The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Just read some about a new Medal of Honor. Apparently they are taking a leaf from CoD's and Battlefield's books and bringing it into the 21st century. Big difference being that it won't be covering a fictional conflict. The new game will have you fighting in the modern day Middle East fighting real Al Quaeda insurgents. Hmm very interesting. Not that the setting hasn't been covered extensively, but the MoH series has always had very authentic set-pieces, if nothing else. My favorite being the Pearl Harbor level from Pacific Assault. Of course their PC series is of a higher pedigree than their shoddy console brethren. Remember Allied Assault(PC) vs Frontline(PS2/GC)? They were released as companions but Allied Assault was incredible and intense... and Frontline was quite literally target practice. Here's hoping that the new game's multi-platform release doesn't equal instant consolitis fail.

 

Was never into the MoH games really as I never much cared for the WW2 storyline most americans seem obsessed with. (Brutal stereotype, but it really does seem to be the case). Modern setting though and I'll have a look at it.

 

Neither was I but because the series' quality dropped drastically after the first 3 or so games. Allied Assault and the expansions were pretty good, Pacific Assault was good fun too. Frontline, Rising Sun, the Wii versions, and even Airborne(to a lesser extent), all sucked hard.

Most American gamers will tell you they are sick of WWII games. It got stale after CoD2 put everything else to shame. If a game happens to be good though, and it's a WWII game, then it's still a bonus

As far as an obsession? Maybe just CoD2 for me

 

Like I thought, 4Ghz would probably make 24k pretty easy.

As a side note I either never cared for or played any of the games mentioned on this page so I'll keep my 2c to myself.

 

Your CPU score is actually slightly ahead of mine (5%), but my SM2 score (typically CPU limited) is 6% higher, and the SM3 score (not really CPU limited) is 40% higher, suggesting you have about 5% extra CPU power and I have about 40% extra GPU power. What cards are you running again? You really need to get a proper sig

 

Tried to make a new cpuz sig yesterday but it refused to process my validation file even after 10 min. of messing with it.

That system was:
cpu: i7 930 @ 3.9Ghz
gpu: HD5850
RAM: 1568Mhz (think) @ 6-8-6-24

Really surprised to see a sub 4Ghz i7 beat a 4.1Ghz i5 750, don't think I've ever see that before.

Edit: it finally worked lol http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1140919

 

3dmark is fully multi-threaded. Games are not.
Also, CPUZ sigs don't show GPUs.

 

They are links to the validation page which does show the gpu

Games should be multi-threaded, lazy programmers .

oh yeah, my 930 is the second lowest clocked one submitted to HWbots XD

 

I'm reinstalling Crysis now. I had it installed once upon a time, and only played for literally only a few minutes. Don't know why I didn't play more. Perhaps it was RIGHT before I switched to release candidate(Windows 7), then never installed it. And now I run the retail edition. I'm currently encoding a BD --> 720P AVCHD. When I'm finished watching that movie...Game time

I heard some one say recently, that nvidia is very optimized for Crysis. So I should enjoy myself? I remember thinking the game looked pretty good. I think I even ran it on my 8600Gt. Not sure. Possibly not...

 

Crysis should run just fine for you. The GTX260 is more than capable. And yes you remembered correctly, Crysis is a damn good looking game ;P

Number one rule though, don't use AA.

 

For those who have been following the Building thread, they know I've been experiencing a curious lag at times. I now wonder if that lag, causes hiccups in gameplay as well. Crysis will hault for an instance, in which frame rate bottoms out. When I say instance, I mean roughly 1/10th of a second. Which is substantially less, than the lag I experience in windows. E.g. Loading an ISO image into imgburn, and having it hault/refresh/think for a moment. Usually, it will have to think for upwards of 1 full second. Thats NOT with EVERY iso image. It happens every now and again. I thought it disappeared with the install of a new PSU. I was wrong. I witnessed the lag once again. I went to delete multiple files in a download directory, and it had to think about it for a moment. I'm now leaning toward a fresh install of windows. I shall begin preparations for that unfortunate task This is the first time, that I frown about a fresh install. Much has happened since install. Networking, multiple installs, heck...we all know this song LOL! Truly unfortunate.

If the lag remains, I'll be looking at possibly replacing my Velociraptor yet again. For my last configuration with a different V-raptor, did not have this curious lag. Unfortunately, that V-raptor had a different issue. Which could have simply been a bad connection. I'll never know...

Wow, crysis can sure bring a GTX 260 to its knees. At all high settings, and 1920 resolution, I was lucky to see it hover above 30F/ps for more than a second! I had to tame it down to 1280 x 720 which seems to be fairly agreeable. Sure would like VERY HIGH settings and 60 F/ps I suppose no single GPU can do that though. But the GTX 260 is nearly outdated. In fact in an enthusiasts eyes, it is!

 

Should be a perfect marriage for 1680 x 1050. I was easily able to play it near maxed at that res with a single 4870. You shouldn't have an issue. 1920 x 1200 is a bit much, yes.

