Video Card Thread (Mostly Gecube x1950xt)

It would certainly be doable on a Q6600 and 8800GT.

 

Yes, he just built a Q6600 with an 8800GT and 4GB RAM. He ruined it all though with forcing me to put Vista x64 on it when I built it. You can't play Halo 2 on that without it crashing.

Trust me, my friend is a "Unique" individual. I talked to him again and he says that he wants to do "Age Of Empires II" LAN through his 3 PCS which are:
-Q6600 Stock, 8800GT Stock, 4GB RAM (was 6 but that was causing problems), 7 or 8 120MM Fans, OCZ 750 watt PSU, 320GBx2 RAID0.
-HP with 2.53 P4, 1GB RAM, 6200GT, 80GB
-PD 840, Currently 512 RAM going to 2GB once the board is replaced, some integrated graphics, 120GB

I picked out this board:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500005
and this heatsink/fan:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233003
Hows the combo?

BTW, hes not gonna be getting a 360 because he already has a PS3...
Sam: when you said Halo 3 looks better on 360 than Halo 2 on PC did you mean Halo 2 on 360 upscaled?

 

No I meant Halo 2 on PC. It may be high res but it's still the same horrible textures. The game is just too old to look good without a complete redesign, and the PC version of the game did not include one.

The cooler is fine, as long as you get this as well, the cooler's practically useless without it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233019

The motherboard is a bit iffy really, you should go with something a bit better quality like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128078

For reference, Halo 2 is probably crashing because he's using an nvidia graphics card. Their 64-bit drivers are very poor. Switch to 32-bit Vista though and he'll be fine.

 

That fan doesn't come with a retention bracket? I still have the one from the other cooler, would that work?

For the motherboard, I'll see if he can up his budget, that was my choice before.

The Pentium D 840, do you know why it could be BSODing? Its on a Gigabyte board currently. Could it be incompatibility with the motherboard/processor?

 

I don't know exactly, but if the board is old, then that's a distinct possibility.
For the retention bracket, I'm not sure, I'm doubtful.

 

I'll let him know about this and I'll see if I can use the retention bracket from the old fan. It looks the exact same and is for a socket 775 mobo.

 

If it looks the exact same, it probably is. I know for a fact my Ultra-120 uses the same bracket as the Xigmatek.

 

Alright, I'll post back when he orders the parts and what parts he does order. Thanks for all your help Sam.

 

No problem. Hope all goes well.

 

Hey Dinc,

I agree with you, Sam should try out BF2 so he can advise.

Wow, Core 2 you are brave to be working on those old systems - reminds me of my junky stuff. And Sam, is there any PC ever built that you are not at least an 80% expert on? It's impressive, actually, how much you know.

So Dinc, you like BF2142 - is that a more recent game? So it's better? I already own BF2, but if BF2142 is way better, I'll get it.

Sounds like Vegas might be too much for me, even with the soon to come 3850. But of course I don't need to run the settings all the way up - and I don't need to even do 1600 x 1200. Lower res will help.

Yeah, Sam, about the EP2 screen shot: if you can find that panoramic shot right after Dog kills the Strider, that would be awesome. To re-iterate, from the strider battle section, it is two sections back, at the very end.

As they drive up that dirt road hill that circles up to the left leading to the missile silos, hop out of the car and move to the left edge and jump up on the retaining wall. Then look back down at the stream and trees and range of hills. Try the suit Z zoom a couple of times. It's just an incredible piece of scenery! That's the picture I'll be looking forward to seeing you post - better in my opinion than anything I've seen on this forum even for Crysis (maybe I'm not a huge fan of palm trees.) But Sam, that Crysis picture you just posted - NIIICE!

By the way, Dinc, speaking of Crytek, Far Cry 2, as you probably know, was not made by Crytek. When Crytek jumped ship and went over to EA I think, Ubisoft hired somebody else to create the sequel. Far Cry 2 is set in Africa, right? How did they do? Is it worth buying??

It sounds like you liked it quite a bit!

