The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

How about another few games tests to steer the thread back on track?

Call of Duty Ghosts:

NOTE: APPLICATION WILL NOT LAUNCH ON x86 SYSTEMS
NOTE: APPLICATION WILL NOT LAUNCH ON SYSTEMS WITH <6GB RAM INSTALLED
ADVISORY: GAME UNSUITABLE FOR 120Hz DUE TO CPU REQUIREMENT


System Memory usage by application:
By application: 1.8-2.2GB
Typical total system draw: 4.4-5.0GB

CPU results:
CPUs certified for 60fps continuous:
**Intel Core i5 700 series overclocked to 3.0Ghz or above**
Intel Core i7 940 or above
Intel Core i3 2100 or above
**AMD FX-6300 overclocked to 3.6Ghz or above**
AMD FX-4300 or above
AMD FX-8350 or above or **FX-8320 overclocked to 3.7Ghz or above**
Intel Core 2, AMD Phenom II and AMD FX Bulldozer series not capable

CPUs certified for 60fps typical:
**Intel Core i3 530 overclocked to 3.1Ghz or above**
Intel Core i5/i7 series (any)
Intel Core i3 2100 or above
**AMD FX-6100/8150 overclocked to 3.7Ghz or above**
**AMD FX-4100 overclocked to 3.8Ghz or above**
**AMD Phenom II X6 series overclocked to 3.7Ghz or above**
**AMD Phenom II X4 series overclocked to 3.8Ghz or above**
AMD FX piledriver series (any)

Highest CPU core count fully loaded: 2 (1.95 Intel, 1.84 AMD)
Highest CPU core count usefully loaded: 3 (2.11 Intel, 2.56 AMD)

Video memory requirement:
1920x1080: 1.4GB AMD, 1.7GB Nvidia (1.7GB with MSAA for both brands)
2560x1600: 1.8GB (2.3GB with MSAA)
3840x2160: 2.3GB (3.0GB nvidia, 3.1GB AMD with MSAA)

Graphics results:

Baseline scores used for this test:
HD5770: 95, HD5850: 156, HD5870: 193
HD6850: 138, HD6870: 164, HD6950: 192, HD6970: 219, HD6990: 388
HD7770: 131, HD7850: 185, HD7870: 225, HD7950: 250, HD7970: 288, HD7970GE: 316, HD7990: 508-551

GTX460: 131, GTX470: 162, GTX480: 200
GTX550Ti: 98, GTX560: 149, GTX560Ti: 169, GTX570: 202, GTX580: 240, GTX590: 363
GTX650: 98, GTX650Ti: 143, GTX660: 211, GTX660Ti: 247, GTX670: 264, GTX680: 302, GTX690: 557
GTX760: 257, GTX770: 325, GTX780: 385, GTX Titan: 416, GTX780 SLI: 686

Extrapolated baselines:
GTX780 Ti: 447, GTX780 Ti SLI: 799
R9 290: 362, R9 290X: 404

TEST RESULTS - 60FPS REQUIREMENTS

Ultra Quality 1920x1080: 311
Ultra Quality 1920x1080 4x MSAA: 438 AMD, 385 nvidia
Ultra Quality 2560x1600: 478 AMD, 471 nvidia
Ultra Quality 2560x1600 4x MSAA: 661 AMD, 580 nvidia
Ultra Quality 3840x2160: 836 AMD, 851 nvidia
Ultra Quality 3840x2160 4x MSAA: 1210 AMD, 1085 nvidia

 

Some great posts. Not too much stressful body-harming negative emotion.

Brilliant! Perfect! Sam, you're the man! No really, that is the same way you dissect and categorize all this graphics stuff that you know so well, and I think you are dead on the money.

Here's another Sam quote:

Haha - well said. And you are right again.

And I will take that as my response to you, Jeff, about Benghazi. A tragedy for sure, like the 17 year old who took a sniper bullet in Afghanistan and died in Mikheil's hands, after his mom had asked Mikheil to bring her son back safely. Our soldiers are dying every day.

