The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

29FPS with CF disabled.

with CF disabled the CPU usage is 48%, where as with CF enabled its 66%.

3.91GHz on my Q9550, and 66% usage. 2.6GHz Penryn C2Q.

 

2.6Ghz? The Q9550 is 2.83 stock... :S
Also, Penryn is a very broad term, it specifically refers to a Laptop Dual core processor, but non-specifically refers to the 45nm architecture. I think I'll stick to calling them Yorkfields.

 

Sam, by the way, I'm going over your performance chart again. The Hells Highway, the bottom line on each set of resolutions, just arrived in the mail from my ebay purchase.

My monitor, at 19" 1440x900, equivalent to 1280x1024, is below the 20-22" monitors (I guess at 1680x1050) that you reference.

So my question is, for Hells Highway you say HD3870 or above for the 22" monitors. My card, the 3850, of course is weaker than that, but I'm only pushing 75% as many pixels (so from that standpoint my 512mb gfx memory ought to be equivalent to the 640mb on the 8800 you mention.) Would you suggest I try to install the game next week, and see what happens, or save myself some frustration and hold off until the upgrade?

(I notice that on the relative performance, you rank the 3850 512mb at about 84% of the performance of the 3870 - of course I don't know how agp factors in, not to mention P4 hahaha)

Rich

 

The HD3850 will probably be fine, as 1680x1050 is 36% more pixels than 1440x900 and the HD3850, at least in 256MB PCIe form is only 28% slower. However, pixel count does not always match up to performance. In many cases, as long as you don't use AA (which would cripple a 256MB HD3850, is yours the 256 or the 512?) you don't gain much extra performance from reducing the pixel count, and vice versa. However, this chart only considers the graphics cards. I would expect your P4 to be a major cause of performance problems in the game.

 

i meant a 2.6 yorkfeild should be the minimum needed

 

Mine is the 512mb 3850. Yes, undoubtedly I will be P4 cpu bottlenecked - I could have guessed as much from COD4 - running 95% cpu usage and 50% gfx usage when it runs halfway smooth.

Well, I might try it a bit. I almost hate to "ruin" the game, similar to how I feel about crysis and FC2, when with some patience I could max it out and glory in the graphics, which PC Gamer raved about. I'll probably have to run it at the special setting they support called: "center of the earth ultra-low-everything for retarded systems" LOL.

No offense meant for "special" people, boozer.

hahahahah - Rich

 

It can play decently on Core 2 Duos. My dual core machine runs it pretty well with all settings at about 30% with high texture and render quality at 1680 res.

 

Thats still really good for GTA IV I wish I got 43 lol

 

So did I, and I get 51 in the benchmark, in the game it dips below 25 a fair bit.

 

Estuansis, you're just tryin to rub it in - wasn't it you who said "2005 technology, and now it's 2008 - well almost 2009." That hurt bro! Hahahahaha.

(Sam says I have to go quad - no core 2 duo - if I want any chance at GTA4.)

 

Not so much ANY chance - but seriously, to up the settings (which is why you want to upgrade right?) you're really going to want a Quad for GTA4.
Just installed the PC version of Mass Effect. Shame upping the resolution only makes the menu look good. The game is undeniably still the same resolution the Xbox runs at, certainly all the textures are, at least.

 

Yeah, that WOULD be the idea behind the upgrade for sure!!! Hahahaha! Good point!!

Hey, remind me to ask you guys later about laptop recommendations and what I should look for.

I am going to start holding open houses next year during the week, and I will need a laptop with LONG battery life - or maybe just extra batteries. My budget is under $500. Used is fine. Do they all have batteries you can slide in and out? I'll have to pick up a wireless card, or tether the laptop to a new business cell phone.

Should I buy new from Dell? Should I ask boozer to help me find a killer deal? I figure core 2 duo, 80 gig.

By the way, I would actually want to wipe the drive, and repartition it and run w98 and xp dual boot (I have some important business software - paperport - that runs way better in w98 mode - creates smaller and faster files downloading listings from the real estate web site - versus the xp version.)

I don't know if my W98 cd will let me do the partitioning - it should. Well, I can google and research that a little bit more.
Rich

 

Just be advised 98 does not support NTFS, so I would recommend partitioning the drive using XP, making an extra FAT32 partition solely to put 98 on. You will want NTFS over FAT32 as FAT32 can't see any file bigger than 4GB.

