CPU Scaling and New Video Cards

[magnulus]

New cards almost always NEED a fast CPU to "push" them. Take a look at Toms'
Hardware. They have several charts (benchmarks) with the same video card,
using a slower CPU, and faster CPU. The same video card can gain as much as
25% (or more) performance just by having a faster CPU pumping out the data.

If you go to higher resolution or image quality, you will need a faster
graphics card, not CPU. At higher resolutions games are graphics card
limited, not CPU limited. This means unless you game at 800x600 or
1024x768, you might benefit from a faster video card even if you have a
slower CPU.

 

[NightSky 421]

That's what I'm going to do. But the waiting is killing me! Argh!

With a name like yours?...c'mon.

(Just kidding of course)

 

[=?iso-8859-1?Q?Eep=B2?=]

As long as game developers follow the lead of Crytek's Far Cry and make their games backwards compatible (as in decent framerates with reduced graphics detail) with at least 2 or 3 video chip generations, there won't be a problem with just about everyone buying (and enjoying) games.

 

[Blig Merk]

You guys have to take these games with a grain of salt.
And the Dawn demo that supposedly required a Geforce FX to run?
Weeks later, college kids had it running on a Radeon... and running
BETTER at that. A patch was later released for the Geforce 4 and lower
series to emulate an FX... didn't do a bad job either.

That was a good story but did you ever try it yourself? It wasn't just
a Radeon, it had to be a Radeon 9800 Pro with 256MB memory.
Personally, tried the patch on a Radeon 9800 Pro with 128MB and it
didn't work. So much for that anecdote. Besides, that was yesterday's
news. Have you tried the Dusk 5900 demo? Funny how there isn't any
claim that it can be run on a Radeon or that it can be patched down to
a Geforce 4. Don't believe everything you read except those things you
already have a preconceived notion about seems to be a common theme on
the Internet.

 

[Inglo]

Oh yeah baby! Nothing like Doom3 at 640x480 resolution.

(I know the XBox can do higher resolution than that... but even the scaled
down Doom3 that the XBox may get will bring it to it's knees...)

If you can handle 5 minute level loads I bet it'll look fine on the XBox.
I'll be playing it on my overclocked like a mutha AthlonXP w/ Radeon
9600 Pro though too, and I imagine the 96/800s will do alright as well.

 

[One Punch Mickey]

That was a good story but did you ever try it yourself? It wasn't just
a Radeon, it had to be a Radeon 9800 Pro with 256MB memory.
Personally, tried the patch on a Radeon 9800 Pro with 128MB and it
didn't work. So much for that anecdote. Besides, that was yesterday's
news. Have you tried the Dusk 5900 demo? Funny how there isn't any
claim that it can be run on a Radeon or that it can be patched down to
a Geforce 4. Don't believe everything you read except those things you
already have a preconceived notion about seems to be a common theme on
the Internet.

I've run the Dawn wrapper no problem on both a Radeon 9600 and 9800.
Both with 128Mb RAM. Very nice too. Especially if you change the name of
the EXE to QUAKE3.EXE and it makes her come out in the nude. Hur, hur.

 

[magnulus]

then all the industry has to do is not write games that require extreme
hardware? obviously people wanting extreme games is what is pushing the game
industry. people who can afford 600$ video cards are more likely the ones to
buy the games

I disagree. A few demanding FPS's don't make up the whole of the PC
gaming industry. Strategy games are more demanding than they were 3 years
ago, but they are a still a far cry (pardon the pun) from some action games.

 

[Andrew]

I disagree. A few demanding FPS's don't make up the whole of the PC
gaming industry. Strategy games are more demanding than they were 3 years
ago, but they are a still a far cry (pardon the pun) from some action games.

State of the art games have been pushing PC hardware sales for over 10
years now, and PC gaming is still going strong.

 

[magnulus]

Remember the hype a few years back about how you wouldn't need to do
this in the GeForce age? Nothing but marketing lies.

Not necessarily true. If you want to up the resolution or image quality,
a newer card on the same processor could still be do-able. The 6800 is only
CPU limited at LOWER resolutions and without antialiasing. The antialiasing
quality of the 6800 will be alot better than any of NVidia's previous cards.

I have a GeForce FX 5900 (non-pro) but I'm going to be saving up to buy an
FX 6800 (non-pro) if the benchmarks play out around the time of release.

 

[magnulus]

State of the art games have been pushing PC hardware sales for over 10
years now, and PC gaming is still going strong.

Bust at least 3/4 of the games out there have very modest system
requirements.