I have outed myself as a Democrat - and I don't have all the specifics of what happened, but as Sam said, there are always several versions. I don't know why we still had our office open when the red cross and others had moved out of town. What the hell? As for the rest - "the white house said to stand down." I don't know - maybe. They also decided no tanks in "black hawk down" and we lost about 15 good rangers and delta force soldiers - having underestimated the enemy threat. That was during Clinton's time, and he regretted not insisting on a night raid when we would have had the advantage of being able to see in the dark. He took the military's advice, and mentioned in his book how he later regretted it.

Again - Hillary is a traitor? Obama is a traitor? Nonsense. Or as Sam would say, "boring" meaning my side and your side put together, boring for others to listen to the back and forth.

Or as ddp put it:

How did you know - have you been talking to my teachers????

====================================================

Sam, I totally agree with your thought on jumping ship. Jeff just did it. Kevin does it all the time. I inherited an 8800 gtx and loved it - especially digital vibrance, which you think is another big yawn I know, lol. You have already bitten off a huge chunk of stuff - investing in that monitor - so take the path of least resistance and reduce your headaches to a minimum. Very definitely, take a look at what the green guys are offering and put politics aside (their greed, the fact that they lie all the time, the fact that they told the white house not to send any help to Benghazi.)

==========================================================

Oh, I forgot to add, ddp we don't care what Canadians think about anything, since you guys obviously have adapted to living in frigid conditions that cause your mental processes to proceed more slowly, so we don't expect more than just the basics from you.

=========================================================

Wow, Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag, is friggin awesome! I can't believe how realistic the waves are - the ocean - is that all physics. I guess it is, but it is just soooo amazing. And the singing is infectious - all those great songs they are singing - I could turn it off any time, but I just let it go on. It adds so much to the flavor.

Of course it is a very violent game - I'm murdering people every minute - anybody who gets in my way, lol. Grand Theft Auto Kevin would enjoy it - except for the fact that there is no nudity - but maybe somebody has a mod.

Graphics-wise, I was able to get MSI Afterburner to display, and I have my great OSD in-game, with complete load and temp on both cards, as well as temp and load on each core. As well as time of day. I still pull all-nighters anyway.

I noticed that my cards were only running about 45% load, so I decided to see what would happen if I jacked every graphics setting to max - I thought they already were maxed but I was way wrong.

Now, my fps sometimes drops to 30 - but usually at least mid 30s. Since I'm in a vessel most of the time, I have not been able to perceive any lag. My cards are now running about 85% load, and one core is running close to 98% load. But all temps are fine, inasmuch as LA is freezing right now - especially at night when I play. I was able to notice the difference in graphics, particularly with the AA maxed out - so much smoother. I thought it was nice before, but it's so much nicer now.

So that's about all for this super quick post. Expect a bunch of future screenshots about shark-hunting, etc. Awesome game!! Congrats Ubi! Thanks again Jeff for turning me on to the franchise.

Rich

 

The game is as realistic as they can make it. Biker gangs, bars, fast food restaurants, and strip clubs! Nudity! LOL! So make fun of the developers

 

Or Wisconsin. I've been putting 12 hour days in a cold warehouse all week.

Yeah Sam, I'll stay with the single 1920 x 1200 display for now It's a good performance match for my GTX760. And because I'm likely to buy a 990 board very soon, SLI will become an option. With 4GB cards in SLI, I should be in a better position to look at a better monitor. That's a maybe though. Motherboard first because I'm stupid and want to keep putting money into my 1090T. If I can touch 4.2-4.4GHz with a 2800MHz NB, A 5GHz Vishera would be slower.

 

Shoot. I'm running my 1090t at stock for now. Guess I'm afraid, that something will go wrong before February (Tax time). I would like to consider 8 - 10 core at that time. But, we'll see. I would benefit from the extra cores, given my need for X264 encoding. But, if my other apps take a huge performance decline, I'll be turned off.

You guys make me and my computer feel outdated. Sporting my GTX 570

 

My family is quite daunted with the task of buying me presents I have many passions, most of which are computer related. They don't speak the same language, that I do. Essentially, they don't 'Know' what to get me. Though I was quite surprised last year. My brothers wife repaired my favorite blanket, from when I was 10 yrs old. I LOVE that blanket! It cannot be replaced

I'm more a giver, than a receiver. I've told them I don't want anything every year. I always end up getting something though.

