Oh, the humanity!

[Summo]

Okay, here's the deal. I want a GeForce 4. I want it now so I can play GTA3 the way God intended, and later Unreal 2 and Doom 3 and so on.

I can't be arsed ordering it online and a shop down the road has the following:

• Gainward Ti4600 - £369
• Creative Ti4600 - £339
• Creative Ti4400 - £250 (thereabouts)

and from tomorrow:

• Gainward Ti4200 - £169

So a 4200 is half the price of a 4600. HALF THE CHUFFING PRICE! I've looked over the specs and I can't really see how I can justify spending double the amount when the chances are I may never, ever notice the difference between the two.

So what do you guys think? I have an Athlon 900MHz CPU and am not looking to upgrade that anytime soon.

Will I really notice a £100 worth of difference between a 4200 and a 4400? Will I cream my pants more with a 4600 than a 4400?

I'm not interested in running games at 1600 FAA, I just want smooth, impressive gameplay at maybe 1280.

More importantly, I want it now!

 

[Embattle]

Higher clocks...with a 4400 you can achieve 4600 clock speeds....sell the car

 

[throdgrain]

I been down this road half a dozen times Summo. I cant help feeling your processor is going to let you down. Im sure a GF4 will be a big improvement over the GF2, but you wont get any speed improvements worth mentioning I wouldnt have thought.
Example. I had a p3 1000mhz with gf2 mx. Used to make 115 fps q3 demo @ 800-600, and less at 1024-768.
Bought a GF3 ti200. Made (wait for it...) 115 fps at 800-600 on q3 demo
On the plus side, it also made 115 at 1024-768, where before it had been slower.
Basically the card improved my picture , but didnt make it go any faster.
Btw I now have a GF4 4400 in my new system, and can vouch for the card, lovely looking

 

[Summo]

Yeah. Nowt wrong with 900MHz, surely? Not the fastest these days, but ffs...

I've ruled out a 4600. No way I'm spending £350 in a bloody graphics card. Think I'll hunt around for a 4400, unless someone tells me that the 4200 is almost as good.

 

[Trem]

It's almost as good.....





















......I don't really know, just wanna make you work for it

 

[Big G]

The price of the 4600 isn't justified, not when you can buy a 4400 and clock it to at least 4600 speeds easily.

I had the same problem when choosing a new gfx card. It was between the 4200, 4400 and 4600. Since the 4600 is king of the hill, you'll pay about 100 quid premium for having the top card out there.

In all honesty, it only pulls ahead of the 4400 a small amount (extra 2-5 fps in nature demo in 3dmark2001 or about 10 fps or so in quake3), so I decided on the 4400 - saved myself £100 quid, clocked it up a touch to 4600 speeds and laughed in the face of those who paid £100 more and bought a 4600.

My chips are on the 4400.

Only thing i will say - buy a GF4 MX and I call you a waste of space.

Your CPU speed is a bit weak tho, you might not get the performance boost you'll want with a GF4 unless you up the CPU to go with it.

Gaz

 

[Embattle]

I've got a 4600 and clocked it up so I laugh back

 

[Big G]

My point was, Embattle, that you'll save a fair whack and get 4600 speeds. Even if you buy a 4600 and clock it, that's still a good £100 more you've paid for a speed increase that doesn't warrant £100.

You could buy an Athlon XP 1800+ with that kind of money: I think i know which option the majority would take.

Gaz

 

[Embattle]

Oh I agree...they're a lot of money and for most not worth the extra £100 but I can still clock it up. However having said that remours of Det5 drivers mean I may end up with a bigger speed increase again....but who knows

I know I wouldn't take the 1800+ option...well I already have one and a 2100+

 

[PR.]

Get the Creative 4600

The decisions are always easy for me, cos if I go middle of the road and got something less than the 4600 I would just sit mubbling to myself thinking how much better it would be on a 4600

 

[Will]

I tend to buy a few steps down the tree myself. I'd probably go for the 4200, but it all depends on one thing Summo. Will you miss the cash? If you will, aim lower on the gfx ladder.

 

[Summo]

Another reason to hate PC World

Right. 4400 it will be. Sorted. In a fit of 'wanting it now!' I phoned around loads of computer places and eventually found a PC World which had two Creative 4400s in stock. 'Hazzah!' I thought, and set off on the 50 mile round trip to pick one up.