Out of the hundreds of games available, there are maybe only about 5-10 I
would say are "demanding", and only maybe 2-3 I'd call "very demanding" (Far
Cry would be one of them).

 

[Tim O]

That was a good story but did you ever try it yourself? It wasn't just
a Radeon, it had to be a Radeon 9800 Pro with 256MB memory.
Personally, tried the patch on a Radeon 9800 Pro with 128MB and it
didn't work. So much for that anecdote. Besides, that was yesterday's
news. Have you tried the Dusk 5900 demo? Funny how there isn't any
claim that it can be run on a Radeon or that it can be patched down to
a Geforce 4. Don't believe everything you read except those things you
already have a preconceived notion about seems to be a common theme on
the Internet.

You had another issue. I ran it with no problems on my 128 meg 9800
after reading about it here. Kind of silly really, but it works fine.

 

[Blig Merk]

You had another issue. I ran it with no problems on my 128 meg 9800
after reading about it here. Kind of silly really, but it works fine.

Dusk? http://download.nvidia.com/downloads/nZone/demos/nvidia/Dusk_1_1.exe

Dusk Ultra? http://download.nvidia.com/downloads/nZone/demos/nvidia/Dusk_Ultra_1_1.exe

Provide a link to a wrapper that works for these.

 

[B0B]

firingsquad.com has cpu scaling benchmarks

Where though? I read through a lot of reviews and performance reviews
of the different video cards on their site and didn't see any.

 

[Sleepy]

To get Far Cry to run at 1024x768x32 on medium settings you
need something like a 2ghz CPU, 512mb RAM and GF4 128mb.
you'll still get occasional hdd access and Windows takes a little while to
restore after you exit the game so an extra 256mb is really sweet.
I expect HL2 and Doom3 to need similar specs but you dont know for sure
until its out.

 

[Hello World]

As long as game developers follow the lead of Crytek's Far Cry and make

their games backwards compatible (as in decent framerates with reduced
graphics detail) with at least 2 or 3 video chip generations, there won't be
a problem with just about everyone buying (and enjoying) games.

....except for people like me who didn't see written anywhere that the
game was on a DVD-Rom and who, of course, don't have a driver for
it...

 

[Mr. Grinch]

With a name like yours?...c'mon.

(Just kidding of course)

I'm stuck on a dual P3-800 running Server 2003 right now! I want to buy a
new system right now SO BAD but I know it will be obsolete by the time Doom
3 comes out. So I keep waiting for Doom 3. But the system I have now just
doesn't cut it for games anymore. Something faster for converting AVI to
DVD would be nice too, but I have to wait. Argh!

 

[Tim O]

Dusk? http://download.nvidia.com/downloads/nZone/demos/nvidia/Dusk_1_1.exe

Dusk Ultra? http://download.nvidia.com/downloads/nZone/demos/nvidia/Dusk_Ultra_1_1.exe

Provide a link to a wrapper that works for these.

I don't know what Dusk, thought you were talking about the Dawn demo
which is what the person you replied to was talking about.
I did the search someone said when it was brought up before -"ATI
sleeps with Dawn" or whatever in Google. I downloaded it, set it up
like in the readme, watched it (there was a way to see it nude too),
and deleted it.

 

[PEACEMAKER]

hrm when I got my game it was 5 normal cds not dvd-rom

 

[DaveL]

Your GF3 is holding your system back. That would be the next logical
upgrade. If you get something like a 5900 you will be runnings these games
fine.

DaveL

 

[Jonathan]

Short answer, it's probably time to look at upgrading; especially if your
mb only supports 4X AGP. That is if you really want to play FryCry and some
of the newer games at 1024 or higher with max details and AA/AF on.

As to DoomIII & Half Life 2... well it just depends if they are CPU or GPU
dependant as to how much you need to invest in your new rig. And we won't
know that until we see the benchmarks.

Check out this link:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/nv40.html

Notice the performance for FarCry with top of the line computer rig with
last years video cards vs the new Nvidia card. Certainly seems like this
game is GPU dependant. Now check out the IL2 and Locklock performance.
They appear to be CPU dependant (the frame rate isn't much greater from one
video card to the next). Maybe Intel's new 4ghz cpu (later this year)
might help?

Oh, by the way, this year is shaping up for some interesting new hardware.
The Nvidia 6800 video card is out. And ATI should be releasing their
latest card sometime in May. Then later this year the PCI Express video
cards are expected. Intel is suppose to release their next gen of CPUs.

Jonathan