 

from the boss:

and from the game review boss:

I have only one answer to both of those: Sarah Palin.

uh ... wait ... does that mean that ddp is santa claus?!!

"My blankeeee!" Actually that is a heart-warming story. I'm sure every 8 year old feels the same way.
Uh ... wait ... how old did you you say you are?

Just kidding - heart-warming. And sentimental.
Santa - you really should take another look at your list and get this guy something. Anybody who still loves his blankee deserves a Christmas gift (that doesn't have anything to do with murder and nudity, unlike what this forum thread is all about.)

Rich

 

34 yrs old, if you're curious. It's just one of the few things I have from childhood, that I care a great deal about

 

Older than I realised - I assumed you were about mine and Jeff's age. Dunno why :/

 

Yup. I'm pretty old LOL! My job certainly makes me feel it :S

 

No offense, but I figured. There's a certain wisdom/experience in your words

 

Just had a quick play with the HD7770 on the UP3214Q. I say quick play as the short displayport cable means the monitor has to be at a crazy angle on the desk and the cable is pulled tawt.
Getting an eyefinity display group to come up is, there's no other word for it, a thorough pain in the behind. When you exhaust all the sensible options, just repeat the correct procedure ad nauseum, and eventually without warning it'll suddenly work as expected. It's rather tragic that a technology first introduced a little over 4 years ago is still in such a beta-like state, but there you go, that's AMD software development for you.

Once the display group was set up though, the desktop experience on the HD7770 was sublime. None of the desktop lag and general cursor stuttering I see on the HD6970s, whether crossfire is enabled or otherwise. This therefore only leaves the age of the cards as the cause. The HD7770 is slower, has less video memory, and the other PC's CPU, operating system and primary SSD are fairly similarly matched. Time then, when the bill for the UP3214Q is paid in the new year, to save up for an R9 290. Just the one to start with I think, that may not be enough power to max out games at 3840x2160, but it should be enough to replicate and slightly exceed the performance of my pair of HD6970s in a contemporary fashion suitable for usage with a 4K monitor, without too much heat and noise. Two 290s would be nice, but I'd like to consider my 70+dB PC days with having to manually tinker with fan speeds before going on a gaming session over. The HD6970s showed me a PC can be very powerful but still suitably quiet and autonomous. If I commit to any large expenditure on graphics that has to continue. Besides, I don't much fancy the idea of putting two 290s' worth of current through a 5 year old power supply.

Here's an interesting tidbit I discovered doing these 4K tests. When I started I became worried about there being high levels of ghosting on the UP3214Q, you could see a significant number of ghost image cursors follow you around on it that weren't really there on the 3008WFP. When I connected the HD7770 and saw them still there, I thought the monitor to blame. However, having run some tests on the U2312HM next to it (famed for having good response times and minimal ghosting, though that's not the reason I bought 2 of them), if I move the mouse at the same speed in cm/s there's far less ghosting on the 23". However, if I move the mouse at the same speed in pixels/s the effect is very similar. It would seem the pace with which you move the mouse around the screen on a 4K desktop is so high that windows draws several ghost cursors, to provide the effect of you rapidly panning, even when on a screen so large, you're simply sliding at a moderate pace. Put that one down to windows then, if there were a way to turn that off, I'd probably do it. Otherwise I'll just ignore it. It'll probably become second nature in a few weeks/months.

As a fluidity test on the HD7770 I ran Half Life 2. A game I considered old enough to actually run smoothly at 4K on a pretty basic graphics card, yet one that still looks fairly good. It ran pretty smoothly (I'd say at least 50fps, probably a lot more most of the time), and the graphics. Wow, it may be missing modern shader effects but texturally the game is stunning. Sitting in front of a 32" display with a game with textures that good running at 140dpi, it's just one of those things you can't stop grinning at. The game may now be over 9 years old, but it's still beautiful, especially at that resolution.

 

Sam, you're doing it again. You're going to talk me into investing into one of those things - moving so far out of Jeff's sweet spot that I'll never have a powerful enough machine to max anything other than Kevin's favorite game. Angry Birds.