If you are interested I can tell you my tweaked very high settings and how to apply them so you can give it a try. It enables all the big shader effects, light beams, POM, etc without the performance loss of very high. It's an extremely close comparison and I have fooled even huge Crysis buffs with the finished product. The only features missing from the actual very high settings, are increased draw distance(high is sufficient anyway) and Dx10 per-object motion blur, the two biggest FPS killers in the game. All of the other eye candy is there and, in a screenshot comparison, will look nearly identical to full very high. Oh yes this mod can be applied to Warhead and Wars as well.

Real Very High:
http://www.tweakguides.com/images/Crysis_22a.jpg

My tweaked settings(mind you I have additional tweaks over this and it's an even closer comparison):
http://www.tweakguides.com/images/Crysis_22b.jpg

1680 x 1050, 4870 single card

Dx10 High - 48.3FPS

Dx10 "Cheap" V.High - 42.9FPS

Dx10 Very High - 28.6

Specifically you should be running it in Dx10, 32 bit as I've found in my results.

 

I was running it in 64 bit. I imagine that has an effect eh?

 

Umm read my edits please. I tried to provide as much info as possible. I've spent more time tweaking and experimenting with Crysis than I ever have playing it I've figured out configs for almost any system. I almost pride myself on my knowledge of the properties of the engine

Yeah 64 bit specifically will cause issues with Crysis. Many will say it helps but from my direct benchmarking, 64 bit is always 1-2FPS slower on average and results in large FPS dips.

Also mind that my tweaks include some that help performance drastically in certain situations and with certain effects in the game. Specifically one to move physics to your 4th core helps IMMENSELY.

 

Omega: Crysis is optimised for nvidia cards at lower detail, not so much at max detail, but on a single 2008 gen card, max detail ain't gonna happen, unless on a very small screen.
It was playable maxed on my X1900XT believe it or not, well, maxed in DX9, so only 'High', and at 800x600, with no AA, and only in the first level...
Jeff: Indeed, never use AA in Crysis, especially not the original, where it has almost no effect on graphics.
Omega: The GTX480 can manage Very High at 60fps at low resolutions like 1280x800, but that's about it
Jeff: Hotlinking isn't allowed at that site. Take the pageURL.
Ultimately, while I would be interested to see what difference that mod has, it won't end up with the game being playable at my res yet, so I may as well wait a while longer

 

thaks for that sam

 

"Reduced brightness on Russian vehicles" - is that Metro that you guys were talking about?

Jeff, like Sam I couldn't follow your tweakguides link - but thanks anyway, because I completely forgot Koroush had that web site. I paid $4 for his tweak guide and was glad I did - read through almost the whole thing and picked up a lot of tips. I hope he is beginning to make some money with his advertising, because I think he's very bright and very helpful - just like you guys, lol.

I have to break your bubble about one thing though. In searching for the article that you guys, Sam and Estuansis didn't link to about pci-e, I did find it (thanks for the new link Jeff) and took note of the following:

I'm sorry Jeff, but I have to respectfully disagree with your conclusion, in light of the following testing:

I stumbled across the Canadians who had this to say: Here is the link to page 22 of the Hardware Canucks article, specifically targeting the 5970 card:


That is a HUGE difference in performance - the average drops 16% which is bad enough, but Sam says he doesn't use average anymore, only minimums, which drop 36% when you put the 5970 on an 8x bandwidth slot.

THAT IS HUGE!! Am I right?

In addition to that, referring to the same picture, look at how two 5850s in crossfire rape the 5970 - the minimum is up almost 10% and the average fps is up 20%! Is that because the 5970 has artificially low clocks to stay under the acceptable 300 watt TDP threshhold? If not the clocks, then what is causing that performance difference?

That is a strong argument, Sam, unless there is something really wrong with this data, in light of the fact that you don't plan to get another 5970, for you to get two 5850s instead, making sure they have 2gb of memory each. Two of them would total 4gb, same as the petunia.

Some quick checking showed that 2gb 5850s run about $100 more than the 1 gig version, or about $400 versus $300. Two of those would be $800, probably what the Petunia would cost. And then, because it's a single card, you're back to the "only 5%" maximum pci-e bandwidth performance penalty on dropping from 16x all the way down to 4x.

So here are two questions:
1. Why do two 5850s in crossfire kick the 5970 card's butt?
2. And is this data correct? MAJOR penalty of more than 30% on minimum fps performance, for a 5970 running 2560x1600, going from a 16x to 8x slot.

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I'm glad you guys keep up on the gaming news so well. I'll look for Respawn Entertainment in the future with a new franchise. I agree with Jeff, Medal of Honor Airborne basically sucked. When you run in the game, there is a very strange motion blur thing that makes me slightly nauseous, and I don't get nauseous. I went back to play the game again after getting the 30" screen, and got 1/3 way through and quit - the game just wasn't good enough to do again.

I had read a review about it - they talked about the original confusion of storming the beach at Normandy - I think it was the first Medal of Honor when the Infinity Ward guys were still at Ubi. That coming onto the beach was unbelievable. So in the review they were saying that parachuting down on the artillery tower in that one town they thought would be similar - Well it wasn't - it basically sucked.

