The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Is it just the Dark Knight it happens for? It could be a badly encoded file (or is it the genuine BluRay disc?)

 

i downloaded the file from torrents website. it played fine on my girlfriends computer through her hdmi connection from her computer to her hdtv. it is at 1080p. the file does not say it is bluray but yes it is 1080p.

 

Try installing VLC media player and see how that fares.

 

hi ,

i downloaded the vlc player and it is ungodly worse than the otehr players. i forgot to mention if it makes a differance , but i am using the CCCP( conbined comunity codec packs) might htis be the issue i am having wit h my player ?

 

I never had any luck with any of those. FFDShow and CoreAVC are the only codec packs I suggest you ever install.

 

DriverHeaven have recently published a large benchmark test that includes all current gen top-end solutions, including GTX295 Quad SLI and HD4870X2 Quad Crossfire, on a large number of games. Stay put for some statistics to go up.
General consensus is much more promising than anything I've seen before. I'm genuinely excited now.
GTA4 does have scaling for two GPUs, but not for four. Curiously scaling is even lower for SLI, bringing GTX280 SLI and one HD4870X2 very close together. The difference is the SLi config has a much better minimum frame rate, which is the real killer for GTA4.

 

Well, I like the "genuinely excited" part!!!

... I like that part wayyy better than the GTA4 part. I'm still trying to get my arms around the concept of better average performance, but worse MINIMUM performance. LOL

Is that like the Theory of Relativity which I also am shaky on? :O

 

If it makes you feel any better Rich, there are very few occasions in this benchmark with that problem. I'm halfway through my data chart and have yet to encounter one.

 

hi,

i downloaded zoom player max. the audio and video are sync almost perfect ....except that the music is loud and the back ground sounds are good as well. the only bad is that the audio for the people speaking is set low almost hard to hear . is their a way to change this to a normal level of hearing ??

any help is grateful and thank you

 

Unfortunately whenever I've encountered that problem, I've just changed the program I use to fix it.

 

Minimum frame rates:
http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/5219/xbmminimumsx7.gif

Average frame rates:
http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/9179/xbmaveragerh8.gif

The difference between the HD4870X2 and two HD4870X2s in Crossfire X is between the Pink and Plum coloured lines.

 

Sam I am just about to go through your energy curves, (yes I was very glad to hear that halfway through you hadn't yet found that BETTER AVERAGE but WORSE MINIMUM mind-blowing dichotomy that was causing me to wonder if I already had an advanced case of alzheimer's, lol) but as I am trimming down my wish lists and getting to some of the final new build versions, I am starting to have some basic questions arise regarding 1. PSU, and 2. motherboard & gfx model - the last two are linked because if I get a version of the 4870x2 that is so wide I can't fit two of them on my motherboard choice - then I'm screwed for quad crossfire.

1. PSU. Sam, I remember you talking about lower energy efficiency in US versus Britain, and that here we should buy slightly bigger PSUs to compensate. So I guess that means if you're using a Zalman 850, I should get the 1000. (Plus I can't find an 850 on newegg.) While I'm not wild about the 6 separate rails, I went back to some notes a few months back with some very impressive pictures about the zalman heat pipes and high efficiency - and you had noted the zalman as being one of the very quietest PSUs around. Corsair unfortunately has a lot of bad newegg reviews about loud clicking noises (somebody said it was the pwm kate loon fan running at low revs.) On the other hand, I also remember you saying that zardon broke a bunch of 1kw PSUs, until he started using the Corsair 1000HX and his problem was solved - so maybe I shouldn't worry about clicking - I game with headphones - and Corsair gets me back to only two rails not 6 to deal with. So with all that - who remains as your favorite 1k PSU - is it a tossup between those two?

2. Now, the thornier issue - motherboard and dual gfx combination. You mentioned Palit revolution with an especially nice two fan heatpipe cooler, and I initially countered with Asus 3-fan design. But just now the current Asus reviews are awful - a lot of people complaining about no heat pipes - just three separate aluminum coolers - not even copper! And I'm reading some "loud noise" reviews. So I'm having second thoughts about the Asus version of the 4870x2. Palit on the other hand is getting rave reviews (wow youtube video - they got the palit to 825 gpu clock, and memory to 1140 vs 900 on reference) if I can find one to buy somewhere.

But Palit is a 3-slot solution!! You just now had a bit of a problem fitting a 4870x2 in your number one gfx card slot. The motherboard I would be using is the gigabyte crossfire UD3P you recommended. Is there enough space on that gigabyte board to fit two Palits?