I get the same stalling, Dinc, that you are talking about on BF2. The game just stops for a few seconds. I googled it and it is a common problem. But one forum said "look at the hard drive and you will see the light come on when the game stops - the system is paging in, paging out." He said the problem was too little main memory, and that BF2 requires at least 2 gigs of memory instead of my present 1 gig. How many gigs do you have, Dinc?

See you guys,
Rich

 

Thanks for the compliment Rich, it really means a lot coming from you. I haven't really built that many systems in my time, so realistically, I'm far from an expert compared to some...
Another thanks for elaborating on the HL2 screenshot, forgive me if I do it later on, I'm off to bed now, approaching 1:30am!
As for BF2, I can tell you now that problem is exactly what you get from a lack of memory, and that 1GB really isn't enough to run any modern game at high detail. Add more RAM and watch the lag disappear like magic! lol

 

Well, for the stuttering-problems and such I personally got in Battlefield, I'm sure it's because of a whole mix of system-performance.
A slightly too slow card to start with for that game, plus some other slower parts I bet.
I used both 1.5Gb in Dual Channel and now running 2Gb in Single Channel.
But I benchmarked both setups and it didn't make much of difference, in speed anyways.
The performance didn't change that much either, maybe just slightly nicer with the 2Gb even though in Single Channel this time.

But BF2's engine, whatever it's called, doesn't help matters either.
Like I said, it just is a laggy engine to start with.
They used an optimized version of it for BF2142.
Which you could really notice since the stutters are far from as bad.
And while I still might not have had thát much better framerates, the framerate was a lót more consistent.

That's only one of the reasons it's a better game.
Other reasons would be the whole setting of a future ice-age war.
The weapons are just awesome and act slightly more realistic.
As in, when you'd jump on the floor the spread gets wider.
So it's less of a retarded "drop on the ground and spray people in the face" type of thing.
I really really despise that in those games though, without doing damage to yourself and sliding over the floor like a snake really fast.
Then also the vehicles are done great, the environments are much better.
And especially Titan Mode makes a lot better gameplay, with bigger maps and a lot more epic battles.
I really loved the settings and using the Titans...
Too bad EA broke my game with a patch and can't (or actually won't) help me, I really miss the experience...

By the way, a LOT of those hardcore BF2-fanboys will tell you BF2142 sucks and especially in Titan Mode.
But don't listen to them, they're just brainwashed run&gunners only wanting to stack points and what not.
They don't care about the experience of a game and what it's all about.
Just give it a try yourself, and do what you like yourself.
Which is for me personally the better balanced game of BF2142 with the big epic warfare of the future.


- - - - - - - - - -


But for Far Cry 2, the game is not out yet, but it will be soon.
It's just that I saw a lot of gameplay-footage and demonstrations and such.
In fact I saw like 2 or 3 demos on GameSpot live at E3 recently.
I know it's not by CryTek, and that people confuse all the names and everything.
I have to say Crysis does have a lot of similar things though.
It's not that I see it as a sequel or anything, I didn't even play Far Cry (1).
And I doubt I would like the Doom-like monsters and such...
As far as I know it's by Ubisoft Montreal, if they hired another team for it, I'm not sure.

But yes, Far Cry 2 is set in Africa, with 50KM² of streaming open world.
No loading besides the start and choosing what time to wake up by setting your alarm-clock.
You can choose which one of the like 9 characters you want to play, the rest of them will be your "buddy"-AIs.
Which can die along-side you just as well as you can, but if you're down and they're good they'll pick you up and fight you out of there to a safe place.
Again, you'll actually see yourself being picked up and your buddy fighting all from your own view, no cinematics from the outside there.
You'll fight in dry savannahs, also go through dense jungles and some more environments.
You'll get all the heavy weapons, pistols, (sub-)machineguns, (sniper-)rifles, shotguns, rocketlaunchers, improvised bombs, and the big thing will be a flamethrower.
You can set anything on fire that should burn, the fire burns into the direction of the wind and burns everything up.
Destroyed foliage will grow back over time, you can also shoot off each little branch.
And there are also animals around as you would have to expect from Africa.
There are also plenty of vehicles to get around with.
All kinds of cars, jeeps and buggies, I'm not sure what else yet.
Maybe and hopefully a dirtbike or something and there will be a hang-glider.