There is an art to making these games that I don't understand - like the artistic ability that gives James Cameron the top two grossing movies of all time. The Infinity Ward guys have it, Treyarch doesn't have it, and whatever team does the Medal of Honors, doesn't have it.

I agree with Jeff - COD2 = great game. And although I will never get tired of WW2 (where we went in and saved all your British butts, sam, and shaff) I think COD4 easily is just as good as COD2 if not better. And I'm probably more die-hard WW2 than Jeff!

A little off-thread - but I had a great political conversation with a very bright guy on what would have happened if

1. the Japanese had not attacked Pearl (Jeff's favorite part of Medal of Honor, Pacific Assault - yeah I liked the Peart Harbor part a lot too!!! - in fact I liked the whole game a lot, almost right up there with COD2, and it wasn't an Infinity Ward team - who was it?)
2. the Nazis had left Russia alone, and
3. the Nazis had decided to invade England.

We discussed it and figured out that the Nazis would have been destroyed - the same way that Russia destroyed them - unless they had gotten the the A-bomb, although France had already bought up all the most fissionable uranium before the Germans could buy it.

First of all, the Nazis would have had to get past the British navy. Second of all, their airforce already had been humbled by the Brits so they had to leave them alone, which allowed the Brits to rebuild. Third of all, with 40 million stubborn Brits against about 6 million German soldiers, reinforced by a bunch of reluctant Polish conscripts, and maybe 1 million Italians, (the Germans had an army of 7 million but I am sure they needed to keep at least a million in the occupied territories) and the British government quickly relocating itself to Canada, and the 20 million Canadians already partially in the war, and the 600 million Hindis still British subjects, and then undoubtedly the Aussies would have joined the fight in a major way............

I'm sure the German military commanders sat around a table and told Hitler, "No way, Jose!" Hahaha.

So my point was that even if Pearl had never happened, and even if the States had never entered the war, in which case we wouldn't have all these WW2 video games, in my opinion the German effort to create a glorious world power fatherland was failed as soon as they decided to invade France. - that is the end of alternative World War II scenarios by Rich


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So back to that interesting news about Infinity Ward leaving Activision and re-grouping over at EA as Respawn Entertainment - we'll see them again big-time I'm sure. If the weather wasn't so rainy up in Seattle, maybe Valve could have brought them on board.

Anyway, you never know the whole story - sure maybe the main publisher guy is a complete a**hole - you also can have personality clashes. Maybe Sam is right - as he was inferring I think, maybe the reason MW2 wasn't longer was because Mr. Publisher jerk was insisting on not pushing back the deadline, because he had end of the year revenue and earnings forecasts to fulfill for the stock holders, so he could pick up his million dollar bonus.

Valve pushes back their deadlines all the time, lol. They won't put the game out there until it is REALLY good. I love those guys!

But those kinds of "we're giving you the boot" things also happen at EA!

My favorite animator of all time, a very mellow and non-confrontational guy, went over to EA for a bit, then got a better offer, wasn't super happy there anyway, and gave his two-week notice. They escorted him out the door!

He ran into some EA management a bit later who were very embarrassed that had happened, and the manager in charge of doing that was slightly lectured to - "Why did you do that?" He seemed to reply that he thought he was just carrying out standard operating procedure, haha!

Kevin, why are you re-installing operating systems again? Maybe you should spend some time with Koroush at his tweakguide.com web site like Jeff does. Are you doing everything else you can do to prevent those stutters?

Have you analyzed your hard drives with all the hard drive analysis tools that are free (koroush will tell you the ones to get)? Have you optimized your hard drive firmware?

Are you letting Windows 7 manage the pagefile, or have you followed Koroush's XP advice (I assume same on Windows 7) to completely defrag your drive, set your pagefile to zero, reboot, come back and then set a large fixed (2-3 gig) pagefile size that won't be fragmented? Tweaks like that?

I would opine that re-installing the operating system is the last place to look for improvement. Am I wrong?

- Rich

 

It really has a lot to do with the system it's being tested on and the game being used. Some will have almost no drop in performance while others suffer badly. I never said the article was absolute proof(or maybe I did oh well whatever), just very strong evidence to support my own theories on PCI-E performance. The drop is certainly much less on PCI-E 2.0 platforms though.

 

Rich, I'm a firm believer that there is always another way. And it is quite discouraging to reinstall windows. But, I'm not certain what is causing the problem at this point. I'm 99% certain that none of my storage drives are the problem. If it's my velociraptor HDD, that's just plain bad luck LOL! When I sent the last one back to Western Digital, I was fairly certain that it had a problem. Power supplies are definitely not the problem. I've ran 2 different very capable PSU's. Since my Board employs 2 brand new technologies, I'm leaning that way for now(usb 3.0, and Sata Rev 3.0).

What I plan on doing, is reinstalling windows, and Bare necessities(that are known to be non culprits), and going from there. If the bug ensues, I shall buy yet another HDD. A 300Gb velociraptor. I find myself watching my current HDD space too often And I plan to install multiple games I guess I could dump the data from one of my storage drives, to another storage drive, and temporarily use it as an OS drive, to see how IT fairs I think that's what I'll do. Why add another equation, to the already COMPLEX equation LOL!