But maybe that's not a very important question after all, since Palit is nowhere to be found in the western world!! (Why in heaven do the aussies have it - is that where it's built?) So I'll probably drop back to the no-heat-pipe 3 fan asus design after all!

Well, the graphs were quite interesting!

The plum definitely outperforms the pink - in some cases just barely, in other cases quite significantly! My main interest of course now is 2560x1600 with that huge Dell sitting over there on the other table! Just talking about the few games that I'm familiar with on the left side of the graph, what I'm seeing is:

MINIMUMS: The minimum fps at 4xAA on Cod5, at 30" resolution, jumps from an okay 35 to an even better nice and smooth almost-50! Crysis Warhead goes from a dismal minimum 17 to a nicer 23 (but that's only at 1920x1200 - the box in the middle of the monitor lol), and, back up to full 2560x1600, the minimum Far Cry 2 at 8x jumps from comedic 3 to still dismal 7 but, hey, that's better - and why the hell would we want more than 4xAA anyway? GTA4, quad or no quad, drops to minimum 15, in the rough spots, and Left 4 Dead 8x, never below 50, is now breezing along running from and shooting zombies, never below 80 for quad.

AVERAGES: For averages, the improved fps in crysis warhead is about 4-5 fps more from the lower through the higher resolutions up to 1920x1200. Presumably those lines will continue parallel on into 2560x1600 so that when a single 4870x2 becomes unplayable, the extra 4-5 fps from quad crossfire will keep you going for a bit!

The Far Cry 2 2560x1600 8X AA quad cf yields almost double the fps - from an unplayable 10 on a single 4870x2, to a barely playable 20 on the quad cf, down from 70 versus 100 with no AA. Again, I would deduce from that: choose 4xAA and with quad crossfire you'll probably average in the smooth 40 fps, much nicer than the somewhat jerky 20's you'd get from just one card.

For GTA4, quad cf shows hardly any improvement - maybe 1-2 fps over single 4870x2 at 2560x1600, both showing average fps in the upper 30s. Left 4 Dead is showing about a 25fps gain, from 70fps to 95, at 8xAA, 2560x1600. I don't know if all settings are maxed, but you sure don't need 95 fps, so if not, then it's time to max things out for the zombies!

So Sam, it looks good! We'll have to see what happens when you jump on all that raw horsepower and take that quad crossfire for a wild ride next week when the ebay card shows up!!!

Rich

 

Okay Rich, a few things.
1. That isn't actually quite what I said. PSUs in the US are less efficient, but what that means is that for the same DC output, they use more power at the socket. It does not mean you need to buy a more powerful unit to get the job done.
2. As it stands, I have not seen a noise level review of the HX1000, but I do know it is meant to be a quiet PSU as they come. The Zalman ZM1000-HP performs excellently in that department however.
Zardon's 1KW PC test (well, 1060W at the socket, so more like 900W actual DC load) broke an Enermax Galaxy, but runs fine on the Corsair 1KW. However, bear in mind those tests were run using a Skulltrail system with TWO 130W QX9775s, and I'm pretty sure he later overclocked those too. The rated wattage of a Q9550 like mine is 95W, and it's actual draw is closer to 80W when not overclocked, and more importantly, there's only one of them! Ultimately, I have yet to see a benchmark with two HD4870X2s read above 800W ac input. 800W a.c. at typical 85% efficiency is around 680W, well short of the 850 the Zalman is meant to provide. Also consider that these are peak figures, this level of stress isn't maintained due to the fact that the second X2 is rarely running at 100% usage. I still prefer that it would, but that's infant technology for you. The HD3870X2 was the first product to offer quad crossfire, and only came out about 11-12 months ago.
3. Asus' golden flower style cooler for the 3870 was excellent, and I see it used on the 4850 and 4870 with confidence. However, two GPUs require something far more beefy, and the cooler they've used for the X2 reminds me of their newer 'Dark Knight' cooler, which has received far less admirable reviews. Could well be yet another case of Asus starting to go cheap.
The Palit is by far the best of the X2s I've seen, it's not ridiculously priced like the Gainward, but offers better clock speeds and a much improved cooler. I've no idea how quiet it is though.
4. The main problem with the standard X2 fitting in the slot is the width of the cooler being so near the slot, it causes very close calls with other components on the board.
As it happens, due to the spacing, my board could fit two Palits, but NOTHING else. Most boards and cases typically have 7 expansion slots. Those two cards would take up all but the top PCIe 1x slot.
5. Nowhere to be found in the western world? It's on sale at several stores here, around £385, not too much more than the other brands.
6. With the graphs, remember it's the vertical distance between them that counts, so if the lines are sloping steeply, they may not look as far apart as they actually are.
7. I agree with you on the 8x for Far Cry 2, it isn't necessary, and 4x will perform miles better than 8x.

