PC Discussion Thread - All PC related in here.

[VictorTroska 0]

Can someone with a 4850/4870 confirm that ATI still supports "theater mode" for those cards please?

Yup, it supports theater mode.

But maybe you already got it by now

[Placebo 29]

Well I already agreed to exchange the 9800 and the package is already sat in Jönköping waiting to be collected and sent on to Germany before they send me my shiny new 4870

[Commando84 0]

i guess this is pc related but Microsoft has said somethings about the next Direct X system wich may or may not intrest BIS.

Gamereplays.org news

[echo1 0]

I'd say we wont see DirectX 11 till the next version of Windows comes out. Furthermore, you have to wait for the proliferation of DX 11 graphics cards to become sufficiently worthwhile to justify working with the new API. ArmA 3 perhaps? Interestingly enough, nVidia didnt bother including DX 10.1 with its latest cards even though nVidia has traditionally been very eager to throw on as many of the latest bells and whistles as possible. After all, DirectX 10 hasnt exactly blown away the world like it was meant to.

[Mr_Tea 0]

Unless games are programmed to use the full power that DX10 offers, they cant use all it offers.

My Radeon HD36550 supports DX10.1, and it´s an AGP card.

Besides the question how logical it is to built an AGP card with DX 10.1 support, ATI cards older than mine support DX 10 too.

[Lepardi 0]

I changed my 8800 GTS to a HD 4870. I'm impressed, image quality is much better and all the mouse lag that existed with 8800GTS is now gone.

[echo1 0]

Was it one of the old school 320/640MB models, or one of the new 512MB ones?

[Mr_Tea 0]

I put in my old Geforce 7600GS again, those ATI drivers for newer AGP based cards are nothing but crap.

While ArmA was running great with everything maxed up, Oblivion with Anti Alias had rebooted my PC.

And there was no driver that that could do it, not even those from Guru3D.

I´ll return that card on Monday, i need hardware that can run my games.

[echo1 0]

I always find it hard to recommend ATI cards after hearing these horror stories about their cards... You'd be better off saving up money and getting a better card and a PCI-E motherboard.

[VictorTroska 0]

I sold my old 8800GTS 320Mb and bought ATI HD4870. It was my best buy in a very long time (since ATI 1950Pro AGP). I'm very happy with performance of this card, especially in OpenGL games like IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 (had huge stuttering problems with 8800GTS).

There is a little "bug" in Bios/Drivers, fan RPM is low so card gets hot, but "fix" is out there. I changed RPM to 30% (fan is still silent) and now is about 48°C in Idle.

Here is a link to fan fix: Fan fix

All in one, best buy ATM (value/price).  

[Mr_Tea 0]

Once i have some euros at hand to build a new system, i`d rather take an Nvidia card from the 9000 series, 9600GT or above.

But i´ll wait and see what`s on the market than before i decide what to buy.

[Lepardi 0]

Once i have some euros at hand to build a new system, i`d rather take an Nvidia card from the 9000 series, 9600GT or above.

But i´ll wait and see what`s on the market than before i decide what to buy.

You'd be better off with a 4800 series card from AMD. It makes no sense to buy a more expensive but crappier card.

[Mr_Tea 0]

The 9600GT cost around 90€, what is cheap especially for the performance it delivers. It`s slightly slower than the "high end" cards, but cost´s only one third of their price.

[echo1 0]

The 9600GT is a great choice for value, problem is that it will become outclassed quicker than more expensive than cards like the 9800GTX and Radeon 4870. What are the specs on the rest of your system like?

[Lepardi 0]

The 9600GT cost around 90€, what is cheap especially for the performance it delivers. It`s slightly slower than the "high end" cards, but cost´s only one third of their price.

Negative, HD 4850 is slightly more expensive but it's much faster compared to 9600GT. It is not recommended to upgrade to an nvidia now.

[echo1 0]

He's just come out from a bad ATI card experience, so another ATI card is possibly the last thing he wants to buy. He also needs to save money to upgrade his motherboard and possibly other bits (he's using an old AGP motherboard)

[Mr_Tea 0]

Not only that.

I used only Nvidia cards before for some years, guess why.

I had enough with the bad experience with some ATI cards years ago. After that nearly no problem at all with my Nvidia cards (GeForce 4 MX400, GeForce 4TI4200, GeForce FX5900XTV, GeForce 6600GS) and last but not least my current card: Geforce 7600GS 512MB.

The Radeon HD3600 is very fast for an AGP card, but what is all this power good for, when an basic function like Anti Alias rebootes my PC in one of my favorite games.

If they can`t provide proper drivers for AGP cards, why did the build that bridge chip that translates PCI-E>AGP?

I don`t spent my money for that, and never had an Nvidia driver that was that crappy as many ATI drivers.

[echo1 0]

Not sure if I asked you before, but what are the rest of the specs of your PC?

[Baff1 0]

I personally would not consider buying and GFX card with less than 512 RAM, and I would have to be on a tight budget not to spend the extra £20 and get a full 1GB.

The difference between 256 and 512 is seen in the texture detail and in the refresh rate on higher resolution.

For Armed Assault I run the maximum textures on 1GB cards and normal on the 512's. I run low on my 256.

I'm not saying that people with a perfectly decent 256 Ram GFX card should all instantly rush out and upgrade, only that of rthe sake of £10 or £20, anyone buying a new one, should not consider any less than 512 in this day and age, and prefereably a lot more.

