God bless my 9800 Pro

[Martin Francis]

These people who say you can't run Half Life 2 without an X800 are nuts.
The
9800 Pro works perfect with the game. But it's still slow as hell with
Halo.

Are you MicroSurprised?

 

[Mr B.]

...

6 FPS is perfect?

Don't use FSAA with Halo, will slow it to a slideshow !!

 

[JimBob]

6 FPS is perfect?

6?? hmm, dunno where u got that from, more like 30 i think

 

[Rick Carney]

ALright I'll try it later. I thought I remembered everyone bitching about
the frame rate. I gave up on it after a while because it was choppy.

Thanks

 

[Conor]

erm, sorry to slam your comment, but Halo does perform excellent on a
9800pro - I'm talking 256-bit here, not the se128-bit anyway.

My SE is 256 bit...

 

[DirtyHeel]

ALright I'll try it later. I thought I remembered everyone bitching
about the frame rate. I gave up on it after a while because it was
choppy.

Thanks

I seem to recall that most of Halo's framerate problems were with the
GeForce FX line, similar to how the FX caards got their asses handed to them
with the HL2 benchmarks from last year.

 

[DirtyHeel]

Now that the two big "guns" are out -- Doom 3 and Half Life 2 (not to
mention Rome Total War), I can safely say my Radeon 9800 Pro was the
best computer purchase I ever made. This card is now over two years
old, there weren't even any DX9 titles released when it first came
out, and yet it runs the latest games without a hitch. I think that's
pretty amazing and a testament to how far ahead of its time it was
when ATI first conceived it. I had been worried I might need to
upgrade to an X800 or something, but thank God I didn't waste the
money. My trusty old 9800 Pro has done a marvelous job. (Now I'll
start worrying about whether it can handle STALKER).

Yeah, I upgraded from an Fx5600 to a Radeon 9800 pro ($250 CDN, a decent
price if you aks me), and I am SO happy with the improvements. Especially
after how freaked out I got when I found out how shitty half-life 2 ran on
the fx cards last year. I just need to upgrade my PC's RAM now :s

 

[DirtyHeel]

Can you run it at 16 by 12 resolution, everything maxed out, with
AA-enabled, at 70FPS..... ? An X800 or 6800GT can -- least my 6800 GT
can,
think that's all folks were trying to say. I just replaced my 9800
PRO,
which I agree is probably the best buy at the moment.

Dunno. I never even bother enabling AA in my games. HL2 is the fist game I
ever enabled even 2x on, and I get great framerates on my 9800 pro and the
graphics look great to me. Of course I'd prefer an x800 card, no doubt about
dat, but I don't have the money or a pci express slot. Plus I'd probably
need to upgrade my p/s.

 

[DirtyHeel]

It's not more than two years old, is it? I thought the 9800 Pro cam
out in August 2003.

I thought that was when the 9800 XT came out. Dunno. These things get
released too often it's hard to keep track

 

[SL]

I can see your point Greg. I have a 9500 pro (non L-shaped mem/bios
enhanced) ATI card that has done its job for "God and Country" as the Brits
would say. I did pay a pretty penny of 200$ at that time. It did run every
game very nicely until Doom 3. Again, I said "nicely".

That I think is the ice-breaker for a 9500 pro (oem)., Doom 3. I just
replaced it with another (oem) 9800 pro and the game is 95% smooth as
butter. I hold some of that into account that my system lacks on the 3
generic sticks of ram I have. Only 1 gig total of pc2100 on a board that
can hold more. The rest is:

AMD 3000+ fsb333
80 gig w/XP Pro OS
C-media 8738 sound (better than onboard AC '97)
20in. Monitor
Latest Omega Driver

3DMark 04 - 5700

I love my 9500 pro. That was my best purchase. I have it in my 2nd pc and
that thing still holds on well with every other game. The 9800 pro is a
sweet piece, but it does not offer a jump like a 9500 pro did for its day.
At least to/for me.

