Upgrade nightmare

[johns]

I'm a gamer, and right now, my system is
AMD64 Athlon 3000+ on Gigabyte K8NS mobo,
2 gig ddr400 Kingston, 160 gig Hitachi SATA,
4msec Viewsonic LCD, Antec case with 450 watt psupply,
ATI 9800 Pro 128

I've been able to max out the settings on Far Cry and
it plays smooth with great looking graphics, and FPS
in the 50s. In that game I have AA 4X, An-Iso 2x, all
other Very High with game patched to 1.3. It plays
well, and I could even afford to back off on the settings
a bit to get FPS in the low 60s average at 1024x.

However, CoD2 is another matter. I can't play that
game beyond the 3rd level running Dx9c without
a major drop in FPS. It looks like a slide show.
I can play the game very well if I drop back to Dx7.

I figure this is the coming thing, and I would like to
upgrade my video card and try to get decent performance
in CoD2, and, hopefully, the add-on pack for Far Cry
coming in Feb. I tried an nVidia GF 6800 128 AGP
which supposedly is a much better card than the 9800.
I discovered that is not true .. SERIOUSLY not true.
Those 6800s are crippled, and their performance in
Far Cry is really 2nd rate in the extreme. I got performance
equivaltent to an ATI 9600XT, and lots of screen pauses.
Nothing would fix that. I'm guru enough to know how to
use Coolbits and Rivatuner, and tweak the card in all
settings to try to make it perform, but that 6800 is a
total loser. It is just a 12 pipe, and clocks at 325:750.
It will not overclock at all. Makes me think these cards
are manufacturing rejects or something. I only paid
$180 for it new.

I'm reading about the X800s, and right away, I'm hearing
the calls for help on the AGP models. Same problem.
FPS is in the dirt for reasons unknown. I'm looking
at prices for the X850 Pro 256, and they are not bad
.... around $270, and I could trade up my 9800 for $50
rebate. Still I'm a little wary of doing it. Clean performance
in games is everything to me. I sent that 6800 back
and took a $60 restocking fee hit for it. I'm pretty sure
the X800 AGP is no better unless there is a model
that is not crippled. The X850 Pro AGP is also only
a 12 pipe, and the price is fairly low. Makes me
really really suspicious of the game they are playing
with us. Get a new card, and it is a piece of crap,
and get burned again. My 9800 Pro is a fine card.
CoD2 is the first time it has balked.
Is there a way to upgrade the 9800 ? Or is that
X850 Pro any good .. or just another AGP rip off?

johns

 

[NightSky 421]

I'm a gamer, and right now, my system is
AMD64 Athlon 3000+ on Gigabyte K8NS mobo,
2 gig ddr400 Kingston, 160 gig Hitachi SATA,
4msec Viewsonic LCD, Antec case with 450 watt psupply,
ATI 9800 Pro 128

I've been able to max out the settings on Far Cry and
it plays smooth with great looking graphics, and FPS
in the 50s. In that game I have AA 4X, An-Iso 2x, all
other Very High with game patched to 1.3. It plays
well, and I could even afford to back off on the settings
a bit to get FPS in the low 60s average at 1024x.

However, CoD2 is another matter. I can't play that
game beyond the 3rd level running Dx9c without
a major drop in FPS. It looks like a slide show.
I can play the game very well if I drop back to Dx7.

From what I've read about the 9800 Pro, that sounds right about having to
drop to DX7 mode. I have this video card myself, but not COD 2!

I figure this is the coming thing, and I would like to
upgrade my video card and try to get decent performance
in CoD2, and, hopefully, the add-on pack for Far Cry
coming in Feb. I tried an nVidia GF 6800 128 AGP
which supposedly is a much better card than the 9800.
I discovered that is not true .. SERIOUSLY not true.
Those 6800s are crippled, and their performance in
Far Cry is really 2nd rate in the extreme. I got performance
equivaltent to an ATI 9600XT, and lots of screen pauses.
Nothing would fix that. I'm guru enough to know how to
use Coolbits and Rivatuner, and tweak the card in all
settings to try to make it perform, but that 6800 is a
total loser. It is just a 12 pipe, and clocks at 325:750.
It will not overclock at all. Makes me think these cards
are manufacturing rejects or something. I only paid
$180 for it new.

Usually price is a good indicator of what kind of performance to expect. As
a gamer, you should have aimed for at least a 6800GT rather than the vanilla
card.

