The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Well then I should do quite well on both fronts. And supposing an AMD X2 could still get playable performance out of the game too. My friend with the 5000+ BE and 9600GT is playing it at 1680 with half decent settings. Maybe because of the Nvidia card?

 

nVidia do seem to fare better, but to be honest, certain settings have dramatically different effects on the game.

 

Can you elaborate on the settings and what they affect? I have 5 hours left before I can play it, lol. 13GB!!!! LOL

 

or do what i did and pre order it

i cant wait to get back to london and play this game. im soo excited, but first, physics exam on monday and maths on tuesday

a mate of mine is running it on a 2600pro 256mb at 1650 on med settings and gets on avge about 25 frames a second.

how many you getting sam maxed out at 1920?


btw sam, that mate is that annoying to all get out mac user lol

 

Lol, perhaps not that annoying, eh? Maybe a slightly politer adjective would suffice?

I get 30-35fps typically, 22-25 in busy traffic, but the game still has some macrostutter, running at 1680x1050 High textures, medium rendering quality, maxed draw distance/other details.

Surprisingly, I get 53fps in the benchmark using these settings, why the benchmark is less demanding than real game is beyond me.

Estuansis, the shadow density and options down the bottom seem mainly CPU dependant, note that they have no effect on the supposed video RAM usage. The texture quality and resolution affect graphics performance noticeably, I'm not sure the draw distance actually does much, but it certainly ups the required video memory on the game counter. As I may have mentioned before (I forget), the game uses 1800MB of memory, even at these slightly reduced settings, since I'm in a 32-bit OS, that is bound to cause issues. I haven't played the game long enough to experience a crash yet, but from what I gather, they do happen if you play continuously for a substantial period of time, and while the performance is slightly better, the crashes seem more frequent on nvidia hardware.


I'll make it very plain, the game is not compatible with older generation systems. An X2 4200+, 3GB of RAM and an X1900XT, not a bad system for most games, will only make between 2 and about 6fps at 800x480 all minimum.

 

Is it really that bad

I was really looking forward to playing this.
have to wait till the weekend to get it.
I don't have a flash big enough for it, so I'll have to go to my friend's house with my pc to get it LOL

Anyone played Prince of Persia yet???
I'm hopefully getting it day after tomorrow
Reviews look to be good

 

Interestingly enough, Catalyst 8.12 has about a 50% performance increase for Crysis Warhead. I'm very happy about that

 

Grand Theft Auto! Hahahaha! I watched a couple of YouTube videos of it. What a trip! Maybe I should forget about World War II long enough to terrorize the whole population of Manhattan - or is that LA? All the while my favorite rap songs are fueling my adrenalin hopped-up crackhead JD persona.

Maybe everybody on the builder thread should be forced to play that game and REALLY get their frustrations out. I like Shaff's "annoying as f**ck mate" to which Sam rejoins "couldn't you have used a politer adjective?" Sure Sam, but then that wouldn't have been Shaff. Shaff is already ready for GTA every day without any personality shift. Hahahahah. Just ask creaky. Hahahahaha

Ray says, "Massive system requirements? I was looking forward to being a gang-banger and beating up and killing a few thugs and generally destroying traffic and airports!" Hahahaha.

Yeah, one day I'll get the game and rape and pillage and loot! I saw Vince Vaughn playing it in the movie with Jennifer Aniston "The Breakup" - it looked very amusing. I've heard a lot about it.

Meanwhile I am playing back through Call of Duty 4 enjoying the brilliant colors of my smallish Dell LCD monitor - where did all that color come from?!!!! It is SOOOOO BEAUTIFUL!!!!!! I can see why you guys (Sam, Shaff, Estuansis) spend every last dime on EYE CANDY! One day I too will be following Estuansis' footsteps and roaming through that Crysis jungle outflanking Korean patrols, discovering weapons caches, barelling around in stolen vehicles, and soaking in all the virtual pixels with dust clouds, pom enhanced riverbed rocks, motion blur, and untold other state-of-the-art graphics effects, on my 22,000 3dmark6 system.

Meanwhile back on Call of Duty, I'm doing some crazy stuff - playing at Veteran. All guillied up, I shot the dog that was chewing on the corpse after Captain MacMillan told me to leave it alone - had my throat torn out 4 times by the pack of 10 wild dogs that immediately attacks if you do that, before I timed the grenades just right and took out the last 6 dogs with my p90, and a lot of nervous maneuvering. The Captain said "that was close." Hahahaha. Fu**cking A! You can say that again, old Cap, you Scottish bastard! Hahahaha. Yeah, I'm ready for Grand Theft Auto - as boozer knows I have just the right hyper personality for it, Hahahaha.

-Rich

 

yo rich PM ones msn please

i wanna talk more COD4 with you.

with 1000+ hours in the game, i have a nice few veteran trick onlien to share

sam thinks "you're out your flipping mind" to me (ok not those exact words, but its sounds better ) that i spent £300 on a 4870x2 and allthat money on watercooling the maximus II Formula the Q9950 etc etc, JUST to get higher framrates on cod4, but i love the game, and now the rig will be fuking tested with GTA

 

Yeah, I think you'd better forget about GTA4 until your big upgrade, Rich, not even this one, on a system with a dual core CPU and a graphics card as good as yours, it's utterly unplayable.
The All Ghillied up mission is sweet, thoroughly enjoyed that, really makes use of the game's graphics there too.

Spam, perhaps I wasn't subtle enough, fancy a ban?