HOW ARE YOU GETTING 4K TEXTURES IF THE GAME DOES NOT PROVIDE 4K TEXTURES?
Again, you may have already answered this - but doesn't the game itself have to draw the textures for you at your 4k resolution. I read recently that one game takes 50 gigs on the hard drive, because it comes with 4k textures. In fact, checking google, it looks like that's the game I'm currently addicted to, thanks to Jeff, Assassins Creed 4.




The above image is available at full size at: http://www.computerandvideogames.co...&mode=gallery&ids=311149,311147,311146,311148

I quite doubt that Half Life 2 supports 3840 x 2160. So how are you getting 140dpi of texture resolution? 'Splain please, once more. I'll listen better this time.

That is extraordinary that you found that the 7770 was able to better run the 4k than the 6970s. As you say, less memory, fewer shaders, etc. When you disable crossfire - are you very sure that is the same as if you had only one of the cards physically installed in your machine? Other than being produced on a smaller die, every feature of the 7770 is much inferior to the 6970. http://www.hwcompare.com/11921/radeon-hd-6970-vs-radeon-hd-7770/

The concern I have is with your conclusion that the 7000 family is inherently more compatible - why would that be? I guess if it were me I would yank out one of the 6970 cards just to be double-sure.

The other thing, the ghosting of the cursor, good work on that analysis. I assume you have the appropriate mouse setting enabled - without mouse trails of course. So it ghosts it anyway? Hmmmm. Well, yes, you'll become accustomed to that, I'm sure.

That didn't surprise me at all. I knew ddp was quite a bit older even than Kevin, since he mentioned being personally humiliated a long while ago when a drunken group of Irish Americans crossed the border, invading his small village, only to conclude "For crissake it's cold up here - what are we doing - let's return to civilization." Or as ddp put it, "We drove them back."

Living in frigid conditions where brain processes run more slowly has the advantage of prolonging life by reducing normal meat decay. My chicken-cooking once each 6 months provides me a small piece of protein for breakfast every day, the bulk sitting out in the garage freezer.

Rich

 

To play a game and see benefits at 4K Rich, you don't need the textures themselves to be 4K in resolution - that would only be necessary if one texture occupied the entire screen (e.g. if you were standing facing a wall at zero distance).
What 4K allows is to see standard res textures but at considerably greater distance because there are so many pixels on the screen, the texture can be rendered at its full resolution from a far greater distance. If you're standing right close to someething on a 32" display, if the texture is low res, no amount of display resolution will cure that. However, you can stare at a scene and at a pretty reasonable distance (a few feet, say) you see a great improvement, because textures you're supposed to be close to when you walk past, will be sufficiently high resolution that when they make a small part of your screen, they look very crisp.

The HD7 series is listed as compatible with 4K on AMD's site, the HD6 series is not, so by rights it shouldn't work at all. I imagine it's something to do with the actual final output stage. Performance seems undiminished comparatively-speaking in terms of pixels per second output in games. 100fps ish from one GPU in counter-strike: global offensive pairs fine with the 160-180 ish I'd get with one at 2560x1600 (Two don't go much higher due to the CPU limit). Likewise 18-22fps in Battlefield 4 at 4K with AA/HBAO off on two GPUs tallies about right, because that would mean 40-45fps at 2560x1600, which again tallies with what I'd have expected from BF4.
It seems therefore that the stage sending the output to the screen might be where the issue is - even though it's the same displayport standard, there may be something different with how it's actually connected to the output buffer. It could also of course have something to do with the eyefinity support in the HD6 series. Eyefinity is after all required to produce 3840x2160 at 60Hz until we see 4K displays support single streams at that level of bandwidth. In reality, I suspect that needs to happen before 4K monitors become commonplace.

With regard to mouse curors, this is with pointer trails off, it seems standard windows behaviour to do this. Pointer trails are much more prolific.

 

I'm still not quite getting it - but maybe a hair closer. The key is when you say "to play a game."

I have a standard distance I sit from my screen - pretty close up which gives me a good immersive experience - maybe 14-16 inches from the screen. It is pushed as close to me as possible, but still allowing the keyboard to sit just in front of the feet of the monitor - I used to have the keyboard tilted up on the feet, but I didn't do that when the new back-lit keyboard, like Jeff's, came in.