I'm reading about the X800s, and right away, I'm hearing
the calls for help on the AGP models. Same problem.
FPS is in the dirt for reasons unknown. I'm looking
at prices for the X850 Pro 256, and they are not bad
... around $270, and I could trade up my 9800 for $50
rebate. Still I'm a little wary of doing it. Clean performance
in games is everything to me. I sent that 6800 back
and took a $60 restocking fee hit for it. I'm pretty sure
the X800 AGP is no better unless there is a model
that is not crippled. The X850 Pro AGP is also only
a 12 pipe, and the price is fairly low. Makes me
really really suspicious of the game they are playing
with us. Get a new card, and it is a piece of crap,
and get burned again. My 9800 Pro is a fine card.
CoD2 is the first time it has balked.
Is there a way to upgrade the 9800 ? Or is that
X850 Pro any good .. or just another AGP rip off?

johns

I would try for an X800XL if you wanted a decent affordable card and wanted
to stick with ATI. But I agree about the 9800 Pro. Despite it's age, it's
actually held up very well. I came really, really close to building a new
system this month but then went back and played some of my games (including
recent stuff) on my 9800 Pro and asked myself if I honestly needed to make
changes. The answer ended up being no since all of the games I have run
decent enough at the settings I want. I will go back to my original plan
and buy something new in the summer once Socket M2 has been out for a bit.
Also I will want a G80 or R580 video card with it.

 

[Philburg]

Disable cool n' quiet, i've seen that do bad things to graphics.
I know I can run COD2 with my 6800 fine.
btw, u could probably unlock it if its an agp version
they can overclock well also

 

[johns]

I did both. I think this 6800 really is a factory reject, and a few
companies are pushing them to unsuspecting types like me.
Also, I have a Dell 9100 with a much better version of the 6800
pci-e, and in Far Cry it ran really well until it hit the Bunker
level. I've tried everything I know, including dropping the settings
way down to medium and no AA, and the Bunker level is
just a disaster. My 9800 runs that level perfectly ?? Word
at the game sites is the 81.95 driver is causing problems,
and I should be running the 78.05 driver. I'm going to try
that next on the Dell. It is starting to look like to me that
the gaming industry is not doing a very good job with drivers
on these newer cards. Potentially they should be able to
run at much higher settings than the 9800, and they do
for a while, but then they are buggy.

johns

 

[John Edmister]

I went thru the same video card woe's..... My system is an Athlon XP2500
OC'd to 3200 @ 2.2ghz @ 109 degrees.With an ATI 9800 pro on an MSI K7N2
Delta ILSR mobo with 1g of PC3200 ddr <dual channel>
I did some research and bought a 6600 AGP video card only to be greatly
disappointed..... same thing bite the restock, order something better, so I
ordered a Sapphire X800 GTO with 256 meg ddr3. It worked fine until the PCB
started seperating <no OCing> So I put my 9800 pro back in, bought a 300gb
SATA HD, and did a fresh install of everything, and now I'm getting about 70
fps in D3 and BF2, and I ponder, why upgrade? I think you may find a big
improvement in sysem performance if you went that route, bigger, faster HD
SATA is hot!! I did a complete install of XP pro, added SP2 in under 40
minutes actually I think it was closer to 30. And my system performance has
been phenominal!!!
I think I'm going to wait a little longer for the dust to settle before I
flip out my hard earned cash <not that it is in short supply lol> on all
these upgrades and shit. I mean if I can get 70 fps in BF2 @1024x768.......
why spend alotta $$ for everything? PLUS, I hear that alot of the newer
games run better with 2gb of ram also.... that may be my next "step" to the
next level.

 

[Ed Forsythe]

Can't add anything other than to say I've got a mild system and while I'm
not an avid gamer I run a couple of Radio Control model airplane simulators
that are extremely demanding. My trusty ol' 9800Pro handles them with no
problems. My system;
ABIT IC7Max3, ATI 9800Pro/128, IGB OCZ PC4000 Gold, P4C 2.8GHz, Samsung
213T.
Each time I think about upgrading my vid card I get the extreme woes. Too
many choices and at this point I can't justify the expense 'cause the
9800Pro is still running strong. I'm really conservative when it comes to
CPU upgrades. I normally wait until I can double my speed. Probably by next
Christmas I'll go for something between 4 & 5GHz and a new vid card. unless
you troops can come up with a good reason to upgrade sooner

 

[johns]

I can come up with some real good reasons not to upgrade.

johns

 

[Ed Forsythe]

Hi John.
Would you mind sharing with me?

 

[888]

I'm a gamer, and right now, my system is
AMD64 Athlon 3000+ on Gigabyte K8NS mobo,
2 gig ddr400 Kingston, 160 gig Hitachi SATA,
4msec Viewsonic LCD, Antec case with 450 watt psupply,
ATI 9800 Pro 128

I've been able to max out the settings on Far Cry and
it plays smooth with great looking graphics, and FPS
in the 50s. In that game I have AA 4X, An-Iso 2x, all
other Very High with game patched to 1.3. It plays
well, and I could even afford to back off on the settings
a bit to get FPS in the low 60s average at 1024x.

However, CoD2 is another matter. I can't play that
game beyond the 3rd level running Dx9c without
a major drop in FPS. It looks like a slide show.
I can play the game very well if I drop back to Dx7.

I figure this is the coming thing, and I would like to
upgrade my video card and try to get decent performance
in CoD2, and, hopefully, the add-on pack for Far Cry
coming in Feb. I tried an nVidia GF 6800 128 AGP
which supposedly is a much better card than the 9800.
I discovered that is not true .. SERIOUSLY not true.
Those 6800s are crippled, and their performance in
Far Cry is really 2nd rate in the extreme. I got performance
equivaltent to an ATI 9600XT, and lots of screen pauses.
Nothing would fix that. I'm guru enough to know how to
use Coolbits and Rivatuner, and tweak the card in all
settings to try to make it perform, but that 6800 is a
total loser. It is just a 12 pipe, and clocks at 325:750.
It will not overclock at all. Makes me think these cards
are manufacturing rejects or something. I only paid
$180 for it new.

