CPU Scaling and New Video Cards

[Joe62]

then all the industry has to do is not write games that require extreme
hardware?

Pretty much. Any analysis of game sales data makes it clear that the
games that sell consistently have low hardware requirements. Not
exactly rocket science ... when your market it 200 million PC owners,
you've got a lot better chances than you do with 5 million hardcore
gamers.

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

Your theory isn't backed by the data. These people are either buying
less games each year, or there are less of these people (or, more
likely, they've gone to console gaming).

Joe

 

[Joe62]

The Gaming Industry, are the ones who create those new 'hardware
requirements' by putting those new features 'in there new games'.
They knows the statistics on hardware and what people are buying or are
currently using from past sales. If they wish to create a game that only
performs great on 1% of the hardware. They have no one to blame but
themselves, if they are shrinking there market.

The last PC to be pushed to it's hardware limits (besides the PSX that
is a console) was the Commodore 64! Unfortunately, well written software
that pushes the hardware to the limit. Has been replaced by,
faster hardware to push along buggy, bloated software at an satisfactory
speed.

Couldn't agree more, well said.

Joe

 

[NightSky 421]

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!

Heh, with a machine like that, you deserve something new! Just take
solace in the fact that the longer you can hold off, the nicer the
upgrade will be!

 

[Bob Jenkins]

" For all of the reviews and benchmarking that's done, clearly nobody is
addressing the CPU scaling issue enough. I don't care how the next gen of
video cards is going to run on a 4 GHZ system! How will it run on 1, 1.4,
1.53, 1.8, 2.0 GHZ .. etc ... ??? "


Many are familiar with the following article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/index.html . If they were to
also span a number of CPUs, then it would be so much more work for them.
Would you also suggest they span a number of memory combinations and
motherboards? A review of 30 graphics card, 30 CPUs, 30 memory combinations
and 30 motherboards would turn into 30x30x30x30=810,000 system combinations.
Then times that by each test and you're looking at millions, which is
decades of work for one review. In order to properly test graphics cards in
a short space of time they have to limit the query of other hardware factors
being a bottleneck, which is why they use fast systems.

If you need to test all combinations of 4 types of things with 30
choices each, that's right. But since most problems tend to be just
two components working together, it's easier. If you only need to
test all pairs (cards x CPUs, cards x motherboards, CPUs x
motherboards, etc), that can be done with 900 system combinations.
Each 4-item combination would test (4 choose 2)=6 pairs. Search for
"allpairs" or "Taguchi method". As you add more types of things, the
number of system combinations required eventually grows
logarithmically with the number of types of things. The cost is much
more sensitive to the maximum number of choices per type than to the
number of types.

Testing 900 system combinations is still quite a stretch, though.

 

[Mr. Grinch]

Heh, with a machine like that, you deserve something new! Just take
solace in the fact that the longer you can hold off, the nicer the
upgrade will be!

You know it. I just hope Doom 3 doesn't take until Christmas!

 

[Cardinal Fang]

Link?

The Gaming Industry, are the ones who create those new 'hardware
requirements' by putting those new features 'in there new games'.
They knows the statistics on hardware and what people are buying or are
currently using from past sales. If they wish to create a game that only
performs great on 1% of the hardware. They have no one to blame but
themselves, if they are shrinking there market.

The last PC to be pushed to it's hardware limits (besides the PSX that
is a console) was the Commodore 64! Unfortunately, well written software
that pushes the hardware to the limit. Has been replaced by,
faster hardware to push along buggy, bloated software at an satisfactory
speed.

I'd say it was the Amiga. The hardware stayed the same for about 5 years
and games got much better as developers mastered it.

 

[Darthy]

I hope this crosspost is ok.

Ok here's my problem with where PC gaming is going. I built an AMD 1.53 GHZ
machine w/ 512 megs of ram and a Geforce 3 Ti200 in 2002. Obviously this
system is not ready for Far Cry and Doom III generation of games.

As others have said... you'll need to wait and see...

But Far Cry runs very good on todays system. You could use a new
video card today... then get a new CPU/mobo combo tomorrow.

The AMD64-3200 is about $200, not bad... cost less than your original
AMD CPU.

I play Far Cry on both of my systems.

SYS1: AMD 2500+ 1gb with ATI9800Pro
SYS2: AMD 2000+ 512mb with FX5900 (not XT or PRO)

With higher detail settings, SYS1 smokes SYS2. the extra 512mb helps
a bit (and no swap file either). But I saw this kind of performance
difference before I added the 512mb.

I would recommend the AMD64 for the next CPU upgrade... cause todays
top cards will be held back by your CPU.

For the $200 range today, the ATI9800... but if you want to get the
next gen card and $400 is okay with you - wait about a month when both
ATI and Nvidia cards are on the market. We only have a glimpse of the
6800Ultra - which is $500 when it hits the streets....

For all of the reviews and benchmarking that's done, clearly nobody is
addressing the CPU scaling issue enough. I don't care how the next gen of
video cards is going to run on a 4 GHZ system! How will it run on 1, 1.4,
1.53, 1.8, 2.0 GHZ .. etc ... ???

Tom hardware does this every once in a while... is a very detailed
review... takes a long time... but heres the curent one:

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030217/index.html

 

[Darthy]

I hope this crosspost is ok.

Ok here's my problem with where PC gaming is going. I built an AMD 1.53 GHZ
machine w/ 512 megs of ram and a Geforce 3 Ti200 in 2002. Obviously this
system is not ready for Far Cry and Doom III generation of games.

I forgot to add:

With the last screen shots and videos of Doom3 and HL2 - Far Cry is
very close to the abilities of those other modern games. (hopefully
HL and Doom3 would learn from Unreal to use MOVING sky "clouds").

Being that LH2D3 are soooooo late, I'm guessing they are doing some
improvements to the graphics... will they be the NEXT Duke Pukem?

As of this moment after playing Far Cry, HL2 doesn't look as
advanced... I still like UT2004... (A lot more maps and end user
modifications).

 

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

This doesn't compare different CPUs with video cards, however.

 

[Hello World]

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

I shouldn't have pre-ordered it while all the details
weren't yet on the shop's site
Ah, the good point is that it pushed me to buy a (cheap)
dvd drive, i would have needed one soon or later anyway,
like for the special edition of UT2004 for example.

 

[Darthy]

This doesn't compare different CPUs with video cards, however.

Its about the best youre gonna get... the combonation would be huge.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030217/cpu_charts-23.html

 

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

Quoting a different link from the same article does nothing to rebutt what I said. CPU comparisons alone are fairly worthless (especially when no actual GAMES are even tested). Note this thread's subject: "CPU Scaling and New Video Cards". The point being to see how video cards (new but old too) compare in terms of performance with different CPUs.