 

Half Life 2 and the episodes are my eyes the best engineered games of the last few years, hands down. They offer stunning graphics when turned right up with very acceptable performance levels. On a normal size widescreen monitor even my old X1900XT could max the game and provide a very pretty image indeed.
Team Fortress 2 is nowhere near as good, as it requires a registry hack to run at high settings without running out of PagedPool memory - it is the only game I have ever played to use large quantities of such memory. Not played BF2 so I can't comment.

if you're experiencing graphical errors when overclocking your GPU, you've overclocked the memory too far, or it's overheating. That goes for all games, not just Battlefield 2.

 

Thanks Sam. Thats what I told my friend but he insists on being able to play Halo 2 on XP. I told him that an Xbox costs less than attempting to get a video card to run the game and that he has a Q6600 and 8800GT as his own primary computer but he won't listen. I'll see what he agrees on.

 

I know you would say that, but it's barely to be called overclocked.
And it's not even getting hot...
You should try BF2 just for the heck of it, to see if you like it.
But believe me, that game is ridiculously overrated.
It just arrived at the right place (EA) at the right time to be one of the most popular shooters ever through marketing.
The gameplay is retarded, the graphics are dumb, things like that.
Not that it's a bad game, I "like" it, it's good enough of course.
But like I said, far overrated.
BF2142 is much nicer, technically smoother again too, plus better gameplay and graphics.

 

Wait, so he already has a gaming PC but wants to play Halo on the one that isn't?

 

Tell him to not spend money on hay-lo. LOL
I'd rather go with anything like Unreal before Halo.
But that's my opinion...

 

Halo 3 on the 360 looks better than Halo 2 on the PC, trust me.

 

Yeah, that seems weird, he should be able to play it with that CPU and GPU right??