 

I would love to partition using XP, but I have never figured out how to get XP to partition OTHER than NTFS, using Disk Manager. The only option it gives you is NTFS. Maybe partitioning off the XP disk gives you more options - maybe that's how I can do it. Or for that matter, maybe I can partition off the W98 disk - I'm trying to remember if the W98 CD is a bootable ROM like the XP CD is. If not, maybe I can just copy my W98 startup floppy to my flash card, and boot off that, assuming the laptop bios allows me to boot off a usb device. What laptop does anybody recommend?

Sam, regarding disk size, you will be surprised, but FAT32 was expanded, I suppose they had to do that before XP fully caught on, and it supports drives way bigger than 4 gigs, which - I think you're right - was the original upper limit. Mo says he has gone all the way up to 160 gigs! I don't know about that, but I am right now typing on a computer that has two drives, both FAT32, the C drive is 40 gigs, and the newly cloned D drive is 80 gigs!!! Here's the proof!!!

........

When you run DOS fdisk, to do the partitioning, I seem to recall it asks if you if you have a Large Volume beyond 4 gigs - I just did this recently.

I was running out of disk space on this computer, with two 40 gig FAT32 drives, dual boot W98 and XP, but before they get impossible to find, I purchased some cheap 500 gig IDE drives from newegg for my two IDE hard drive enclosures. That freed up the drives that were in the enclosures, so the larger NTFS, at 160 gigs, went into my gaming rig, and the 80 gig NTFS got repartitioned to FAT32, as you see in the image above, and went into this business computer, after I cloned the 40 gig over with norton ghost - which handles the formatting as part of the cloning process. I wanted both my drives here to stay FAT32, so that when I'm on windows 98 on the C drive, I can fully access the D drive.

Up to recently, here on my business machine, I used to have my everyday desktop on the C drive on Windows 98 - outlook express, Internet Explorer, talking to you guys on the forum, everything. Other than my gaming rig, I rarely used XP unless I needed to do a lot of color printing on my Epsons. There is a certain type of real estate that I used to do until just recently in this market crash, that involved downloading and printing to paperport hundreds of pages of real estate listings weekly. The W98 version of PaperPort produces a 500kb 300dpi 24-bit compressed color thumbnail, which prints out very nicely on my color Epson 980 network workhorses, after I modify each listing by adding phone numbers that were removed when the listing expired, etc., pulling from another data base, or from the tax rolls, so I can then call and solicit the listing. The XP version of the program does the same thing, but each final image is about 1.5 mb in size, taking 3X more time to download. If I ever go back to working expired listings, I need Windows 98. Yeah boozer and estuansis, that was me on the web site - I never answered before 'cause I friggin' HATE that picture LOL

But 6 months ago I thought my C drive on this machine was going bad - I had to leave my side cover off so I could jiggle the IDE cable to the C drive, when the bios wouldn't find my IDE drives, which started happening every few days.

It turned out to be a conflict with the ATI 9800 graphics card I had, which I had burned up by removing the fans from an after-market heat sink that Mo and I had installed years ago. Before I figured that out, however, I moved over here to XP, and I grew to like it. I still print to paperport, like tonight I printed the receipt from an ebay game I bought, but printing out a page here and there is no problem. And there is nothing like XP stability - I haven't seen a blue screen in ages LOL. Plus somebody once said that although Windows 98 can see the whole 1 gig memory I have, it can really only effectively use just 512mb of it, whereas XP for sure loves to use the whole thing as we all know!

Rich

 

FAT32 recognises drives bigger than 4GB, but can't create or read single files bigger than 4GB, such as DVD images.
To create a FAT32 partition, do not create the full size partition when installing Windows, then format the remaining space once in XP to be FAT32 you can install 98 on.

 

Wow, Sam, you said file, and I read it as drive. Duhhh! Too much ebay buying tonight has me stoopid. Or maybe it's the aluminum hahaha. Btw, why is YOUR Lexa aluminum and the new Lexas are steel?

Also, you are implying install W98 after XP - but I have never known of how to do that - we usually install 98, and then when you go to install XP it says "Oh, you already have an operating system, do you want this one as an additional?" You say "Yes" and then it asks which partition you want it on, and then you have dual boot.