I'm reading about the X800s, and right away, I'm hearing
the calls for help on the AGP models. Same problem.
FPS is in the dirt for reasons unknown. I'm looking
at prices for the X850 Pro 256, and they are not bad
... around $270, and I could trade up my 9800 for $50
rebate. Still I'm a little wary of doing it. Clean performance
in games is everything to me. I sent that 6800 back
and took a $60 restocking fee hit for it. I'm pretty sure
the X800 AGP is no better unless there is a model
that is not crippled. The X850 Pro AGP is also only
a 12 pipe, and the price is fairly low. Makes me
really really suspicious of the game they are playing
with us. Get a new card, and it is a piece of crap,
and get burned again. My 9800 Pro is a fine card.
CoD2 is the first time it has balked.
Is there a way to upgrade the 9800 ? Or is that
X850 Pro any good .. or just another AGP rip off?

I think it's more to do with code optimization than to blame everything on the
hardware.

 

[johns]

Here's a list of the GF 6800 bugs I've seen in one weeks testing:

- In Far Cry, the 256 meg card crashed the PC when I put video
settings to same level as my ATI 9800 Pro .. all Very High.

- I could only run Far Cry with that cards settings greatly reduced.
Asked XFX tech support about it, and they had me download
and learn the innards of Coolbits and Rivatuner, so I could learn
all the registry hacks needed to operate a 6xxx card. And
believe me, you will need both.

- In CoD2, the 128 meg AGP card would not run with AA set to
anything. I had to use a combo of Coolbits and Rivatuner to set
AGP to 4x, and turn Fast Writes OFF before I could set AA.

- Niether card runs CoD2 well with Shadows ON. Neither card
runs well at 1024x768 resolution. FPS drops in the dirt.

- In Far Cry, the 256 meg card ran fairly well up to the Bunker
level, and then totally crashed. Something in that level finally
used up all the card ram, so it could not do overlays. Cutting
the video settings back quite a bit to all HIGH restored the game.
Rumor is that Smooth Shader 3.0 is the problem, and should
be disabled. Seems with the 6800s, all you do is disable one
thing after another.

- In Far Cry, the 128 meg card ran OK, but with a lot of screen
stutter on all HIGH settings. Only way to minimize, but not
cure the stuttering, was to put video settings on Medium. Still,
the PC would reboot randomly. No warning. Not a heat problem.

- Using 3DMark2001, the 128 meg 6800 benched around 14,500.
The 256 meg 6800 benched around 16,200. My ATI 9800 Pro
benched around 19,200. In other words, the 128 is equivalent
to an ATI 9600. The 256 is equivalent to an ATI 9600XT. And
the Coolbits settings greatly affect both, but when you get good
benchmarks, you get lousy performance in Far Cry.

- Every tech support call I made said the same thing. Far Cry
is "out of date" and the 6xxx series doesn't run it well. Bullshit!
As for the new HDR, and SLI, you can forget that on the 6xxx
cards. They just aren't going to take any overload that needs
video ram. Either what is needed won't run at all, or it loads
from disk and generates screen hiccups, making the game
unplayable.

- I noticed that both cards ran at a very slow rate GPU: 325
and video ram 600 to 750. The ATI cards start at about 415,
and many run at GPU:500 ... and that is the older cards.
Also, word is the 6800 do not overclock well. You might get
one up to 340:780 , but that is about all. You can force them
higher, but you'll burn the card up doing that.

- Finally, nVidia will tell you in a heartbeat they they do not
make video cards. They license chipsets. That means that
unlike ATI, there are lots of fly-by-nights making the nVidia
cards. And that means you don't know what you are getting
from vendor to vendor. Plus, the prices for the so-called
same card are all over the place. I discovered that the card
I bought was severely crippled by the manufacturer, so they
could sell it cheap ( $180 for a 6800 ). They crippled it so
much, that it can't compete with an ATI 9800 Pro which is
several years older.

johns

 

[Ed Forsythe]

Thanks johns,
That's much for the info - I'll save it for future reference. Meantime I'll
stick with my 9800 Pro.

BTW, The latest issue (January, 06) of Maximum PC makes the following evals;
Best High-End video card (ATI X1800XT vs. nVidia GeForce 7800GTX) = 7800GTX
Best Mid-Range video card (Sapphire, ATI powered X1800XL vs. LeadTek WinFast
7800GT TDH Extreme) = LeadTek WinFast 7800GT TDH Extreme
Best Budget Video card (ATI Radeon X1600XT vs. AOpen GeForce6800GT = AOpen
GeForce 6800GT

IMHO, $500-$650 is too much to spend on a high-end card that may be
obsolete in 5-6 months. I'm going to wait until the dust settles ;-)
TallyHo!
Ed