So back to Half Life 2. Let's say you are gaming. Gordon Freeman and Alyx are standing there, with their textures, the ground and mountains are behind them, with their textures. You are the normal distance from your screen - in my case about 14-16 inches I would guess when I am gaming.

The image size that you are looking at is full screen - the same size as on your old 30 inch dell. But your monitor is spreading that information over twice as many pixels.

You are not standing 3 feet away, where it would look super crisp - yes - but you are sitting at gaming distance, 14" away, where you (at least for me) normally sit.

At normal gaming distance, does the game, half life 2, look crisper or not? I think not - in reading your post for the third time, I notice now that you say as much when you say if you are staring at it from close up, no amount of res will fix low textures - but from a couple feet away - yes, very crisp. So at normal gaming distance, no, correct?

Why did assassins creed 4 provide 4k textures? At normal gaming distance for me, 14", how will assassins creed 4 look on a 4k screen, vs how it looks now (just under twice as many pixels on roughly same surface area.) Twice as crisp? If yes, that will be awesome indeed - (except for Jeff's sweet spot argument.)

Hmmm. Thanks for that - so something different in the final output stage. AMD lists 7000 as compatible with 4k, but not 6000. When you say single streams - are you saying that eye-finity involves multiple streams? I guess you are.

======================================

I was wrong about assassins creed 4 being maxed - I found out that there are 4 levels of EQAA, whatever that is. There is EQAA 2X(4), then EQAA 4X(8), then EQAA 4X(16), then EQAA 8X(16). They also have MSAA anti-aliasing.

I was able to see a small, subtle, but noticeably better picture on each higher setting, until NOW I AM FULLY MAXED, at EQAA 8X(16), and my average framerate is only 22. The graphics cards are running at 78% load.

I can go to lower AA, and get average 32, for example at EQAA 4X(8), but the game doesn't look as good. This isn't the 4x on Far Cry 3 being quite a bit better looking than the 2x, but the 8x was almost no better. This is a perceptible improvement on each step.

I thought the game looked good before, but now it looks exceptionally good, and I'll suffer the slight laggyness as the price I have to pay. I am cpu bound. Somewhere in the image processing, the higher EQAA involves more cpu, but not necessarily more graphic card horsepower. I would have thought that it would have been all on the graphics cards.

Anyway, the game looks totally unbelievable. (Sometimes I do get 30 fps - but sometimes in heavy fighting, it drops to 17, and moving my character to the next person to sword fight with, can be a little tricky due to lag. This happens when I throw a smoke bomb. The sulfuric smoke makes it easy to fight the guys, as they all gasp and cough, but but the clouds of smoke drop my frame rates.)

Here from a few days ago, when I had convinced myself to run at the 4/8 setting, were 3 comparisons, good, better and best

Lowest EQAA is EQAA 2X(4), but this is second level EQAA 4X(8)


This is third level at EQAA 4X(16)


And this is what I am running at now, max level, EQAA 8X(16)


The differences are subtle - but the effect begins to be felt. The ship appears darker in the top picture, then brighter in the second, but then finally brighter, and more polished, in the third.

Something happened to me - maybe it was when you talked about smiling at the 4k screen. I decided to investigate the higher settings for some reason. Oh, yeah, I was looking for treasure - I finally figured out the treasure maps - and I was doing less sailing. Also I pursued the main game arc, and started walking around the new town of Kingston. For some reason I decided to re-visit those higher levels of AA. And then I was floored when I started walking around the EQAA 8X(16) world.

For example, look at the old Adewale, from a former post, compared to the new Adewale:





And then look at these 3 new shots, with the max AA. 1. Sailing, 2. my home port at night with the two town drunks (even the night the pictures have a warmth and a glow that is very appealing) and a daytime shot of the new town of Kingston.







So, yeah, I'll put up with the 22 average frame rate for that kind of ambience. Maybe I'll get around to trying to produce a reasonable overclock on the i7. The i7 of course has hyperthreading, whereas the 9450 does not.

What do you guys think? Does the doubling of the thread handling that you get from HT produce any benefit - would that also help me get better frame rates?

Rich