Ok, so your dell has 2560x1600 as its native resolution - one to one pixel map. How well does it scale down to 1920 x 1200?

And by the way, regarding playing crysis - I have played the demo. It was nice - I enjoyed the gameplay and I went back a few times and played against the soldiers not using any of the suit features just to see if I could - the AI is good.

But the graphics that you guys are experiencing is beyond what my x850xtpe provides - also no shader 3.0 (Does POM need shader 3?) I wonder even if my 3850 agp will be that much better - my monitor is 1600x1200. I could scale back to 1280 x 1020 or something like that I suppose. What kinds of settings do you think I'll be able to support on a 3850 agp (p4 3.2). Will I be able to support POM? I could overclock the cpu a bit - I'm going to be installing faster memory.

My real question is: should I even bother to try to play crysis on my current rig - or just wait for the new one?

Sorry to say, but Crysis will run like crap with a Pentium 4. You will be sorely disappointed in the performance and the framerate will drop to unplayable during any heavy physics(which there is a lot of). The minimum system to fully enjoy Crysis at a decent res(1280+) with high settings would be something like this:

2.2GHz+ Core 2 Duo/2.6GHz+ AMD X2(dual core is pretty much required)
2GB of RAM(1GB has the same FPS but terrible stuttering)
8800GT/HD4850

The 3850 will do high with medium shaders at 1280, but high shaders is a bit of a stretch. The 8800GT would feel MUCH smoother and one can be had for dirt cheap. Build a new system. An entire system, decent monitor, speakers and all can be built for <$1000 and run Crysis very well. So, if you have all the peripherals, you can build a wicked fast PC for <$800

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what is the TOD lighting mod?? - where do you get it and what does it add?

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The TOD lighting mod changes the lighting during different times of the day to be more natural. Like light refracting through the atmosphere. Sunsets are bathed in red, and the lighting slowly changes in hue as it get brighter and the sun gets higher in the sky. It changes the lighting in any outdoor level to be more natural and bring out the beauty of the original scenery. Everything kind of has a more natural and warm feel to it. I some parts, the lighting can be pretty close to the original. But in other parts, it dramatically changes the look of the game.

http://planetcrysis.gamespy.com/View.php...es.Detail&id=21

It comes with CubanDoomSword's Custom Crysis Config(CCC). The installer installs the TOD mod and places a custom config file in the Crysis directory depending on what performance level you select. The CCC and TOD mods can be installed separately or together through the installer.

The configs are good as well. They make medium settings look like high. High performance looks like Very High. And Very High looks like one step above very high.... like Ultra High or something. Even the Low Settings config looks way better than stock Crysis Low Settings.

The TOD mod and the CCC are meant to compliment eachother and they do quite nicely. The CCC is good enough on its own, but the TOD mod is needed to make it really shine. Both the TOD and CCC improve performance. This means it looks AND runs better. It bumped me from 35 to 40FPS in 1680 x 1050 with the GTS 512MB.

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Do you like Battlefield Vietnam better?

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Yes... yes I do... :P

BF2 is sweet and the shooting is much better, but the maps and vehicles in BFV are just about perfect, IMO. Call me a jungle combat junkie, if you will, lol

Plus, the single player is still fun because you can have 64 bots instead of 16 or whatever the cap is on BF2. I play as much single as multi because it's fun to mow the bots down :D

My 3.2Ghz dual core gave me 25 frames max, my Quad? 45. Crysis is a CPU-eater.

OMG, the quad works? I didn't think Crysis took advantage of Quads... This is good news for me. The Q6600 will be here tomorrow :D

crysis loves MHz and cache by the looks of things, that we found. no game really takes advantage of quad cores just yet, just the extra cache.

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My 3.2Ghz dual core gave me 25 frames max, my Quad? 45. Crysis is a CPU-eater.