I too favour Nvidia, I have a 6800 ultra, a 7600GS, 2 9600 GT's, 2 7800 GT's in SLI and a 280 for my ArmA LAN.

I have also run it on my 5600 and 6600's in the past.

I run Nvidia because all my other cards are Nvidia, I have always been happy with them and I like the compatability of all my cards running off the same driver download.

[echo1 0]

I always found the amount of graphics RAM to be a very poor way of measuring how good the card is going to be, its perfectly feasible that a good 128MB card can outpace a low end 512MB card. In reality, most good cards these days have 512MB anyway, so its rather superflous to recommend it.

[Baff1 0]

I'd say we wont see DirectX 11 till the next version of Windows comes out. Furthermore, you have to wait for the proliferation of DX 11 graphics cards to become sufficiently worthwhile to justify working with the new API. ArmA 3 perhaps? Interestingly enough, nVidia didnt bother including DX 10.1 with its latest cards even though nVidia has traditionally been very eager to throw on as many of the latest bells and whistles as possible. After all, DirectX 10 hasnt exactly blown away the world like it was meant to.

DX 11 doesn't need new GFX cards.

DX 10.1 does, but only ATI are supporting it.

I think DX 11 is going to be support for things like physics processing on your GPU rather than new shaders etc.

[VictorTroska 0]

I always found the amount of graphics RAM to be a very poor way of measuring how good the card is going to be, its perfectly feasible that a good 128MB card can outpace a low end 512MB card. In reality, most good cards these days have 512MB anyway, so its rather superflous to recommend it.

+1

[Baff1 0]

I always found the amount of graphics RAM to be a very poor way of measuring how good the card is going to be, its perfectly feasible that a good 128MB card can outpace a low end 512MB card. In reality, most good cards these days have 512MB anyway, so its rather superflous to recommend it.

You will notice it on your high res textures.

In ARmA on my 256 6800Ultra, I use the high resoution textures for taking screenshots only.

On my 1GB cards I play the game that way.

(Some games will have the highest detail options greyed out if you don't have enough RAM, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter only gives you the option if you have 512).

For performance you should pay attention to processor (GPU) and RAM speed. These will define your FPS. These are the most critical specifications of your hardware.

With the difference in price between 512 and 1GB so little I really can't see the point in not playing these games at their highest resolutions.

It's a no brainer descision.

A 128 MB card is gimped. If you intend to run your game at resolutions of 1024x768 only and with low textures you will be fine.

Widescreen, Triple Screen, or 1600x1200 users and above should not contemplate anything less than 512 RAM.

There isn't any point spending all that extra on screens only to skimp on a card big enough to power them well.

Finally, GPU generation will give you access to the latest special FX. High luminosity in DX9 or volumetric clouds in DX 10, or Physic's processing on the 260/280's for example.

[echo1 0]

I always found the amount of graphics RAM to be a very poor way of measuring how good the card is going to be, its perfectly feasible that a good 128MB card can outpace a low end 512MB card. In reality, most good cards these days have 512MB anyway, so its rather superflous to recommend it.

You will notice it on your high res textures.

In ARmA on my 256 6800Ultra, I use the high resoution textures for taking screenshots only.

On my 1GB cards I play the game that way.

Youre still completely ignoring my point. Graphics RAM is, in itself, a poor way of measuring how good the card is. High end cards just happen to have large amounts of RAM, but that in itself is not the reason why they are good. Its like saying that your Mercedes with electric windows is fast, and your 20 year old Fiat doesnt have electric windows and is slow, therefore all cars with electric windows are fast. A good example of that was the 8800GT which used to be made in both 256MB and 512MB versions. The difference was at best of times negligible. Of course, everyone got the 512MB model anyway because it was barely any more expensive, but that's kinda beside the point.

Quote[/b] ]A 128 MB card is gimped. If you intend to run your game at resolutions of 1024x768 only and with low textures you will be fine.

That's because the last decent cards that had 128MB of RAM were made many years ago. But what I was saying was that something like a Radeon 9800 Pro with 128MB is better than lets say, a GeForce 7300GS with 512MB of RAM.

Quote[/b] ]Finally, GPU generation will give you access to the latest special FX. High luminosity in DX9 or volumetric clouds in DX 10, or Physic's processing on the 260/280's for example.

So basically youre saying that new graphics cards are faster than old ones? Most of us guessed that by now.

[Mr_Tea 0]

Not sure if I asked you before, but what are the rest of the specs of your PC?

Me?

AthlonXP 3200+, 2GB PC3200 Ram in dual channel mode, creative audigy 2. OS: Vista and WinXP.

With my GeForce back in my rig it works as always, no strange rebootes anymore.

A friend of mine had bought an Radeon HD2600 last week, now guess what.

CTD`s, rebootes and nothing but trouble.

He`s back on his old GeForce again and everything works fine.

We both have PSU`s that are capable to run those ATI cards.

I have installed XP from scratch, installed all new drivers for all parts of the system, and what for?

I formated my Win2K Prof. installation for this, because there are no official Win2K drivers for those ATI card, to avoid the problems that i still got afterwards.

Now mine, and that PC of my friend works without strange problems again, only because we switched back to our old Nvidia cards.

What do we learn of that?