SL

p.s. long live the VooDoo 1 !!

SL

 

[NightSky 421]

Now that the two big "guns" are out -- Doom 3 and Half Life 2 (not to
mention Rome Total War), I can safely say my Radeon 9800 Pro was the
best computer purchase I ever made. This card is now over two years
old, there weren't even any DX9 titles released when it first came
out, and yet it runs the latest games without a hitch. I think that's
pretty amazing and a testament to how far ahead of its time it was
when ATI first conceived it. I had been worried I might need to
upgrade to an X800 or something, but thank God I didn't waste the
money. My trusty old 9800 Pro has done a marvelous job. (Now I'll
start worrying about whether it can handle STALKER).

The 9800 Pro is simply still a decent video card. ATI's public relations
department originally stated that you would "need" a 9800XT to enjoy
Half-Life 2 to it's potential, and a 9800 Pro isn't much slower. PC Gamer
magazine also originally said that the 9700 Pro was something of the
unofficial video card of Doom 3, so I would have expected the 9800 Pro to
hold up well there also. STALKER should be good with it too, if not they'll
lose sales of the game since it's not realistic to expect that most folks
will shell out big bucks for a new video card because of one game.

 

[Nonymous]

I agree completely. My 9800Pro runs fine (30-40 fps average or higher)
with the following games,

DOOM3 1024x768 2xAA 8xAF (ingame High Quality)
Half Life 2 1152x864 2xAA 4xAF (every graphic setting at max)
FarCry 1024x768 2xAA 4xAF (every graphic setting at max)

Battlefield and UT2K4 based games run at obscene frame rates.

BF42 is *not* a graphics whore. It'll run pretty fine with old GF2s.
Different story for BFV, though.

 

[liam]

I can see your point Greg. I have a 9500 pro (non L-shaped mem/bios
enhanced) ATI card that has done its job for "God and Country" as the Brits
would say.

Should be "King and Country " or "Queen and Country"

 

[mhicaoidh]

Taking a moment's reflection, John mused:
|
| Now that the two big "guns" are out -- Doom 3 and Half Life 2 (not to
| mention Rome Total War) ... [snip] ... I had been worried I might need to
| upgrade to an X800 or something, but thank God I didn't waste the
| money.

Consider this, though, you spend how much for it two years ago? Only to
wait two years for three games to come out where it would benefit ...
What's the difference in price for the 9800 Pro now as opposed to two years
ago?

 

[Wblane]

Um, I've got a 9800 Pro overclocked to XT speeds (1GB PC3200, Barton at
2340Mhz) and I sure as hell can't run Doom3 at high quality, 2xAA and 8xAF high
quality acceptably. The timedemo demo that comes w/Doom3 is a fantasy. When you
get to the first boss level in hell tell me how Doom3 runs for you. It'll be a
slideshow.

I agree completely. My 9800Pro runs fine (30-40 fps average or higher)
with the following games,

DOOM3 1024x768 2xAA 8xAF (ingame High Quality)
Half Life 2 1152x864 2xAA 4xAF (every graphic setting at max)
FarCry 1024x768 2xAA 4xAF (every graphic setting at max)

Battlefield and UT2K4 based games run at obscene frame rates.
Rome:Total War, Need for Speed: Underground, Richard Burns Rally and
all other recent releases run just great.

I think, I am good until 2006 when Oblivion and the next Unreal game
may come out and the games with cutting edge rendering will start to
look as good as 3DMark2K5 demo (which kills 9800Pro)

-Bill (remove "botizer" to reply via email)

 

[Wblane]

No it won't run pretty fine w/an old GF2. I tried running BF42 w/my GeForce
2/GTS and even at 640x480 it ran like a dog.

BF42 is *not* a graphics whore. It'll run pretty fine with old GF2s.
Different story for BFV, though.

-Bill (remove "botizer" to reply via email)

 

[twobirds]

There are also performance tweaks for the 9800pro in HL2
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=40872

All the tweaks there are good, but scroll down a bit for a
ati-specific tweak.

Well, I'm not sure why you would need to apply any performance tweeks for
this game. In fact I'm disapointed. Doom3 and HL2 were supposed to be the
games that forced users to upgrade their hardware... Hardly. Anyone with a
1.5 P4 or an XP-1700 with 384 megs and a GeForce 3 TI-200 or an ATI Radeon
8500 can get accpetable framerates at 800X600. Move up to a P4 2.4 or an
XP-2400 with a GeForce 4 class card and you're playing at decent framerates
at 1024X768.

I installed on a fast machine with a GeForce 4 TI-4600 and it was smooth as
silk at 1024X768... So, I wondered how it would go on a lesser machine.
Even though Steam pitched a momentary hissy fit when I fed the same CD key
for a different installation, it came out OK. I installed on a PIII 1.0 Ghz
with a GeForce 3 TI-200 and 512 PC-2100. fraps is reporting 28.4 frames per
second at 800X600 and the shadows etc turned off. There is some stuttering
audio but I'm experiencing that on the fast machine, too.

 

[Iphigenie]

I started thinking something odd was going on in
alt.games.half-life when one foggy november evening "twobirds"

Well, I'm not sure why you would need to apply any performance
tweeks for this game. In fact I'm disapointed. Doom3 and HL2
were supposed to be the games that forced users to upgrade their
hardware... Hardly.

You're disappointed? Imagine how ATI and Nvidia feel!

--
Iphigenie, http://iphi.net
Games of the moment: Lionheart, Spellforce
Demos of the moment: Soldiers, Perimeter
Most wanted games: Call of Cthulhu, SWAT4, Half Life 2, Soldiers

Iphi's game news: http://www.iphi.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi?mode=games
Iphi's UK bargain watch: http://www.iphi.net/more.php?id=102_0_1_0_M
Latest Games News: http://www.iphi.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi?mode=games
(currently Spellforce, Ground Control 2, Joint Operations, Rome Total
War, Starshatter, Pariah)

 

[jakesnake66]

Taking a moment's reflection, John mused:
|
| Now that the two big "guns" are out -- Doom 3 and Half Life 2 (not to
| mention Rome Total War) ... [snip] ... I had been worried I might need to
| upgrade to an X800 or something, but thank God I didn't waste the
| money.

Consider this, though, you spend how much for it two years ago? Only to
wait two years for three games to come out where it would benefit ...
What's the difference in price for the 9800 Pro now as opposed to two years
ago?

This is actually a great point. I "upgraded" from a Ti4600 to a 9800Pro,
which turned out to be essentially a waste of money, because I was still
playing my old games like BF1942, BHD, MOHAA, and Slinter Cell. With a good
cpu, the 4600 still kicks butt on all but the latest generation of games, so
is an excellent value if you want to play all the great games from the last
couple of years. To this day I'm not sure if I've realized any real value
from the 9800Pro, with the exception of Far Cry.

jakesnake

 

[jakesnake66]

Now that the two big "guns" are out -- Doom 3 and Half Life 2 (not to
mention Rome Total War), I can safely say my Radeon 9800 Pro was the
best computer purchase I ever made. This card is now over two years
old, there weren't even any DX9 titles released when it first came
out, and yet it runs the latest games without a hitch. I think that's
pretty amazing and a testament to how far ahead of its time it was
when ATI first conceived it. I had been worried I might need to
upgrade to an X800 or something, but thank God I didn't waste the
money. My trusty old 9800 Pro has done a marvelous job. (Now I'll
start worrying about whether it can handle STALKER).

I wonder if the 9800Pro was really "far ahead of its time" or if it's more a
case of game development/technology slowing down as to not out-pace the
abilities of the millions of cards out there already. Games sell better to
an installed base. I know my old Ti4600 felt "far ahead of its time" too,
as there didn't seem to be any games coming out that I couldn't play, so
long as I could tweak my cpu a bit.

jakesnake