When I got there I noticed a horrible, horrible empty shelf marked 'Creative Ti4400.' When I enquired I was told they were out of stock. When I pushed the guy and said I had just spoken to someone who had confirmed there were two there he looked again and found them. They had both been returned as faulty.

Bastards.

Utter bastards.

 

[Summo]

Dunnit. Ordered Gainward GeForce4 Ultra/700XP GS (Ti4400) from the supplier, of whom we cannot speak.

Raarrr!

 

[Xavier]

heh, plonker

we have very good links with manufacturers and I could have helped u find something around if not below the £200 mark if you'd utilised IM/email or other forum of communications... but that's too hard for you isn't it

 

[Mas-]

woudlnt waste your money on a geforce 4 till u get a faster cpu tbh. i have a 1.4ghz and a creative geforce 4 ti4600, and tbh its fucking shit.

seen alot of ppl with the same problem as me, no idea if its just this card (creative, unlikely). But when i play games like q3 and add bots it kills the fps even looking at a wall like here.. Q3test . Most new games get extremely shit fps, ive tried every test/suggestion everyones made, reinstaleld formatted blah blah nowt puts the fps normal. However theres lots of ppl with the same problem. In my opinion u need a new (athlon xp1800+ etc) to get anything out of it. My geforce 2 was faster that this atm when i add bots anyway least that had a constant 100-200 fps when playing this has anything from 60-140. jk2 is nion impossible to play 20-50 fps on servers.

Did notice if i disabled sound i got the correct fps however that isnt exactly an option id like disabled . Tried disabling acpi, didnt help much. So i think its the cpu.

I also get alot of blue screens recently . KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED, IRQL_not_equal yadda yadda. driver_irq_not yadda yadda. no idea if its that infinite loop thing ppl go on about tho.

cant send it back either if my card is actualy fucked which i dont think it is, as me mam threw out meh box while cleaning me room :/

anyway ur choice

 

[Big G]

umm,

I have an athlon 1.4 and a Ti4400 and i don't have shit fps at all. In fact, my fps are super: playing CS at 1024*768 with FSAA x 2 on, JK2 at the same res with FSAA x2 on. I was playing on jolt 32 player CS server last night and was thinking "must suck to have anything less than what i've got" as i was having no frame rate drop at all, even with lots of smoke.

I imagine someone with an XP 2100+ and a Ti4600 would find it belting along.

Gaz

 

[Wij]

tbh Summo you'd have been better going for a 4200 AND a CPU upgrade for similar money

 

[Summo]

Been sniffing around for CPU prices as well. My mobo can only handle a max of 1.4GHz (about £80). I'm gonna wait for meh baby to arrive and then see how things are.

 

[Mas-]

Big G i get good fps untill more ppl join dunno if its hogging cpu power or what, no matter what detail setting i set, i get the same fps.

I think my cpu is holding me back, no idea tho but there is alot more ppl with the same problem as me. i got better fps on jk2 with my geforce 2, i got around 40-70 constant with my geforce 2, hardly noticed much low fps, however with my ti4600 its impossible nearly anything from 20-50 when fighting. even looking at walls.

Might wait till start next year for new cpu, clawhammer etc. that or wait for the thougherbreds (spelling) which is due june/july.

 

[Xavier]

Originally posted by Mas
woudlnt waste your money on a geforce 4 till u get a faster cpu tbh. i have a 1.4ghz and a creative geforce 4 ti4600, and tbh its fucking shit.

seen alot of ppl with the same problem as me, no idea if its just this card (creative, unlikely). But when i play games like q3 and add bots it kills the fps even looking at a wall like here.. Q3test . Most new games get extremely shit fps, ive tried every test/suggestion everyones made, reinstaleld formatted blah blah nowt puts the fps normal. However theres lots of ppl with the same problem. In my opinion u need a new (athlon xp1800+ etc) to get anything out of it. My geforce 2 was faster that this atm when i add bots anyway least that had a constant 100-200 fps when playing this has anything from 60-140. jk2 is nion impossible to play 20-50 fps on servers.

Did notice if i disabled sound i got the correct fps however that isnt exactly an option id like disabled . Tried disabling acpi, didnt help much. So i think its the cpu.