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Yes but also in 2560 I thought. The Q6600 is not that much faster clock-for-clock than the E4300 either. The L2 Cache does make a difference but not much. A 5000+ will get the same frames in 2560 as a quad. And AFAIK Crysis does NOT YET use quads. The update hasn't come out yet or won't. Check your core usage during a run through. I retract my previous elation about your performance until then :P

Your bottleneck HAS to be graphics. AFAIK, resolution doesn't affect the CPU in any way. I think either something else is going on, or the 4870X2 is just really that powerful to where it needs every ounce of power you can give it. I dunno, it confounds me as to why the E4300 was such a bottleneck. You'd think a 3.2GHz Core 2 Duo would be adequate, especially for high res Crysis. The video has to be the bottleneck, it just has to. It makes no sense...

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6182806/p-6.html

I don't know if Gamespot are reliable, but that looks pretty conclusive to me. It's not showing an advantage on the quad here... What is your OC at for the Q6600?

Also, I don't agree with them on the memory. 2GB minimum for Crysis. 1GB DOES have a bad effect. The hitching can make the game completely unplayable.

That's bull, no offense. Age of Conan and Crysis reported 80-90% increases. You don't get that just from cache alone. Every other title got about a 10-12% boost at the same clock speed, that is from the extra cache.

E4300, HD4870 21fps
E4300, HD4870X2 25fps
Q6600, HD4870X2 46fps

So quad cores are worth it?

WHOO I WAS RIGHT. And everyone says games don't support quad cores.

For the most part they don't, I still have to stress that. However, to say that those that do don't offer significant gains is a lie. They are completely transformed by it.

there are some recent games that support quad cores. like mass effect and assassins creed. also most games coming out in the future will support it.

My Q6600 is getting here today :D

I'm excited to see what a quad will do for my Crysis performance. Maybe it will be bottlenecked by the card. But I hope that's not the case and the card can go higher than sams benchmarks have shown.

I knew Age of Conan supported quad core. It has the "Use all available Cores" option or something like that, correct?

It should still give you some gains, but not sure how much.

It's here! I'll post again when I'm done setting up!

It takes two days to setup? lmao

Sorry. Been busy with college and work and stuff :P

Anyways, WHOO!!! It's a G0!! And working temp sensors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lapped the Q6600 and lapped the Tuniq Tower this time. I did it by backing the sand paper with a piece of glass, so they should both be perfectly flat. I also used the line method for thermal paste to cover all four cores. Fan on the cooler at 100%.

Idle Temps

Core0 - 28*C
Core1 - 29*C
Core2 - 28*C
Core3 - 29*C


Orthos full load after 15 minutes

Core0 - 45*C
Core1 - 46*C
Core2 - 45*C
Core3 - 46*C

I'd say these are happy temps :DDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!

OCing shall take place in short time. This thing is sweeeeeeeet!!!

lol Glad to see how excited you are. What's the VID on the chip(make sure you turn off speedstep when you check this).

The VID is 1.25v. Speedstep is for chumps... lol

It certainly does run cool. I'm surprised :P

Aha, you lucky sonofabitch.

I'm apparently oblivious to something good. Is a 1.25 VID uncommon for Q6600's???

Yes. The new Q6600s are all 1.325v.

Well I lucked out then! Sweet!

3.4GHz is my goal. That's what I'll get. I might even drop the multi to 8 and take the FSB to 425. I wonder how it would take the higher FSB...

You know what's funny? Even with high-end parts in it, it's still a fairly budget oriented machine. I could have easily spent twice as much...

YEah, but the performance gains would have been minimal. Certainly not twice as much.

The Q9450 was sort of a gamble. I am perfectly content with a Q6600 :)

I hope to finally test out this HD4870. It's sitting there growling at me, lol.

Don't all of the Q6600s have working temp sensors? I thought it was just the 45nm ones...
You did well getting an older 1.25Vcore chip this late, congrats on that.
From benches I've looked at, there isn't much of a difference between the scores of the Q9450 and Q6600 even in arithmetics. With a low VID, you should get a good overclock out of your chip.

hm, I have an 8800 Ultra card here that won't display at all...I know it sends out a signal because the screen flashes, but it won't show anything on screen after...Being used on a ASUS Striker II Extreme. What do you think? Any hope for this card?