The AI is all autonomous as they call it, they aren't scripted.
So you will not know where everyone is, they'll all act randomly but fierce.
If you'd steal something from them they'll hunt you down even if you leave their location.
When they hit you, you can medicate yourself like 3 times.
But when you're out of that, you have to start pulling out bullets every time you get hit or something like that.
At first it was only that, but they found a problem with it, maybe too annoying or something.
But a really awesome and original idea after all.
And since there is a 24 hour day/night-cycle there will also be darkness.
Where there is nothing but the light from the stars and some other light-sources and no nightvision or heatvision to help you.
You can sneak around in the dark, pretty much without getting spotted.
By the way, a day in the game would be like 6 hours in real-life I believe.


So, those are pretty much the main features, with a lot of extra details on every thing in the game.
Also, the main objective is to hunt down "The Jackal", which is some kind of arms-dealer.
And you can go around doing missions whenever and wherever you like.
In which way you want to do them yourself, there's probably almost no linearity.
I'll try to link some videos or something which shows some action.
Ah yeah, here is an early demonstration:
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/09/07/13-minutes-of-farcry-2-footage/
It might have some different details, but it shows the same basics I guess.

And yes, it's definitely worth buying.
If Crysis was worth buying it just for it's evolutionary engine, graphics and SandBox.
Far Cry 2 will be worth buying just for the evolutionary gameplay like apparently also the first Far Cry had.
Many developers will have to take example of this game.
And the graphics are great too actually, it looks pretty real.
It shows it paid off that the developer-team went on a trip to Africa and came back with hours of film and loads of photos.

 

Wow DInc, your posts get longer by the day! lol Up to 1100 words now!
Far Cry 2 interests me, but I'm pretty sure Ubisoft Montreal were who made the dire port of the original R6 Vegas. That coupled with how astonishingly groundbreaking the game sounds suggests to me that, if turned up, the game is very likely to be even more demanding than Crysis. Perhaps it'll be more scalable, but you don't get these sorts of effects on low end PCs, no matter who programmed it.

 

As if I didn't guess that. XD
But yeah, they built the Dunya Engine from the ground up for this game.
Just to get all the environmental effects, like the time with the changing lighting and weather-effects.
The whole deal with the foliage being breakable and burnable etc.

But then again, the game might still not be as heavy as for example the CryEngine2.
Because the CryEngine2 was made to be used for many more future games.
But it would be a shame not to use the Dunya more of course.
Also, the CryEngine2 was optimized for Crysis: Warhead, so anyone might be able to play that game better.
Believe it or not, even I played through Crysis on Hard (in combination with the low performance).
So it might all just still work alright.

However, I am not planning to play any more of these great (looking) games on this computer.
I hope to have a nice gaming thingy in some months or so.
And I can just sit back and enjoy a whole lot of games I still need to play.
I have a wish-list of about 50 games, (relatively) new and old that I just want to plug into and experience full-on.
So decent graphics on a well sized screen, good sound with almost no noise from the computer and some good controllers.
Blaaah...

 

I'd like to say I have all bases covered with perhaps the exception of them running well at a good resolution...
My PC isn't worth all that much right now, so it's easily doable...

 

But things are just more expensive here.
Plus I haven't got everything to spend.
If US-stores just wouldn't be a b*tch with shipping-costs.
They seriously overcharge.

 

Please tell me you're joking. American PC parts more expensive than british ones?

 

:\ No, they're cheaper than anything, they cost a fortune (compared to there) over here in The Netherlands.
If you'd have a monitor like for example at something like Newegg for like 200 Dollars, which would be like 130 Euros, and I'd look up the same one here it would be like 200 Euros.

 

I'd say we probably have it quite similar. Our VAT's 17.5%...

 

Yeah, it's close to 20% here now.
But for some reason the prices over there (in the UK) tend to be better though.
Not necessarily taxes though, maybe it has to do with the shipping.
Or maybe the types of stores, I don't know...
Cause someone showed me a website recently, which had SanDisk-cards for like half the price it even is in the US.
So especially cheap for over here, the problem was just that they don't ship electronics outside the UK.