The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

What do you see?

 

Incoming lightning most likely XD

 

IMO, Afterdawn should have a little 'show deleted posts' except for case of profanity, as reading back on instances like this, it can get very confusing!

 

hahajohn? What kind of name is that for a spammer? Well, lightning took care of it LOL!

 

loolz

Sam, Reckoning can get into the 20s at times but overall runs in the mid 30s. The rest of the game runs 40-43ish. The benchmark says 41 average. 4xAA gives me 36. But I don't run 4xAA.

With my custom settings(WHICH GIVE IDENTICAL VISUALS!!!!GRRRR) the benchmark gives me 50FPS average, about 45 with AA. Most of the big frame drop is the DX10 motion blur. My settings are such:

Textures: Very High
Objects Distance: High
Shadows: High
Physics: Very High
Shaders Quality: High
Volumetric Effects Quality: Very High
Game Effects Quality: Very High
Postprocessing Quality: High
Particles Quality: Very High
Water Quality: High
Sound Quality: Very High
Motion Blur: High

Applied on top of these settings is my custom .ini:

r_UsePOM=1(forces POM)
r_SunShafts=1(Forces Sunshafts ie PostProcessing)
e_water_ocean_fft=1 (Cinematic Waves but a slightly less complex shader)
q_Renderer=3 (Forces "very high" mode in high shaders)
r_colorgrading=1 (ie the Cinematic lighting and coloring from very high)
r_EdgeAA=0 (turns off AA on foliage, slightly crisper look and good FPS boost)
sys_budget_videomem=1024 (Apparently helps the game manage Vmem better???)
sys_physics_CPU=3 (Moves physics to the 4th core as the first three handle most other processing in the game)
e_detail_materials_view_dist_xy=4096 (Makes distant objects like mountains and trees much higher res separate from in-game settings)

Basically what I've done is enable all the "eye candy" the makes Very High look good while also increasing FPS and making parts of the game look better than stock. I've spent considerable time at both true Very High and my Custom settings and the difference is almost nil. Sometimes I forget which version I'm playing until I realize how well it's running. My settings sacrifice ever so slightly in a few areas for large gains in others and in the end you will never be able to tell the difference.

 

Go here, then tell me you get 30fps

 

Would you say, Sam, that I would have a little room for some mild overclocking of the Q9450, or would I be pushing my luck?

On another note, I went back looking for Estuansis' very memorable review on that game where you could see the chinese soldiers about a half mile away. It was farther back than I thought - back to end of '09 I think - I actually never found the review.

But finally, the more I started looking for the game, the more I remembered that it had one of those two-part names - and then I remembered that the maps were unusually large. So finally I did a google search of "fps with huge maps" and found the game, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising.

I am able to pick up the game for a song, so I'll likely be trying it out on my next monthly 4-day gaming weekend, coming up next weekend.

Jeff, I know that you're pretty hooked on BC2, and OFR in comparison probably doesn't do that well. But keeping in mind that BC2 is out of range for my hardware, in hindsight, do you still like Dragon Rising? (I see there's a sequel to the game coming out next year.)

I am picking up the rest of the Call of Duty games, COD6 and COD7, as well, since you said, Sam, that they should run on my rig pretty much as WaW did, and I'm picking up Medal of Honor single player too.

Next weekend is my second official once-a-month gaming weekend, and I have now designed it to be a four day weekend, Friday through Monday, to allow quasi-total-immersion, lol. So I'll be trying out those new titles.

On the last gaming weekend, I went back after an almost seven month absence, and played the extra Left 4 Dead chapters, the Passing, and - what is the other one - the Sacrifice? I played the Sacrifice on Left 4 Dead, but I need to play it on Left 4 Dead 2, to see the whole group together.

As we were playing on Advanced, and had to restart the Left 4 Dead 2 Passing several times, I got to see Zoey several times with her arms crossed looking rather stoic up there on the bridge, which I guess was appropriate considering the sacrifice that had just occurred.

That was actually kind of sad.

It was fun to hear the characters chatting in the safe house, asking Ellis how he was going to impress Zoey this time, and Ellis being perturbed, having just gone through the sewers - and looking about that good. Then of course, Nick was wising off, saying that Ellis had his chance, and now smooth Nick was going to take over. At one point Rochelle came up with a new line, saying something to Nick along the lines "But she's going to be able to hear you talk - she won't like you." Haha.

Some of the other mic'd that they hadn't heard that line from Rochelle before - it was a good one. Still, watching Zoey made me sad.

(Miles had been surprised about six months ago when I told him - he thought at the time that the whole bit about a guy being unavailable to tape the first expansion, leading to a shift in the character set, was not a good thing to do to the game. Still, I guess if there was enough popular demand, we might see our favorite war hero again some time. - I'm trying to avoid a spoiler if there is anybody left who doesn't know the whole story.)

Edit: Using google's help, I found Jeff's Dragon Rising post - PAGE 194 - post 4833 from 10/13/09. A couple pages later Shaff was mentioning he liked the game too - everybody was comparing it to COD4. Jeff also mentioned liking the realistic force feedback shooting of the xbox controller - how much does one of those controllers cost?

Rich

 

There'd be room to overclock the CPU with two 6970s, but you would be very near the limit of the PSU, depending on what the power draw of the 6970 actually is, we still don't know, and won't do until it's released.

OFR has considerable problems with crossfire, so don't be too surprised if the game doesn't run that great on your new system, whenever you get hold of it

 

Thanks - I'm going to review your overclocking notes and begin some stuff with the 9450, especially after the article shaff linked us to about Black Ops performing better the faster the cpu. I did get Black Ops and installed it - I'll play it next weekend.

Before I overclock, I want to go through the user manual and see how to copy the bios to a floppy, or better yet to a thumb drive, in case I screw things up, so I don't have to go and look for a jumper to get the bios back to default settings, like I had to do on on one of my rigs about six months ago.

Regarding OFR, I got that one too and loaded it, and turned it on. Same with Medal of Honor Single Player, and same with MW2.

I tested all four of the new games this afternoon - just a couple minutes each. MW2 I didn't even leave the camp - but the camp looked awesome!! I watched the guys play basketball for a bit, lol.

It looks like all four of those games will run just under 30 fps at full 2560x1600, 4xAA. OFR might be a little closer to 25fps. I'm running them on my present equipment, non-over-clocked q9450, and non-over-clocked 8800GTX.

I did take note of some 8800GTX overclockers commenting on newegg - but you guys seem to be unanimously against overclocking the gpu.

Still, I am thinking about doing it. I always had overclocked the 3850, especially when I put Jeff's aftermarket VF1000 zalman cooler on it - and that card performed well for me for two years - it didn't suffer from the overclocking. My rationale was - hey, the card only cost me $100, so what the heck.

The 8800GTX already runs hot, but I AM running the fan at 100%, and we are now in winter - the weather is not hot at all - in fact it's freezing, lol. I don't have good case ventilation, as you know, but I DID put the kaze in front, and I could put that extra kaze that I bought, in the bottom of the case, pointed sideways at the 8800, replacing the 1600rpm scythe that is there right now.

And I don't plan to use the 8800 once I can afford to shell out maybe $300 or so for a 6970, once they become available. So why shouldn't I just go ahead and stress the 8800 a little bit, so I can get maybe 5 more fps out of the thing until I put it on the shelf in favor of my first 6970?

If I destroy it, I'm kinda screwed for a bit - but I'll bet the things can be bought on ebay for under $100 - yeah - I just looked it up: Buy it Now for $95 including shipping, ultra is $120 with shipping.

Overclocking here I come, lol. What do you think?

Rich

 

well stuff like the GTX470 can be OCed quite a bitt and reach 480 speeds, the 480 clcoked and it 580 speeds, the 460 clocked and hit 470 speeds, and the 8800GTX should easily hit ultra speeds.

 

I don't really see how comparing how the GTX470 overclocks is relevant, or even safe here.
Overclocking 8800 graphics cards is a terribly bad idea.
They suffer considerably from heat, and a long lifetime at high heat will kill them off. Overclocking not only increases that heat, but makes the inevitable stability problems from that heat arrive a lot earlier.
Overclocking a graphics card gives such minor benefits, especially with top-end cards like the 8800GTX that are almost already at their limit [do you realise how little faster the 8800 Ultra was by comparison?] it's a complete waste of time for cards that are going to have their life shortened by doing so.
I strongly recommend Rich stays away from overclocking the 8800GTX. He won't notice the difference from doing so, and it will just damage the card and force him to upgrade. Who knows, maybe that's not a bad thing, but it's not a decision that should be made for him at an inopportune moment like that.

Overclocking the CPU on the other hand is relative child's play and as long as you are careful, it's easy, and safe to do.

 

For the most part I agree with sam about OC'ing the 8800 gpus. I ran my 8800GTS OC'd for a long and while it didn't kill it (still working today) the only thing that noticeably increased was the fan speed and heat. In the end the only benefit I got from OCing it was a few extra 3dmark points and maybe a max of 5fps extra in some rare cases. From that experience I've developed the view point that OCing gpus just isn't worth it. I could be wrong, but I'll probably never OC a gpu again.

 

Yeah, good point. Well, I didn't look up what ultra speeds are, but using the deep freeze portion of the 3dmark6 test, at full 2560x1600 and 4xaa, I achieved some overclocking that seems stable:
from 575 core clock to 621, from 1404 shader to 1514, and from 900 memory to 1008.

That gave me a modest 2.5% increase in my 3dmark6 score, from 13654, to 13948. Not much, but maybe I'll get 1 fps more on some of those new games this coming weekend.

(I tried another more aggressive setting - boosting the core clock up to the next level, 648, shader clocks to about 1600, and memory to about 1100, and crashed several times. So I dropped everything back down, but left the core at 648, and it ran stable, but then I saw a few artifacts, so I dropped the core back to 621. It wasn't a question of temperature of the core, since my office is pretty cold right now, and the card never got above 76 C. So I guess I wouldn't be able to do much better, even with an after-market cooler.)

I'll leave it at this for now, and if I have problems I'll drop back to stock clocks, and just wait for the 6970.

EDIT: Somehow I missed Sam's and Red's posts when I answered Shaff above. You guys are right - I'm barely getting any increase in performance.

However, on my VF1000-cooled 3850, I was able to overclock that thing about 15% as I recall, and it made a difference in performance about twice as much as I'm getting from this 8800. On the 3850 I went from 668/828 standard clocks, to 762/954 (best I had been able to do prior with stock cooling had been around 726) and my 3dmark6 went from 4822, to 5111, almost 6% improvement.

So given the almost insignificant gain - I'll see how it runs this coming weekend, and maybe drop back to stock clocks if I have any trouble or see any overheating. I have the On Screen Display letting me know what kind of temps I am getting - and LA weather has taken a huge turn toward lower temps - so I'll probably be good until the new card.

I take note on what Sam said about overclocking the cpu - still, since the graphics card at this time is the bottleneck, I guess I'll be in no hurry to start working on that.

Rich

 

Exactly, that's a large overclock, and it's got you 2%, which you will never notice.

 

Chrissake! I was running furmark while posting - the 8800 is 95 degrees and it's pretty cool in here.

BACK TO STOCK CLOCKS, LOL!!

EDIT: Furmark now steady at 91 degrees. No more overclocking this 8800.

 

To be fair, furmark pulls those sort of temps at stock clocks anyway on most cards. My 4870X2s typically run about 98-99 in furmark I think.

 

Well, yes, I know furmark really pours on the stress.

Same on this card - in the hotter weather, I was geting 99 from the 8800.

But prior to that run of hot weather that we had, in more moderate weather, when I first put the 1600 rpm scythe on the bottom of the case, pointed at the card (mimicking a side intake fan) the furmark temps dropped about 9 degrees and were pretty steady at 90.

And a while ago, it WAS pretty cool in here - this trailer is all windows and it's about 11:00 at night - probably 50 degrees outside. Except that now I can feel, the run of 95 degrees from the overclocked 8800 has noticeably warmed things up nicely!

Anyway, it's back to stock clocks, and furmark is now oscillating back and forth between 92 and 91, so I like that better than 95 of a few minutes ago!

I guess I'll start thinking about overclocking the q9450 - the first step is reading on how to back up the bios.

Rich

 

Remember with the Nvidia cards have sensors that lie. so that 90 degrees is more like 100~115.

the GTX Series Overclock very well. I've gotten a 5%(6~10FPS) percent boost in performance in games like BC:2 using the GTX-460, with a about 10 degrees increase in heat.

6FPS might not seem much, but it helps keep you above 30FPS in bleeding edge games.

the highest clock I've achieved is 910MHz 1840MHz Shader, its Stable in Benchmarks But for gaming its no good i believe the voltages aren't high enough to sustain it.

at that clock if i could sustain it would net me a a good 15~20 FPS.

 

Blazes of hell...

I'll never feel as comfortable as you guys with those redonkulous temps!