I also get alot of blue screens recently . KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED, IRQL_not_equal yadda yadda. driver_irq_not yadda yadda. no idea if its that infinite loop thing ppl go on about tho.

cant send it back either if my card is actualy fucked which i dont think it is, as me mam threw out meh box while cleaning me room :/

anyway ur choice

lol

it's not the TI that's doing that
sounds like ACPI is interfering and you have a resource issue
the framerate choking issue could be vsynch but it's also possible that you've got the same old 4-in-1 driver issues (via board i'm guessing)...

post your full system specs and quit dissing the Ti, and we'll see if we can figure what's doing it - I've seen a 950Mhz kicking ass with a ti4200 so a 1.4ghz with ti4400 has no excuses!

 

[Mas-]

Originally posted by Xavier





lol

it's not the TI that's doing that
sounds like ACPI is interfering and you have a resource issue
the framerate choking issue could be vsynch but it's also possible that you've got the same old 4-in-1 driver issues (via board i'm guessing)...

post your full system specs and quit dissing the Ti, and we'll see if we can figure what's doing it - I've seen a 950Mhz kicking ass with a ti4200 so a 1.4ghz with ti4400 has no excuses!

CPU: Athlon TB 1.4Ghz
Mobo: KG7-Raid
Mem: crucial 512MB pc2100 DDR
GFX: Creative Geforce 4 Ti4600
Sound: Creative SB live Platinum

full spec > here

Ive got all the latest drivers installed via etc tried all the other version. ive tried everything, I disabled ACPI so sound and gfx where using different irq's. However this didnt make much diff i got like 3-5 fps increase however still had the problem of low fps on servers, palying with bots etc.

Vsync is off, fsaa off, 4x agp enabled, 128 AGP apature, side band addressing on (tried both), Fast-writes off (tried on doesnt seem to make much diff at all). I've basicaly tried everything i can think of. Just gonna wait till i new cpu comes out coz im not willing to buy an xp atm. i've even tried putting an audigy to see if it was just my sound card, got like 1 fps increase but same old go to shit fps as we add the bots or play online.

Suggestions?

gave up trying to fix it, spent a month trying every setting possible, losing alot of uni work in the process. So im blaming the ti4600 for being utter utter shit, since my geforce 2 is actualy faster.

im not the only 1 with this problem ive got a quite a few ppl to do the q3 test with adding bots, and they all have the same problem .

anyway got any suggestions to try?

 

[Big G]

I had exactly the same problem with the IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL_TO thing.

And you know how i fixed it, ... bought an Asus mobo 'cos i had an Abit mobo too and this always happened. Changing to the Asus mobo sorted it for me which suggests that it could be a mobo setting or, as Xavier said, a resource prob.

As for the shit fps, what detonator version are you using and with what OS ? What res are you running your games at?

You coulda been unlucky and someone might have sneaked a GF4 MX into the box when you weren't looking

Gaz

 

[Embattle]

Originally posted by Big G

You coulda been unlucky and someone might have sneaked a GF4 MX into the box when you weren't looking

Gaz

Or a V1

 

[Mas-]

29.20 atm, tried them all . Using res 1024x768, on win2k. Trying to get a copy of xp to try, but its unliekly it will make much diff

I have a feeling it is my mbo/cpu anyway =]. gonna wait till july or even next year till i upgrade. guess i got to put up with this crap fps for a while .

setting the memory to turbo seemed to speed it up a little but not much

 

[WPKenny]

You tried other things like changing the AGP aperture size? Enabling 4x AGP etc etc in the BIOS? Upgraded your BIOS lately?

 

[Mas-]

yeah 4x is enabled etc, ive tried 256 agp apature, 128, and 64. non really makes much difference.

i set the memory timings to turbo and fast, to see if they would help. got a few more fps but the same problem where the fps go low when u add bots or play online.

1 problem i do have with this card is creatives default mem core speed is 660Mhz, all me games seem to hang when i use that. got plenty of cooling on me comp, got a room fan blowing in. works on 650 however i tend to get alot of program errors in games like jk2, however it doesnt crash on multiplayer but i get low fps.

When i set acpi off after about a week of using it me comp went tits up with blue screen galore. I was getting errors to do with files being corrupt etc. Had to reinstall 2k however i still kept getting file errors so i ended up having to format c:. So i have acpi enabled now. However i was still getting the ocasional blue screens kmode not handled etc, so i took 1 of the dimms out to try that, everything was working fine no blue screens or anything. So i swapped the dimms around, same again no blue screens etc. I tested both for a week. But putting them together i get blue screens. Could it be that infinite loop bug with geforce 4's i keep hearing about?.

think its just my mobo/cpu combo, wouldnt suprise me .