As far as I recall, W98 is not smart like that, and doesn't ask you questions like that, nor does it allow you to install it into particular partitions. (I may have that wrong.)

But anyway, if I can create two partitions on the laptop drive, they can both be FAT32 - in fact I WANT them both to be FAT32 - XP of course runs fine with either file structure, although optimized for NTFS. So then, if I am correct in needing to start with W98, I assume it would put itself into the first partition. But maybe not.

Or are you saying, create a small partition for W98, leave the rest of the disk unpartitioned, install w98, which will put itself into the only part of the disk that is partitioned, then, during the XP install, partition the rest of the disk FAT32 for XP?

That was question #1 about the laptop.

Here's question #2 about my gaming rig:

Can I undo dual boot which I no longer need on that machine? I have no need for windows 98 on my gaming rig, and there are no xvga drivers for the new cards - not even the 3850 - W98 runs in 16 colors at 800x600 - ugh - ugh - ugly!! That's why I'm selling off the 3850, but I'll keep the x850xtpe - ati made a w98 driver for that board. I can have a nice counter-strike spare rig, and still run business applications, 24 bit color, 1024x768, on w98.

Right now, all of my computers have XP as the second boot on the D drive, windows 98 being on the C drive where the boot.ini file resides. I want to be able to boot into vista, or xp, but have no use at all for windows 98 on the gaming rig.

The new motherboards will support only two ide devices, one being my dvd burner, the other, if I keep my current setup, being a small C drive where w98 is installed, just to sit there so my dual boot into XP on the D drive continues to work. Since you said the newer motherboards never lose the sata controllers no matter what you do to the fsb timing, then I will clone my gaming rig 160 gig pata D to a 640 gig sata, adding a 30 gig partition for vista, and one more partition as a spare, for something like windows 7 perhaps, and if not, just for data.

So I suppose I could make everything work with the little 40 gig pata physical drive C. But couldn't I just get rid of that drive completely?

What would happen if I took out the little C Pata drive? XP wouldn't boot of course because it wouldn't be able to find the boot.ini file on the C drive I just removed.

But there is something called fixboot. I used it one time when I had to re-install windows 98, which lost my boot.ini file on the C drive. A microsoft document in Windows XP Help told me to boot off the xp cd, which got me to the repair console, where I then typed "fixboot" and it replaced the missing boot.ini file on the other drive. Now what if there were no other drive. I am wondering, if I did the same thing having removed the C drive, would it put the boot.ini file then on the sata root, and I would no longer have dual boot? Or maybe fixboot is not appropriate in that situation.

It's not worth spending a lot of time on, because the workaround is just to keep the little C drive. But certainly I could try that fixboot trick and see what happens. I could make a copy first of all root files on the D drive, in case I had to undo any weirdness. Do you have any thoughts on that Sam?

 

The original Lexa is the 'premium product' that comes with the carry bag as standard (though when I asked, they gave me another anyway) and uses the Aluminium design. The Blacklines are the more midrange cases, which are Steel, and cost far less.
As for the drives, I'm not entirely certain as I use separate physical drives for this purpose - it makes it all a lot simpler..

 

I agree 100% - I have always used two separate drives for the dual boot. The laptop is going to blaze new ground for me. LOL

Well, what follows is a review of Brother in Arms, Hells Highway.
Hells Highway ran okay for about 70% of the game, until I got to the rain. Crashed repeatedly - doesn't matter what I do with the resolution or settings - all the way down to 640x400, all low, and I can't get through the rain for more than 5 minutes without reboot - showing about 95%+ cpu activity, and almost no gpu usage with these low settings. So that's it, no more Hells Highway until the 6600 upgrade Lol.

The game seems like it was rushed into production after numerous delays. Once you get past the weird Max Payne-ish opener in a bizarre hospital setting, with strange fluorescent colors - totally garish - the game opens for real on the gorgeous Holland countryside - and it REALLY is beautiful. They are pushing a quote from PC Gamer - "best looking wwII game ever" - not sure if that's true - maybe. But when I say rushed into production - the game prominantly displays Version 1.0.0 as if there will be several fixes - I looked for a patch but none available - I suppose it will depend on how well it sells.

