The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Estuansis: It's the Intel CPU you missed....
What are some of the bugs you've had out of interest? I always knew nvidia had big issues with vista in the past, but then since ATI recently have as well, I just thought it's something you have to live with, regardless of manufacturer.
Omegaman: There's nothing that I know of, the best means would probably be a G15 keyboard. My Pertelian external LCD will only show me my CPU temp, so not really that useful. It's my hope that one day I can make something that runs off USB and reads everything that Everest sees.

Estuansis again: You do realise that window mode does not activate PowerPlay and does not work with crossfire? Window a game like crysis on your system and you've gone from two 750mhz GPUs to one 500mhz GPU, and it'll show in the performance.
I was using Everest as my hardware monitor, but when you have a system that records ovr a certain number of values, it starts leaking interrupts, which slow you system to a crawl and will eventually BSOD it if left long enough. Speedfan has no such issue, but can barely read a thing with modern boards outside the latest version, which I have yet to try.

 

A few CTDs as of recently. Especially in Grid and CoD: WaW. Not a rampant problem or anything. You can restart the game and keep playing past the point of CTD for hours or days without issue, but it was a killer in the 24 Hours of Le Mans XD. Also CTD when alt-tabbing in a game that normally does it just fine. And some weird flickering with static 2D props. Newer drivers have helped a lot but I still get it infrequently. Again, these problems aren't very frequent or crippling. Maybe once for every 10+ hours of play in said games. And you can re-load the game and keep playing normally.

ATi has had fewer of these issues for me though, especially with the newer drivers. Just generally more bug-free.

Aha, I forgot XD Just an idea off the top of my head for a real-time readout

I just normally play for a timed session, say 20 minutes, and log my temps. Works for me. Maximum temp is what you should really be looking at anyway.

Everest is a good as a once-over monitor, but is practically useless as an all the time background program.

As far as Speedfan. Detects all temps correctly on both of my boards which are both fairly recent. Some boards will have the temps represented as Temp 1, Temp 2, Temp 3, etc. I just run Orthos to see which one responds the most directly to processor load and work my way from there using process of elimination. Temps 1, 2, and 3 are usually the CPU, the chipset, and the ambient temp(in no particular order.) The CPU scales up and down directly with processor load. The chipset idles hotter and is slower to cool down being as it has a passive heatsink. And ambient remains more or less the same and will respond somewhat to room temp and not much else. Maybe a few degrees higher when gaming.

Maybe I'm wrong and these are faulty sensors or something. But I've found no reason to believe I am. The characteristics of each temp match surprisingly well.

 

The 24hr Lemans in GRiD was weak, it was only 12 minutes. What about the real 24 hour Le mans races?
Cat 9.1 had CTDs and Cat 9.2 had VPU recovers, but outside that not as many issues.
I haven't tried the new SpeedFan yet, still on the previous stone-age version.

A little discrepancy here, Everest reads 12.26V on my +12V, SpeedFan only 11.56V...

 

Well as a video game representation, I thought it was fantastic. Though I wish they could have stretched it to 24 minutes like the timer actually says. Maybe mods are around the corner? I doubt it'd be that hard to mod the length of the races... That's like my only complaint for the entire game. Even the graphics and performance are much better than Dirt. I like to treat both as one game though because they basically cover all the best types of racing

Mind you my dad and myself included are car freaks in the extreme. Racing is my favorite sport by far and one of my favorite game genres. I'm into classic cars, import tuners, prototypes, stock cars, everything. I think Grid really captured the thrill of racing perfectly. I can easily forgive a minor issue like race length. You know you actually have to be able to play the game in a realistic time-frame

Also, Formula 3 and the two man Rally races are my favorite in the two games. Just for the record.

I dunno. I get that with different programs too. Everest says 11.92v. Speedfan says 12.35v. Speedfan matches my BIOS readings for temps and voltages though so I tend to just go with that reading.

