Will a GFX upgrade be sufficient?

FireFox · Post by **FireFox** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:16 am

Ok here’s the deal, I’m a bit fed up with having to cut down on my graphics quality for acceptable gameplay:

My current system:
AMD 3200+ Athlone 64 (939 socket)
MSI K8N Platinum
1gb DDR ram
120gb SATA HDD
MSI based GF6600GT 128mb DDR3

I’ve gotten S.T.A.L.K.E.R yesterday and I’m not in the mood of walking the same path as with FEAR and DOOM3 on my previous system were I lost the whole feeling of the game due to crappy GFX settings.

The game is set just a bit below medium quality and lighting effects to static. At the very least I would like to be able to go full dynamic lighting when playing this game and High quality if possible because in my opinion you loose quiet a bit of the feeling of the game with just static lighting. Don’t get me wrong it’s not bad but it just aint that real as dynamic lighting. I’ve tried it but gameplay is horrid (jerky and lagged responses).

I’m running XP and I’m not getting VISTA so help me… Being the only OS that is going to run DX10 as I understand it I fail to see why I should go with a more expensive DX10 card. And no manufacture bashing but I’m looking for an Nvidia card.

In sort this will be a short term fix as the system is old and will need a complete overhaul sometime in the future but I’m cut for $$$ and want to play this game.

In short is a GFX going to fill my needs of prolonging the systems life and performance or should I suck it up and rather just wait and do a complete upgrade because the GFX upgrade aint gonna cut it on its own?

Thx

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:24 am

a 7 or 8 series Geforce or similar would make a drastic improvement. so would getting a dual core proc. the 939 should be cheap enough if you can find one.

JMEaT · Post by **JMEaT** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:35 am

GFX card in there isn't really great for newer games. Stick to the main GF cards: 7950/8800. Either of those will be a massive improvement.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:47 am

In recent games everything is almost always GPU bound, getting a new much faster video card will make some major improvements. But there is one thing you have to keep in mind, PCIe vs AGP, if your current system is still on AGP, then don't even bother right now, just upgrade the whole thing. AGP cards are history, and can not compete on either price or performance with PCIe cards.

Also, getting a Geforce 8 series card would be perfectly acceptable for use in Windows XP even though they are DX10 hardware.

AceCombat · Post by **AceCombat** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 1:48 pm

i still have a AGP Machine that pushes 60-80 FPS on BF2 Maxxed out @ 1280x1024

care to explain how a AGP Cannot keep up with a PCIe with that kind of specs?

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 1:56 pm

AceCombat wrote:i still have a AGP Machine that pushes 60-80 FPS on BF2 Maxxed out @ 1280x1024

care to explain how a AGP Cannot keep up with a PCIe with that kind of specs?

Sheer bandwith alone. PCI Express x16 has 4Gbps of total bandwith available to it, vs maybe 1066Mbps (4x mode) on AGP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGP

You have 250Mbps per lane, and you have 16 of them for video so do the math.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 3:19 pm

AceCombat wrote:i still have a AGP Machine that pushes 60-80 FPS on BF2 Maxxed out @ 1280x1024

care to explain how a AGP Cannot keep up with a PCIe with that kind of specs?

Try out the new Unreal 3 demo at high detail settings...or in your case it might be more like an unusually interactive power point presentation.

AceCombat · Post by **AceCombat** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 3:51 pm

on a 7800GS (soon to be a 7900GS) ?

i still say CPU+RAM+FSB are still the major contributors not just the video card

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:04 pm

you wouldn't notice a differenc between a 7800 AGP or a 7800 PCI-E, same chip, different interface. One might take somewhat longer to load, but thats it. AGP, however, has been phased out on newer motherboards. The point here is moot, as OP's board has PCI-E slots.

Strife · Post by **Strife** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:22 pm

I love my asus p5b deluxe, e6600 CPU, 7950 gs oc, with 2 g's of ram setup

I feel sorry for everyone else

Prolly go SLI with the 7950 until I can break down and get the 8800.

Aggressor Prime · Post by **Aggressor Prime** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 4:26 pm

You need a CPU and GPU upgrade. Performance is going to hit cheap real soon. The GeForce 8800 GT has 112 stream processors (GTX has 128), but costs only $200. Make sure you get the 512MB model. Along with that, Core 2 Quad is $280. These two along side 4GB DDR2/3 will make you even Crysis high-end ready.

Warlock · Post by **Warlock** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 6:32 pm

I got 2 8800GT's and omg just one of thoes sucks ate me old 5900 alive even eats my girl friends 7800 or 7900 up alive.

I got the GTs insted of the GTX cause they cost less and the speed diff isn't worth spending

But is u get a new MB with the vids get a NForce chipset cause it will help out alot

FireFox · Post by **FireFox** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 4:08 am

Thanks I think I'll rather safe up some $$ and do a complete overhaul of the system. BTW realized I didn't over clock the system yet! So I did that and STALKER running at 1280x1024 at pretty decent quality settings (no dynamic lighting thou kills the system). I guess I can life with that, it just bought the system a couple of months lol.

Thanks

Will a GFX upgrade be sufficient?

Will a GFX upgrade be sufficient?

Re:

Re: