The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Also consider this is without proper Multi-GPU support and is in Alpha. I remember BF3 running similarly horrible as compared to the full game. Even the single GPU numbers aren't representative of the full game. Though I imagine it will be the most demanding Crysis yet. Still to be seen if the graphics justify it. But considering Crytek's hit and miss track record, it's probably still not going to truly top Crysis 1. The Art direction is the most important factor here.

Also consider Crysis 2's performance was hardly consistent or dependable, basically programmed to give you performance based on brand and model number. Particularly HD6800 series cards got screwed for no reason while HD6900s were fine... Not to mention that little tessellation debacle.

I'll be more interested to see what can be coaxed out of it with tweaking. I was able to make solid gains of 50% in particular areas of Crysis 1 without even adjusting graphics related settings.

 

It should be noted that for minimum frame rate, the Crysis 3 Alpha results are effectively identical to the original Crysis in DX10, Very High, with 8xAA enabled.
To get the same average frame rate however commands 70% more performance from the GPU than Crysis 1 did with 8xAA at max. Anti-aliasing is being used in the Crysis 3 Alpha tests, but what level is undisclosed. From the quality of the image it must be at least 4x, probably 8x.

 

Which leaves the results a bit skewed as Crysis historically sucks with AA. I imagine performance will be drastically different without. Personally I will be playing at very high without AA, on the full build, with Crossfire support, so that's a factor for me. As of right now it doesn't seem any more daunting than Crysis 1 or 2. Should be tons of room to tweak it and get some extra FPS out of it for relatively little trade-off.

 

Sam, as I recall, certified means average of 60, and compliant means what - average of 30? or minimum at least 30 and up? Sorry to have forgotten.

But I just played the single player, and I got better performance that that - however you are no doubt referring to the multiplayer, which I believe you have said stresses the graphics more than single player.

Since I re-enabled crossfire - (why did I do that - I forget) - I played through the single player of black ops ii in an all-nighter, hardest difficulty to slow down tearing through it, with both 7950s stock. I maxed everything, including 8xAA, max draw distance, but I think I left corpses at medium, lol. I was running my OSD and getting 50-60 fps, but one-half hour in I crashed. I turned off the OSD and pulled the all-nighter, 8-10 hours straight. I checked the gpu-z log file and I recall it showing fps above 60. Again, the cards were stock, 800 mhz, memory 1250. It was totally fluid.

So for 2560x1600 gaming, that seems to be slightly better than what you showed on your chart - but again, single player, not multi-player. In the next week or two I might try out multiplayer for a few hours to see if I like the maps.

For the single player - there was one standout campaign, out of the 8 or 10 that make up the game. This was Afghanistan, with horses. That was a kick. I haven't ridden a horse since Call of Juarez, and it was fun and different, and really felt authentic.



It also made it easier to get around the battlefield despite the foot soldiers trying to nail me - and blow up the various tanks, helicopters, etc. I would re-play that campaign.

The rest was okay - but, sorry to report, not nearly as good as Black Ops the original, nor World at War, both of which had that very interesting Russian character who added so much to the story - and both of which I enjoyed quite a bit. They did bring Woods back, the flamboyant character from Black Ops - I think he's the one who said "You're in Nam baby" and he was good - but the rest of the character acting was not as strong as the Russian I mentioned.

The main villain, Raul Menendez, was used a lot - you even take him over a couple times - at one point they gave him about triple normal life and you are in a total rage, roaring in anger, and shooting and hacking your way through a lot of American CIA soldiers in a covert operation in Panama, while he is trying to get to his sister, badly burned in childhood, to ensure her safety. And then later you played a CIA operative, deep undercover in the Raul Menendez upper ranks, who also has to kill a lot of Americans to get to the special meeting place.

Does this all sound like the airport massacre in MW3?

So Treyarch is trying to put out some good stuff - but OF: Red River was better. Still, for $50, I guess I would say it is worth it - it is as good as the new Medal of Honor. Again, I'm just going by the single player.

Graphics-wise: pretty good I think. Not as good as any of the crysis titles. Just as good as MOH Warfighter. There is some river stuff - some flooding. The water was okay - not super great - but quite passable. By comparison, the very short river stuff in MOH was more dramatic - those black hurricane rolling river waters were intense - too bad you were barrelling along at breakneck speed and didn't have more time to enjoy the drama of it. Similarly here - some vehicle action that isn't bad - but passes too quickly.

Some of the stuff is throwback to the 90s, some of it is futuristic to 2025. Hillary Clinton under another name is President. Patraeus under his own name is Secretary of State. That was short, but fun and interesting. The futuristic weapons were kind of cool - one of them paints the enemy targets with a red diamond - I have seen that before but I forget when. How would a weapon know an enemy from a friend - unless maybe all soldiers by then, or at least friendlies, had an imbedded microchip identifier. I suppose it's possible.

I hope to report on Multiplayer within the next 10 days. I will be awaiting Respawn's new title with high anticipation. LOL

Regarding your other report, Sam, on Crysis 3 Alpha, and your various comments, Jeff, I am glad to see they will use all 3 gigs of AMD's memory like with the other titles, speaking of 2560x1600 resolution, which might mean nice textures.

I might end up depending on your tweaks, Jeff, but ultimately I bet I will be able to handle it, even if I have to crank up both cards to the 975 stable overclock, hoping it doesn't max all my cpu cores like Sleeping Dogs did. (Speaking of - I went back to Sleeping Dogs for a short couple of hours, to the 4.5 gig free DLC download mildly interesting horror version. It was entertaining for a bit, but I have now deleted all local steam content, so goodbye karate.)

Rich

 

Rich -
Compliant: Average 60fps - i.e. the card is sufficiently powerful to deliver an acceptable experience
Certified: Minimum 60fps - i.e. the card is sufficiently powerful to deliver a smooth experience throughout

 

And here I am playing 10 year old flight sims and fee to play MMOs. lol What a waste of this power. Will change I'm sure when I bother to get BF3 Premium and upon the arrival of Crysis 3. Am happy with a minimum of 30 in CryEngine games which provides more wiggle room.

 

Hey Jeff, I was thinking about those old games you are playing, and you're the guy who clued me in to so many great games.

And then a light went off in my feeble brain.

With your 2.3 million pixels vs my 4 million pixels, which I had forgotten about, one $300 7950 with 3 gigs memory, will handle all this stuff for you, especially with your tweaking ways, lol. You said you need at least 60 - well I just got at least 60 on Black Ops with crossfire - and Sam said my crossfire was only 55% effective on second card - so you'll get 60 for sure with the one card. Same for crysis 3. If stock won't do it, crank it up past 800 as far as 975 stable as a rock. Remember, in all my 7950 testing, I tore through all 3 crysis titles with one card at max graphic settings - and never felt a bit of lag - snow ice nothing phased it or slowed it down. I attribute that to the max memory, and huge number of shader streams.

I like the HIS IceQ. Newegg has a nice video on it.



Remember I tested power color, gigabyte, and xfx. Stock is 800, mem 1250, vddc I think 981. For stock I like 800, 1250, but 1012 (somewhere along the way I decided that 981 is slightly skinny and 1012 more stable.) For max overclock I found 975, 1350, and 1087 to work great - that's the setting that tore up all the crysis titles!

The thing will hardly overheat - the cooling is so good, covering all the memory too, and single turbine design blowing most of it all out the back. I use Trixx custom fan setting like you, but a straight line from 0 to 80 - because around 75 degrees = 75% tach gives a fan speed close to a fairly quiet 2900 rpm (max fan is 3150 rpm where you will hear it whine - so this setting will keep it under 70 most of the time, and silent.)

There have been some bad reviews - so test test test in the first 30 newegg full return period - I would get the $24 3dmark11 - oh I think you already have it - you were the one that talked about the submersibles. Test on that, Heaven of course, maybe furmark for just a bit. Then game like crazy for 30 days.

With 3 gigs, if you don't get fluid everything at full settings, I'll eat my hat! (Or I'll pay the shipping back if it's defective, or the shipping plus half of the 15% restocking, if it's not defective, but you are not fully satisfied.) Keep the box - it's the most beautiful graphics card box I have ever seen, no lie. LOL

Rich

 

You do realise Rich that how far anything will overclock (CPU, GPU etc.) is completely luck of the draw? Your results will make sense for that card, but those of another card of even the same brand will be totally different.
Also, if only using a single card, you're going to have to make some serious quality sacrifices to get Crysis 3 playing smoothly. If you set the bar at 30fps it'll be a lot easier, of course.

 

Wow, I looked at those crysis 3 numbers more closely, Holy Mackeral!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Regarding the overclock, I'm going a lot on what Blaze said when he said 975 puts the 7950 at the same level as the 7970 at stock 925 clock. Some of the cards were supposed to overclock wayyy better, like even 1100 or 1200, but several had said the HIS IceQ wasn't a super overclocker for some reason (maybe it was voltage control - I was quite attracted to that mil spec MSI 7970 Lightning at 1040 clock, with the daughter card fixed to the back for voltage stability on further overclock.)

Anyway, all the cards that I tested achieved the 975 without much problem - just sayin'

Okay, well we'll see if I can play Crysis 3 at max - a challenge is coming!!! LOL

(BTW - how is the repair on your 30" dell holding up? - I assume it's still working)

Rich

 

Overclocking a GPU. Hmm... I don't think I'd do it

 

It's fairly trouble free as long as you stay sane. Mine OC quite well with no issues. The trick is the find the max that will run within temps and stability then back it off. I like to choose a round number My cards will do 940/1150 pretty comfortably but I keep them at 900/1100. Good cushion for stability and within the realm of 6870s if not slightly faster. Stock clocks are 775/1000.

 

Oh man, Kevin, you spend way too much time over on the builder side, and not enough time here. The 7000 family is eminently overclockable - ask Sam or Jeff, lol.

Good philosophy Jeff.

Rich

 

Well, if I can determine that my GTX 260 is undamaged, I may just entertain the idea of overclocking the GTX 570. I wouldn't do it, if I don't have a backup GPU I have an 8600Gt laying around somewhere. But it would never run what I want to run

 

What are we talking here? 1 - 4% gains, depending on the game? If true, that's hardly worth taxing the GPU, as well as the PSU for minimal gains, eh? Even if it's 10%, I probably wouldn't do it. I'm easy to please though. I like a 40 FPS average. Dropping below that doesn't bother me too much either. So long as it doesn't drop below 30.

 

You're right about this, the HD7950 is known for being a superb overclocker, but you are still at risk of the potential pitfalls of GPU overclocking.

So far so good on the 3008WFP as we approach 3 months in...

Oman: have a read of this:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/radeon_hd_7950_overclock_guide,12.html

 

FINALLY beat my original Fallout 3 game at 120 hours for a single playthrough. Talk about extreme lol!

Just got Fallout New Vegas installed with all the DLCs and I must say what a pleasant surprise from Obsidian! Since it's not Bethesda that made the game you'd expect a dip in quality but you'd be wrong! The graphics, gameplay, level design, story, art direction, writing, coherency with previous Fallout games, everything has been improved to a fine degree of polish.

Fallout 3 was somewhat of an ugly duckling with many half-baked concepts and a somewhat sterile and repetitive world. The characters and story arcs all stayed pretty much separated, the scripting was clunky, the same 5 voice actors were recycled over and over, the game had a hard time choosing a coherent theme and art style, etc, etc. It also broke many parts of the overall Fallout story and required a lot of ret-conning to fit properly into the established canon.
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My biggest gripe was the guns, which not only failed to follow Fallout canon, but didn't make much practical sense either. I spent dozens of hours retexturing, tweaking, renaming, and generally balancing the guns to some semblance of sense and realism. Otherwise only 2 or 3 end-game rifles were useful and everything else was junk. It was a struggle to rebalance the guns but keep them balanced among themselves to avoid breaking the game. Everything from relative accuracy, to damage, to the sound they made was changed to bring all of the guns to a proper level of usefulness and historical accuracy.

Sadly there are only a couple dozen weapons in the game, even fewer of them powerful enough to be truly useful, so they are sorely in need of these changes, being a main focus of the game. Many of the lower level pistols and SMGs are basically peashooters, even though the story treats them as deadly weapons.
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It also adopts a very stylish "Old West" motif for much of the game. This versus Fallout 3, which flip-flopped between the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, Sci-Fi, Cyberpunk, you name it, Fallout 3 takes a shot at it. It creates great atmosphere but Fallout 3 is ultimately left struggling to find a theme and stick to it. As a consequence this leaves the game feeling jittery and disjointed. New Vegas' over-arcing single theme is much more mellow, coherent, and comfortable to play in, and keeps the characters consistent and the story sensible. It makes a better "feeling" game by far.

Good example is companions:

Fallout 3 - Meet someone, help them with a random and trivial problem. Now available to recruit as a silent follower with no other function than an extra gun with legs.

Fallout New Vegas - Meet someone with a legitimate problem that actually has good reason to ask your character for help. Learn a bit about that character and why their request has meaning to them and benefit to you. Execute that quest much to their appreciation. Now more trustful of you, and makes an offer to accompany you as an adventuring companion. Offers comments and opinions during casual gameplay, and normally has meaningful dialogue during important quests and missions. There are even changes to the main story depending on whether they are present or not. You also gain a bonus skill that is active as long as they are traveling with you.

Just one of many examples of how Obsidian took a formula pioneered by Bethesda for Fallout 3 and fleshed it out to a high degree of detail. Every part of New Vegas feels like it was how Fallout 3 should have been. Simply more time and attention to detail has been put into creating this world and the various systems and factions that drive it forward. And this is saying a LOT, because Fallout 3 is an extremely dense and detailed experience.
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As far as mods go, I run only a few mods, a huge difference from every other Gamebryo game I have played which require vast amounts of fixing and improvement to be up to standard. Simply a large re-texture of the world and guns for better graphics, some fixes for ironsights accuracy, some performance tweaks, and a large compilation pack of bugfixes known as an "Unofficial Patch". Altogether this is only 4 or 5 mods that take literally a few minutes to download and install using the Nexus Mod Manager and require zero configuration after they are applied. There is no way to truly enjoy this game without a few small mods, as they offer drastic changes and are easy to use.
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Let's score it out: Fallout: New Vegas

Graphics: 7.5/10

New Vegas is a far cry from Fallout 3 in this department, being much more modern, polished and detailed. This is a very good looking game, but suffers from good old fashioned Gamebryo clunkiness. The draw distance is generally good, with only minor pop-in issues, a huge achievement considering the wide-open environments that stretch for miles. Fallout 3 was much more closed in. The models are also very nice, and convey a sense of depth. Only the textures are truly sub-par and then only barely. Much of the game looks fine but some muddy surfaces here and there look quite atrocious and destroy immersion in this beautiful world. Obviously a holdover from console development, where random things must be tweaked to escape memory limits. This leaves the game looking inconsistent at best, and downright ugly at its worst when left in stock form.

Two simple mods, "NMC's New Vegas Texture Pack" and the "Weapon Retexture Project" drastically improve the quality of the entire world and take the graphics to easily 8.5/10. You are shooting yourself in the foot by not using at least these two mods as they are easy enough for a toddler to apply and offer such huge benefits.

Sound: 9/10

The sound design is spectacular in New Vegas and a huge leap in variety and quality from the previous Fallout game.

New Vegas features a whole new set of radio stations and music that tie the "Wild West" theme of the game together nicely. The radio shows are more interactive with the story and the music itself is good to listen to while exploring/adventuring in the desert wastes.

Ambient sound effects have been given a boost, like weather sounds, wildlife sounds, gunshots and fighting in the distance. The world feels "crunchier" and more organic than Fallout 3.

The biggest change has to be the voice acting. Fallout 3, like Oblivion before it, suffered from a constantly recycled cast of voice actors. New Vegas has aimed to do away with this in a very proactive way. Many professional voice actors and celebrities have lent their talents to this game and it really shows. The overall quality of the voice acting is a hugely improved and there are many more unique voices, offering NPCs more character and depth. The voiceover quality is very professional and helps the game itself feel better made overall.

Gameplay: 9/10

New Vegas offers the same depth and complexity as Fallout 3(same engine, different developers) while vastly expanding on almost every single concept in the game.

The gunplay has received some extra attention and is very tight and natural. The story and characters have been fleshed out to a greater extent and everything has been given more meaning and practicality. The new optional survival mechanics are fun to use and the new ammo system and inventory of items make the world feel a lot more livable. Everything is much less sterile and more homey.

My biggest source of joy is the GUNS! New Vegas completely disposes of Fallout 3's guns and basically rebuilds the entire mechanic from scratch. There are now many dozens more firearms, ammo types for each, and modifications that can be made to improve their function or handling. The balancing now makes sense, as do the guns themselves, following traditional Fallout canon perfectly. Now every single weapon in the game is useful and deadly, both for you, and your enemies.

With the official DLCs and expansions added, New Vegas offers a staggering amount of gameplay and exploration, dwarfing the already venerable Fallout 3 in overall amount of unique content to experience.

Performance/Stability: 5/10

New Vegas is a mixed bag in this department.

Overall performance is very much improved from previous games on this engine, with only mild stuttering here and there due to the size of the world and the lack of loading between areas. Much of this stuttering can be cleared completely by using a simple "fix" mod called "New Vegas Stutter Remover". Again, a very well made mod that takes only a minute to find and download, and only seconds to apply with the mod manager. This clears the majority of the stuttering and renders the game a fairly smooth experience with relatively stable framerates.

