a bit of a gfx poll here guys

[Jilly]

I know i should put this on the tech forum but i reckon more ppl will read it here and I use the PC mostly for DAoC

I want to get a new gfx card and would be glad if i could have some opinions on which of the GeForce 4 ones are the best? I have 512 Mb ram but only a GeForce 2 card and my perf meter is often 2 green and 1 yellow blob during the game.

I'd really appreciate some help on this ....I can't afford top of the range but which of the middle of the range is the best one to buy as there are a few to choose from ?

thanx in advance

 

[- Pathfinder -]

Anything BUT a MX

 

[mirieth]

It depends how much you class as being top or middle range.

I picked up my GeForce Ti4600 128mb card for just a little under £200 at christmas. This card runs SI like a dream and all other games I've tried with it too (UT2k3, UT2, WC3).

 

[CliffyG]

You can pickup GF4 Ti4200's for less than 100 pounds, i have one and run very nicely with all settings at max and a pretty high res too.

 

[Tenko]

You can pick up a ATI Radeon card (9500 i think) for less than £200 and the 9700 for less than £300. better than the comparative GF4 cards

But for DAoC I believe the top range GF3 was what they had in mind so you'll not have to splash out for just this.

 

[old.mattshanes]

Geforce 4 titaniums are cheap now get one of those and it will run sweet

 

[Mortifier]

wtf

I have GeForce Ti200 and i get lag in heavy vegetated areas. 640mb RAM. All other new games run smooth though (U2, Ut2k3 etc. May be my internet connection.

Anyway. Its a good card. New Geforce FX cards coming out will be grand too. And with those youll be able to run Everquest2. But dunno how long it will take before they come out and prolly will be expensive as they are brand new.

 

[Mortifier]

ATI Radeon cards would prolly have better performance yes.
But Geforce cards are guaranteed to support all games, and if thats what she uses her computer for Id go for a Geforce card.

 

[SoulFly Amarok]

what kind of a CPU do you have Jilly?

and to improve your DAoC Performance, check your DIRECT3D setting for antialiasing, turn it off.

Monitor->Properties->gfx card->d3d settings or something similar.

 

[Jilly]

cpu is 1.7 pentium ...so thats why i fgured with 512 ram i need a better gfx card.

 

[vestax]

I have just upgraded from a Geforce 2 GTS to a 128mb Ti4200 o/c ~300mhz

and i havnt noticed any difference in daoc, still runs crap. SI is unplayable...

 

[tris-]

the home-users FX cards will be $100 for the cheapest one, thats a 5200 FX i think.

 

[Jamagei]

I got a Radeon 9700 Pro 128Mb, SI runs like a dream on it. RvR is fun now as well (rest of the computer system prolly helps as well)

 

[Danya]

I have just upgraded from a Geforce 2 GTS to a 128mb Ti4200 o/c ~300mhz

and i havnt noticed any difference in daoc, still runs crap. SI is unplayable...

What's the rest of your system?

I run a Ti4600 and it's smooth, the only time I lag generally is with 200+ people on the screen.

 

[Roalith]

Originally posted by vestax
I have just upgraded from a Geforce 2 GTS to a 128mb Ti4200 o/c ~300mhz

and i havnt noticed any difference in daoc, still runs crap. SI is unplayable...

Latest Nvidia detonator drivers? Latest Via 4-in-1s (These make a lot of difference if you're running an AMD chipset, believe me) ? DirectX version?

I'm on a AMD Tbird 1200, 512mb of PC100 SDR ram (!), with a middle of the range 'vanilla' flavour Geforce 3 64mb. Get occaisional lag in heavy vegetated areas, but with figure lodding set on near, effects and names off, I can actually move with zergs of 200+ people on screen.

 

[PadreMM]

I actually just put an order in to Scan for my upgrades. As many others in the thread I mainly use my comp for games.

With my current set up I have been able to play DAoC pretty good except bigger RvR up till now, but for the last two-three months my GFX have been blinking yellow/red and I've been crashing a lot to desktop (gfx-card and not enough RAM). So now I got my deposit from my old house (after a month and half of waiting) and I have managed to stay even so can splash out with it.

Current set up and it was my first built comp low budget in mind:
M/B: EPOX EP-8K3A (only supports 4*AGP)
GFX: Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 64Mb (realy cheap and actually worked well with DAoC up till now. Was like £45)
Mem: 256Mb Corsair DDR XMS2700
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1800+

Upgrading Mem and GFX and M/B for the 8*AGP:
M/B: ASUS A7N8X-L
Mem: 2*512Mb PC3200 (PC400) DDR
GFX: 128Mb ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

Might at later date get another Case and CPU and put the parts I'm replacing together in it... probably next moth. Will then get the AMD Athlon XP 2400+

Will let you know of the difference in gaming tomorrow hopefully

 

[vestax]

Originally posted by Roalith


Latest Nvidia detonator drivers? Latest Via 4-in-1s (These make a lot of difference if you're running an AMD chipset, believe me) ? DirectX version?

I'm on a AMD Tbird 1200, 512mb of PC100 SDR ram (!), with a middle of the range 'vanilla' flavour Geforce 3 64mb. Get occaisional lag in heavy vegetated areas, but with figure lodding set on near, effects and names off, I can actually move with zergs of 200+ people on screen.

My spec is;

Athlon 1.3g
448mb ram
VIA Chipset mobo

I have the latest dets (41.**) and am running Dx9

TBH i think its Win xp... since going from 98se to XP i have noticed a big drop in performance...

But i will update my 4in1's tonight anyway

 

[beck-uk]

worth a read...

Just to add a little more to the mix...