 

GTA4 is good for a play through, the graphics are amazing (on the PS3). My computer would easily run it, but I beat it already beat it on the PS3.

The game lacks many features that San Andreas has though, and lacks even more side missions. The cost on improving graphics took much away from this game. My guess is that most people spent far more time enjoying San Andreas than they will for GTA4, I know I did.

 

Looks like it's completely CPU dependent to me as well. Hopefully my fairly high clocked quad will be beneficial.

 

Heh, guess we all have different standards, I've seen what the PS3 graphics look like, and they're not that great, not bad by console standards, but I am at least content that the game looks significantly better how I play it on the PC, if perhaps slightly more juddery (although from some of the articles I've read, that may not even be the case)

Estuansis: You be the judge, Crysis Warhead uses 35% of my CPU, GTA4 uses 72%.

 

Yeah I'd imagine at higher resolutions the PS3 one won't be great.

 

Still, 1680 x 1050 is dire for a Quad and a 4870X2. You should be managing 1920 at least. A poor port for sure.

 

Absolutely. Consider I get better performance in Crysis Warhead, that's downright shameful.

 

Well Sam, regarding Shaff, you know what they say: You just can't keep a good man down!! I think what you meant to say was that perhaps you were too subtle ....... I like how you put it: "fancy a ban?" Let's just hope the mods stay away or it'll be newbie time again, Hahahaha!!

Since you liked the All Ghillied Up, I suggest you shoot the wild dog next time, and get ready for all doggie hell to break loose, hahahaha. By the way, I had an impossible time laying down next to the cash box on the bumper cars - I think they know I'm playing through again, and they have made everything harder. I had to get up and move to the other end of the bumper platform and really work the situation to survive this time. Same thing on getting down the hill to the 'copter as I PM'ed shaff. The guys running through the meadow were absolute crack shots - from 150 yards running at full speed - no way is that realistic!! Anyway, that's okay, I'm up for the challenge! LOL

Grand Theft Auto: I'm probably going to actually have you guys spec me out a 4850 system, core 2 duo, that I can slide into my beloved case (pics coming eventually.) I have that thing ventilated every which way possible - including ceiling vent with scythe 120mm 800 rpm. I went through absolute hell cutting out that hole - I'm so proud. So I think the modest little case, which I now LOVE, deserves a $400 or so upgrade that will hold me for a while (I'll sell the 3850) until I get a proper Tempest.

So GTA-wise, maybe at my meager 1440x900, virtually the same pixel count as 1280x1024, it wouldn't be too bad. (By the way, my face is seriously only about 8-10" from the 19" screen - I really get into it - so the smallish size is not that bad, and Man, those colors!!) So what do you think, Sam, about GTA at that res on a 4850 1 gig, core 2 duo wolfdale 3.0ghz, oc'd to 3.6?

Hey, TheftAuto joined in - he should be the master of all things GTA I'm sure! I'm thinking of getting a home theater for a relative where we all like to hang out - I can get a 46" Samsung 1080p at Crutchfield, and a $350 7.1 Onkyo, all together for about $1758 delivered!! And if I did that I would add a PS3 to the build, because we'll need a blue ray player anyway. My relative was big into the original half life, but currently he doesn't have a gaming PC. So you say, Theft, that the GTA4 graphics are amazing on the PS3 - that's good to know.

Rich

 

Hehe, finally come to realise it? It's what we've been telling you all along, you can buy a Q6600, EP43-DS3L, 4GB of Corsair DDR2 and an HD4850 all for $450-$500.
I tend to play at around 16-20" from the screen, that's about as close as is realistic! haha
An HD4850 will probably play the game ok at that resolution mostly maximum, if not completely. I have maximised most of the settings on my X2 at 1680x1050, and I don't think the game makes very good use of dual graphics, though I could be wrong. One thing, a Quad core is compulsary for the game, it does use it, and is pretty much unplayable without one. If you like super accurate graphics Rich, the PS3 will disappoint you, bitterly. It's leaps and bounds ahead of the old generation stuff, but especially on a big 46", you'll find yourself wishing you were playing the game on your PC, especially with a PS3, the lighting effects are almost always overdone and thoroughly unconvincing, not to mention the resolution is lower (1024x600 versus your 1440x900, let alone a bigger PC monitor) and the consoles use minimum detail level with 10% distancing effects. I use 100% and Medium/High for the Textures/Render Quality, and at 1.76 Megapixels, not 0.61. It's easy to be sucked in by the graphics on a big screen for games, and for a lot of people, they don't care, they're usually lost in how good the game is, but having seen what games CAN look like, notably things like Half Life 2 Episode Two with 8xAA at 2560x1600 (Oh and not only does that run on my PC, it would work fine on an HD4850 1GB too), I can't forget about it when playing console games, as the difference between the two is literally astronomical. The old problem, once you start caring, you can't stop caring...

Here's how GTA4 looks on the Xbox 360 (whether or not you think the lighting is better on it than the PS3, the resolution is higher)
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360...381/grand-theft-auto-iv-20080425114833860.jpg

How I run the PC version:
http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/633/gta4pcxy7.jpg

All this said, the console version of the game is certainly a lot more reliable, there are a fair few bugs with the PC version yet to be patched out (do not get the preliminary patch, it's nasty), if they ever are, and you are literally brute-forcing bad code with the system requirements.

 

I'm sorry boss binkie. Just felt it helped get my point across loool, I'll try to use less abusiveness next time