The game itself is not overly demanding, and can be run acceptably on a very wide range of hardware. My system is definitely overpowered for the game.

Stability is where it really takes a hit. There are many gamebreaking bugs, crashes, errors and other oddities that really ruin the immersive experience. Many of these bugs can prevent the game or certain quests from being finished. Other bugs cause repeatable crashes and instability that can occur at any time. This can be a real damper on the fun.

Luckily, there is a community patch available which aims to fix the large majority of these issues. It is called "Mission Mojave - Ultimate Edition". It addresses roughly ~80% of the known bugs and errors in the game, even tiny issues like textures and clipping, in an effort to do what the developers couldn't. It fixes over 20,000 known bugs in the game. With this patch installed, I would certainly rate the stability much higher(maybe 7.5/10), but the game is still not perfect. Prepare to spend some time on the wiki if something breaks. Luckily almost anything can be fixed with a few lines typed into the console. It stands to be said that with Mission Mojave installed, the bugs are few and far between.

Overall the level of stability was disappointing. One very black mark on a game that otherwise did everything right that Gamebryo games usually do wrong.


Overall: 8/10

Fallout New Vegas is a huge improvement on Fallout 3 in every way. Retaining all the latter's size and depth all while telling a MUCH better story and fleshing out the world and characters to make for a drastic difference. Every environment is varied and unique, the story is more far-reaching, involving a larger cast, bigger action set-pieces, better scripting, better dialogue, more unique characters, more meaningful objectives, the list goes on. Much of the world feels more "lived-in" and the story events and dialogue feel way more natural and believable.

Obsidian have grown past making the mediocre sequels to great franchises they have become famous for(KOTOR 2), and have truly made their own mark on the gaming community. Fallout New Vegas is more polished, more detailed, more coherent, deeper, more fun, more practical, more spectacular, etc, etc. Obsidian has simply made a better game than Bethesda by improving upon the formula in every possible way.

The horrible bugginess of the game is a shame, but luckily it can be trimmed up a bit with a few simple mods. This leaves the PC version of the game as the only one truly worth playing as the console versions inherit these terrible problems but not the simple fixes. It's worth noting that both Oblivion and Fallout 3 suffered from similar issues, though not as badly as New Vegas, and similarly needed a few small mods to fix them.

Fallout New Vegas is amazing despite its imperfections, and is one of the greatest games I have ever had the pleasure to enjoy. Any self-respecting PC gamer owes it to them self to try this game. It is a blast to play any way you want and explore anywhere you want in such a fully realized world.

I would rate it higher if the stock version of the game were playable. Luckily for Obsidian's latest creation, no Gamebryo game is complete without mods. Mods truly save this game and make it one worth remembering. Even with mods though, it's still buggy and feels somewhat unfinished. This game could have used more testing, more patch support, and more development time to add that extra layer of polish. This prevents me from giving it a 9 or 10 out of 10. Only through sheer content and storytelling does it barely earn an 8 out of 10.
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I make a strong argument for mods here due to their ease of use and the essential changes they make to the game. No Gamebryo game was ever worth playing without at least a few mods. They are an essential part of the experience.

My "Essential to Enjoy the Game at its Best" mods are:

- NMC's New Vegas Texture Pack
- Weapon Retexture Project
- New Vegas Stutter Remover(better dynamic memory usage = better performance universally))
- Mission Mojave - Ultimate Edition(general bugfixes)

Optional Mods for Personal taste:

- RH_Ironsights and accompanying fixes
- Ironsights fix

Both of these work together to correct some minor errors with ironsights and how they aim. I prefer to use these mods as a gun nut seeking real-world accuracy, but they are not essential to properly play the game.

 

Thanks for the link Sam. I've found that since I game at 1920 x 1200, A moderately powerful GPU will do me fine. I do see the gains of OC'ing. Unless I could keep it very cool, I wouldn't do it. I don't game very often. Here's another thing... I don't use AA :S

 

Lots of things are a lot more doable without the use of AA

Read my review on an old-news game and re-affirm my self-confidence in a group of internet strangers XD

 

Quite the review, and enjoyable to read. Good work

 

Have put a lot of time in on Gamebryo games. Quite the flexible engine. Oblivion is primitive in comparison and still uses the same basic framework