 

As someone who's played a game with a genuine 24 hour race in it (Gran Turismo 4) I think they could at least have done better than 12 minutes. Needless to say I've never played a 24 hr race all the way through even with pauses, I used the B-Spec (AI driver) for a lot of it, but I've completed at least 15 full endurance races in Gran Turismo games in my time (Usually 50-150 minutes long)
I'm not sure about graphics, I should go back and up the settings for DiRT, but the performance is definitely better in GRiD. PC racing games have always disappointed me for their lack of multiple genres, TOCA is the closest I'd come to a proper racing sim before, on the PS2. I'm still an out and out Gran Turismo fan though. I downloaded Forza 2 for the 360, but it just isn't the same, even though no GT game has yet to have damage implemented.
I also really like racing games, and I wish they'd make more good ones, utilising the PC's hardware peformance and memory capacity to expand the games a bit more.

 

Yeah I also think so. The race could have been much longer without hurting anything. But that's also why I like Dirt and Grid. Deep enough in concept to keep me hooked and absorbed in the game. But short enough races and enough variety to keep my ADHD distracted i.e. the driving can be as deep as you want it but the races are short enough to keep you from getting bored.

I would have much prefered if they took the 3 lap races to 10 laps and the 12 minutes for the 24 Hours of Lemans to say a half hour or so. Again, a very minor complaint for what is otherwise a mind blowingly awesome racing game. TOCA is good too, but Dirt and Grid are just more "fun." Like the thrill of knhowing one wrong turn can mean a completely totaled car. The flashback in Grid is especially nice, not having to restart a race after a single screw up. Maybe a bit too arcadey for some, but just fine by me

And for the record, the jaggies in GT4 are too terrible for me to enjoy the game. GT5 Prologue was much better, but it still can't hold a candle to Grid on the PC. Gran Turismo is a great series though with probably the best car selection and most faithful to true life racing. The lack of damage physics though makes the game seem a bit aged. Like being back in GT1 on the PS1 but with better graphics.

 

The graphics are abysmal in GT4, which I agree, kind of puts me off it. Despite the far fewer cars and tracks, I preferred GT3 as a game to GT4, it just seemed a better product. To me, a game in the same vein as GT3 with the same challenges, but with up to date graphics and the number of cars GT5 promises will be good, damage or not. I don't see why they can't implement damage in GT5 unless there really are that many legal issues. I always assumed it a cover-up for the PS2 not being powerful enough to produce the physics. Now they use the PS3, there's no excuse.

 

Thanks man The software somehow rings a bell. I could swear ive seen it before. Ehh...I get Déjà vu fairly regularly LOL! The Fraps crew and speedfan crew need to put their heads together LOL! ONE software. I was having an idea how one would implement the number into a game(The programming). It looks like FRAPS does that and more

I've seen some scenes I wouldn't mind freezing/capturing for a wallpaper. Somehow though, given the way encryption has been advancing, I doubt that it'll be able to capture GTA IV. I guess i'll find out soon enough. Even if it doesn't there are ways around it
Infact, ive already noticed the windows clipboard won't do it.

 

GTA4 whores the main CPU. Guess what Fraps whores to record video?

 

the GPU?
or also the CPU?

 

CPU again I'm afraid.

 

Well...the game didnt seem to be WHORING all the cores soo...It'll be interesting

 

Perhaps your GPU is holding you back until the 260 arrives. When I benched I got 77% CPU usage.

 

mmm hmmm, makes sense. Almost wanna ditch the family get together this weekend LOL!

 

LOL. Just to play GTA4?

 

Among other things, YES. LOL. The card mostly. Or should I say Brute! Because compared to my current card, the 260 is a brute.

 

Quick Q is it worth me buying a £30 PNY 8400GS 256mb with the sole purpose of unlocking PhysX stuff (I'm thinking about mirrors edge sort of thing) or would this cause massive lag??

Forgot to mention this wouldn't waste a PCI-E slot as my mobo has 4 and a couple are so tight a decent card won't fit

 

It would work well, provided you wouldn't run out of PCI express bandwidth. i.e. you'd be fine unless you're using SLI or Crossfire on a P45 board.

 

cool...
What's the deal with drivers and setup...

 

I think you can install the drivers for both at once, but I'm not certain, I'm not able to try it myself.