I purchased a Geforce4 ti4600 (128mb DDR mem) a few months back, I upgraded from a Geforce2 MX! I was expecting a major difference in my games, inc DAOC. There was a difference but not as big as I expected.

To cut a long story short I decided to re-visit the guru3d/tweaking/oc type sites to see if I was doing something wrong. It turned out the Geforce detonator drivers have a known bug with windows 2000. The AGP Texture Acceleration was disabled! So I ran a registry fix (from Microsoft!) which enabled my AGP acceleration and WOOP there was the big difference I was looking for!

I appreciate this bug is not too common but wont hurt to check now would it, so heres how you can see if your AGP texture acceleration is enabled...

Click your Start key, then select Run... Type in 'dxdiag' and hit enter. This takes you into the DirectX Diagnostic Tool, click on the Display tab and under DirectX Features you will find the AGP section saying whether it is Enabled or Disabled. If it is disabled I suggest you do a little digging on the web and get it enabled!

This just goes to show that it is very easy to just buy the latest graphics card and install it but not actually get the best from it unless you do a little research. I have learned my lesson!

Here comes the science bit... (just fyi)

Motherboard: Asus A7A266 (Ali Chipset)
CPU: 1.2gig AMD Athlon
Memory: 390mb DDR2100
OS: Windows 2000
Graphics Card: Geforce4 Ti4600 (128mb DDR memory)
Latest drivers for motherboard/chipset/graphics/DX9 etc

Oh and would reccomend RivaTuner for all your tweaking needs which can be downloaded from www.Guru3d.com

Beck Beastly

 

[Jamagei]

just FYI (in case you care, and I want to brag a little )

I got a

AMD Athlon XP "Thoroughbred" 2400+
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus9 80GB 8MB Cache
Corsair 256MB DDR XMS3200 x2 (512Mb)
Epox 8RDA+ nForce2
Sapphire ATI Radeon 9700 Atlantis Pro 128MB DDR DVI/TV (AGP)

And SI runs as sweet as pie (no tweaking cos I cba)

mmmm Pie!

 

[PadreMM]

Can anyone explain what the "thoroughbred" actually makes for difference with the AMD CPU's. Have looked for an explanation I can understand, but still don't realy get it...

At the moment I just see that the ordinary 2400+ is slightly more expensive than the 2400+ Thoroughbred.....

PS. Think this thread should be moved to the Techie section.....

 

[vestax]

 

[Jilly]

this all very interesting as I remember wondering what type of problems if any people would have once we got SI.

On balance the info above shows me that I would benefit from an upgrade to a geforce 3 or 4 with 128 Mb. It's mainly the SI which is causing the perf meter to show yellow but as I was having a lot of bad lag in RvR pre-SI, a new better gfx card will probably improve RvR too.

thanx guys

 

[chretien]

I have the latest dets (41.**) and am running Dx9

DirectX 9 is a beta release that is still heavily bugged. Even Microshaft aren't recommending that you actually install it yet. Once you've installed a version of directX the only way to roll back to an earlier version is to reinstall windows so I'd really not recommend installing any version later than 8.1 until they get their act together and sort it out.

To answer the original question you can't really go wrong with a geforce 4 ti4200. Less than £100 if you shop around and will run SI happily. The new Geforce FX will be horrendously expensive when they are released and no games will use their advanced features (i.e. what you are paying extra for) until the next generation of cards is ready for release. I'm running SI on a geforce 2GTS with a xp2200+ processor and 512MB of PC2700 DDR ram, no problems at all I just don't get the reflective water effects which apparently only work on Geforce4 Ti series cards.

 

[vestax]

Originally posted by chretien
DirectX 9 is a beta release that is still heavily bugged. Even Microshaft aren't recommending that you actually install it yet. Once you've installed a version of directX the only way to roll back to an earlier version is to reinstall windows so I'd really not recommend installing any version later than 8.1 until they get their act together and sort it out.

You HAVE to use Dx9 for the Eve Beta to run

 

[Danya]

Originally posted by chretien
DirectX 9 is a beta release that is still heavily bugged. Even Microshaft aren't recommending that you actually install it yet. Once you've installed a version of directX the only way to roll back to an earlier version is to reinstall windows so I'd really not recommend installing any version later than 8.1 until they get their act together and sort it out.

Really? That's not what microsoft are saying at all:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/productinfo/overview/faq.asp -

Q. Do I need DirectX 9.0?

A. Typically, any title that uses DirectX will install the version of DirectX it requires in order to run. Therefore, you generally should not need to download DirectX 9.0 in order to get your programs to run. That said, it does not hurt to install DirectX 9.0. Some of the new functionality built into DirectX 9.0 may even enhance the quality and performance of your existing titles. Additionally, many game demos do not come with DirectX, so you may need to install DirectX 9.0 if you plan to play the latest demos.

I highlighted a relevant line for you.

FWIW, I have DirectX 9 Windows 2000 and it's completely stable, I've had no issues and have no performance problems.

 

[Glema]

PadreMM: Thoroughbred refers to the chips made using the newer 0.13 micron process. The higher speed ones (2400+ I think) also come with a 166 Mhz bus, rather than 133 Mhz like the older Athlon XP's.

 

[Danya]

BTW for reflective water effects you need a card which supports pixel shaders.
This is any GeForce 3 or 4 (non-MX). I'm not sure if any of the Radeon's do, the high end one's should though.

 

[beck-uk]

Heres what you are missing...

Beck Beastly

 

[PadreMM]

Bloody hell!!!!

gifv new gfx-card!!!

 

[Danya]

Reflective water is seriously nice.