There are no customizable controls!! Unheard of. For both prior games I used the middle mouse - my grenade button on COD4 - for the special squad command function. The right mouse is always for scoping in, on any fps I play. Not with Hells Highway. Right mouse is for squad commands, middle for scoping in - can't change it! Hahahaha.

You can imagine the numerous times I almost sent my squads to their deaths trying to scope in on distant enemies, hahahaha. "Go there, no Go there - right where you already are LOL"

But the countryside is certainly beautiful. The sky boxes are obviously fixed in position, and distant trees often are merely 2d cutouts - kind of strange. I think those are things that would have been smoothed out if they had not had a huge last minute deadline. From Miles being in the business - I know how it can be when these games get delayed and the publisher finally forces everybody on the development team to put on a big rush - Hells Highway was supposed to have come out this past summer.

But that might be Ubi's mistake, because those flaws could really hurt sales of the game. I am not sorry I got it, used on ebay, for about $10. See what I mean, it's already super cheap. Parts of the game are very nice.

They have a new thing, called "digging in" which is supposed to be somewhat realistic. You can "hug" a tree, or a low wall, etc. with the Q key (lol my quick change weapons key - not for this game!) so you can't get hurt by enemy fire. Then, still in this "dug in" state, you can press the move key, like W, and you will extend over the wall where you can scope in for extra accuracy, and blast the germans when they stick their heads up - but when you take too much fire and everything starts turning red, you just let go of the W, and drop back behind the wall, and you regain your health. I started using this feature more and more - I was playing on veteran - but I haven't unlocked the hardest setting yet by finishing the game - and without using this "dug in" feature certain sections would have been almost impossible.

I think for the series, three parts so far, that part two, Earned in Blood, has been the best game so far. It had much better graphics than part one, Road to Hill 30, and slightly better game play than the other two.

But getting back to my review, lol, the graphics of Hells Highway are often flat out gorgeous, (on my new Dell LCD), ignoring the 2d distant tree cutouts that appear in a few scenes. Water is very very nice - inside textures of rich oak panelling is nicely done. Lamps can be shot and knocked over, but candles are immovable, hahahaha. I guess they didn't want to start any more fires than there already are - fire effects are pretty nice!

Wait til you first see the farm with the windmill. The whole thing is like being inside of an exquisite painting. Estuansis would not have to worry about not being able to enjoy the ambiance. For the most part, the germans stay where they are, holding their designated positions, until you advance your squads to engage them. The first farm section with the windmill, was not rushed. It must be one of the chapters that got to the PC Gamer reviewer.

That's probably why the game was late. In a few chapters they reached such a high level of artistic expression, that they decided to try to go for superlative quality, which put the game way behind schedule. Overall result was a huge rush at the end, already 6 months late, and an unfinished feel - starting out with No Customizable Controls - wow! You might see that in a demo, usually not, but I haven't seen that for a long time in a production game - too bad really. I don't know how the game is selling but unlike COD4, and COD2, both of which are killer - no real flaws at all!! - I have a feeling that sales of this title are going to be disappointing.

Back to the good parts.

They have a tank chapter which is very short, but very nice. Better than previous tank chapters. It is over almost before it begins - they should have tripled the size of that chapter.

And they now have a very nice bazooka team - don't worry about mp3 machine gun emplacements behind sand bags - get the bazooka team within striking distance, and watch the bodies fly! Hahahaha. The bazooka guy explodes trucks very nicely too. And get him close enough, that mp3 nest up there way high in that building quickly turns into a smoking hole LOL.

Also, another cool thing they have is destructable environments - absent from COD4 - mostly fences and light wood barriers. If your enemy is behind the fence, you can shoot out the fence. Indicate to the bazooka squad that they should take out a fence, and watch the fireworks - bodies flying and body parts coming off - decapitations - missing legs - nice and gruesome! That can work against you, of course. I was dug in behind a fence, up against 5 nazis, which worked for about a minute allowing me to kill one guy, until my protection evaporated as fence parts started disappearing, when the guys started spraying in my direction!

Going back to bodies flying, occasionally they go into slow-mo, Max Payne style, for when you cap a german behind a wall with a nice head shot - that is very cool - you practically see the skull explode - it is bloooody. By the way, the germans are very hateful, so you really don't mind blowing their brains out. They shoot or hang innocent young dutch maidens - gets my blood boiling so I would gladly go back in time and massacre the lot of those wretched Nazi wankers, as the new Brit team-mate calls them. Lol. They have to add some humor in the middle of the horror.