Right now there's heavy snowfall over here so deliveries could be impeded by that. I will let you know when stuff arrives

 

Some graphs more relevant to those on realistic budgets


http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/61/midrangeaveragegt3.gif
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/7011/midrangeminimumng9.gif

 

@ sam

Another ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congrats man, looks like your on your way to putting together one of the sickest rigs I've seen in a while

@rich
Congrats to you as well, my man for getting that beast of a 30" monitor, guess all you need now is a rig to go with it.

haven't been able to post much because of school and stuff, but I have 2 weeks off from next week so I will be able to play alot of the more recent releases like left4dead mirrors edge, and the fear 2 demo

 

The 9600GT again amazes for the price and the 9800GT also puts up a good show. But the HD4850 seems to be the clear winner. Some are showing up at Newegg for as little as $140.

The 9600GSO is a strange beast. Some dual slot versions can be unlocked to an 8800GTS 512MB with full performance. Which is not far from a 4850 in my own experience. But they are pretty poor stock.

 

The 9600GSO and 8800GTS G92 (and consequently, 9800GTX+) start out almost identically, the 9600GSO is just greatly crippled. Consider that the 9800GTX+ is the HD4850's rival, that shows just how much potential they have. Even so, the HD4850 is by far the best of the bunch, and one of the best per £/$ too.

 

With some new games coming out soon that I'm going to want to play it's probably time to look for a new GPU as my antiquated 8800GTS is starting to show some signs of old age. Originally I was looking to get a GTX200 series or HD4870X2 but their prices are a bit out of the budget right now. The GTX295 for $439 was hard to resist though lol. What do you think I'll need to play the new games at 1680x1050 at max settings and maybe with some AA? With the HD4850 in the ~150$ range it's the obvious buy imo except that I've been wondering if I got an nVidia card in the same price range (9800GTX/9800GTX+) and then use my 8800GTS as a PhysX processor to get similar or better FPS (at max settings) with the added benefits of PhysX.
One of the reasons I'm hesitant to get a newer GPU is that it seems that nVidia's next line of cards that will utilize GDDR5 should be out fairly soon (sometime this summer maybe?), and I'd rather wait for those cards since I plan to do some major upgrading in about 5-6 months. Would you guy's recommend waiting for the next series or just buy what is out now?

 

Graphics cards change at an absurd pace. If you want the performance now, buy now. If there's nothing that runs badly, wait. It's pretty much that simple. Outside perhaps Mirrors Edge there are very few PhysX games that are of any consequence (hence why people still buy ATI cards that don't have it). Your best bet now is probably an HD4850 or HD4870. The 9800GTX+ is marginally slower than the HD4850 and considerably more expensive.

 

Hey Sam, thanks for the correcting my confusion about the PSUs. With stateside less efficient electricity, I don't need to buy more watts, I'm just going to burn more electricity producing those same watts - I finally understand.

With that clarification, then if you have confidence in 850 watts, that sounds good to me. So I'll just save $100 and go with the Corsair 850, which is a single rail solution which I prefer, and not too many "noisy" reviews on newegg.

Regarding two Palits taking up ALL the expansion slots - I think I'm okay with that, since I use onboard sound, onboard lan, onboard video (just kidding.) So are you telling me you think the ud3p will hold two Palits?

Yes Sam, I'm serious, it appears that they don't have the Palits over here in the New World, which proves that you Euros still hate us despite Obama! LOL Hopefully that will improve in the next month or so (if not, how would it work to send you a bunch of money including shipping charges, and an extra $100 for your trouble, and have you mail me two of the monsters?)

Ray, over in SA (NOT africa) Thanks for the congratulations!!

Yeah, man, I am so stoked about the 30" monitor sitting over there on that table - I'm looking at it right now - I pray to it every time I enter my office LOL. I swear I'm going to post a picture of it - maybe today! I just hope that some day in the eventual future I will be able to lift my head and crawl out from under the sting of Estuansis' remarks about "2005 technology in 2009!" Hahahahah!

Rich