Oh, speaking of the new Brit - he adds a lot to the game - he is one of the best things about part three. I forgot his name, but when I first heard him talking, at the farmyard with the windmill, I was looking around for the British platoon that must have showed up.

But he's an actual member of the 3-man assault squad and gets some good air time "What's your story mate? As for me, bastard son of a rich father and poor mother." His favorite thing to say when the bullets are flying is "we seem to be in an unfortunate stalemate." His other favorite is, directed at the sergeant you play in the game "Somebody was looking out for you on that one." Also, "You're a lucky yank, Dave." It is definitely a lot of fun having him on board. They probably took a clue from Call of Duty with all the great British campaigns.

The banter is funny, and adds a lot also, but they could have doubled or tripled the number of sentences for a little more variety. Still - it's pretty good. "The Jerries are really getting me pissed off today." "Well, you're not going to kill them by talking." "Somehow, I don't think they speak English." "Hey Fritz how'd you like that one." "One less Kraut to worry about." "This position is no good, but ... it might work." Etc. (not a very long list of etc. LOL)

The game is definitely worth the money, but they lost a chance to REALLY score in the final rush to ship. Art takes a back seat sometimes to business concerns - getting the damn thing out in time for Christmas!!

I'd have to give it a 7.5. I'd give #1, Road to Hill 30, a 6.5, and #2, Earned in Blood, an 8. For comparison purposes I'd rank COD 2, for its time, a 9.5, and COD 4, a 9.8, Half Life Episode 2, 9.5, the new Medal of Honor Airborne, a 6.5, and Medal of Honor Pacific Assault, the best of the series, a 9.5, and whichever title it was, Medal of Honor or COD, that featured the Rangers scaling the vertical cliffs on D-Day, a 9.3. If you haven't played squad-based play, you should give the Brothers in Arms series a try. You might want to pick up #2, Earned in Blood, the best of the series so far, in my opinion, for extra squad deployment practice, before launching in on this new Hells Highway title - assuming you have the horsepower to play in the rain. Just make sure you deploy the squad on mouse 2, and scope in on mouse 3, like the new game. LOL

Rich

 

I find myself playing with partitions as of late. Vista X64 Ultimate SP1 on a 250GB Partition and XP Pro SP3 on the rest. I find myself using Vista less and less just because XP is so much more problem free. I hope Windows 7 works with more Creative sound cards because even the Audigy 2 is still in widespread use. I know the absence of my X-Fi Xtreme Music hurts a lot in music and some games.

Speaking of which, I'd also like to add: anyone who isn't using a decent Audigy sound card or similar is missing out. Onboard HD is nothing compared to a real Audigy or X-Fi. Even on my cheap 32W Logitech speakers, the difference is immediate and extremely noticeable. So much so that I don't feel the slightest urge to upgrade them. They perform excellently with a sound card that is already 2 1/2 years old.

 

That's interesting. I was playing more Valve online games for a while there - counter strike and day of defeat - and the microphone is used all the time while you play those games - it's a big part of the multiplayer experience unlike with COD4.

But I found that I couldn't get my mic to work on my audigy card, it overpowered the output although the mic tests indicated perfect - but when I plugged into the on-board realtek - my mic problems disappeared. Nobody could help me and I never worked that out. So my gaming rig Medusa 5.1 headphones run off the onboard realtek - the new upgrade is going to be the same way - gigabyte cf mobo has Realtek 8 channel sound. And I don't have a sound card any more. But for $60 or so, if you actually have speakers, and no mic problems, that's good to know that the Audigy or something similar makes a noticeable difference. I'm glad you are enjoying the sound quality.

Partition-wise, estuansis, let me ask you. Is it a good idea to create enough room for the operating system, plus extra room for the program files? You couldn't really do that, however, because how do you ever figure out how many programs you might have? But you can put a program anywhere, right, like data?

I am asking, because on my sata 640 gig, my plan, per shaff, was to set aside two 30 gig partitions, one for vista, and one for a spare - maybe for windows 7. So let's say I am running vista, and I have only 1 gig left in my vista partition, but 200 gigs available in my xp partition, I can install the program on that logical drive and nobody cares, right?

Rich