Gaming at 1680x1050?

[kHiTe]

Having bought a widescreen flatscreen, mostly for work purposes I have begun to discover the joy of widescreen gaming. Older games like UT 2004 run fine, but my very old Nvidia 6600 / 2.53 P4 box is really not up to the task in the Source and newer titles I like to play online.

No problem. I was planning on building something new anyway. Honest.

But here is the rub. For GC's the best performers at high resolutions are not always the best performers at lower resolutions. To further complicate things very few games are tested at my screen resolution - it tend to work on the basic of 1600x1200 being equivalent, although it is in fact many more pixels.

I would love to consider NVIDIA cards, but I think Source looks best with HDR and AA and IMHO I am thinking that ATI's Architecture is going to be the business for future SM3 games. So 7900GT SLi is out, although SLi seems to perform great at Higher Resolutions.

However Crossfire seems to still have issues. Even if I go single card I would love to have the opportunity of the simple upgrade later. So my present thought is to go for a ATi card higher in the range and add another later down the line if that is better value than a new single card solution. The mid range X1900GT seems to not have enought grunt on its own. I guess the X1900XT would have the oomph to power my gaming dreams for now, with the possibility of Crossfire later on.

Maybe it seems like a decision is made. But I really would like some feedback.

 

[RichPLS]

I use a Dell 2405FPW mated with a HiS X1800XT at 1900x1200 and it plays games quite well.

 

[rippleyaliens]

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/

good site for widescreen gaming

 

[lobosrul]

I have a Dell 2405fpw, and a 7800GT. It has a native res of 1900x1200 but most games i set at 1680x1050-centered (black bars on all sides).

I dont see what your problem is with Nvidia, I've seen screens of the difference in AA, and can only really see it under magnification.

Also know that for a lot of games (BF2 for instance) there is no in game setting to set a widescreen res, it has to be done by cfg or command line.

I plan on upgrading to SLI late this year for M2:TW.

 

[delanooch]

I would love to consider NVIDIA cards, but I think Source looks best with HDR and AA and IMHO I am thinking that ATI's Architecture is going to be the business for future SM3 games. So 7900GT SLi is out, although SLi seems to perform great at Higher Resolutions.

Lets talk about this for a sec because I am a fan of being able to play at high res. with AA turned on myself. I love AA and aniso, HDR etc...

I have a Dell 24" Wide LCD (setup is in sig) And I have to say that not having AA enabled in quite a few games doesnt bug me as much as in lower resolutions, as a matter of fact when you are playing at a res of 1680 x 1050 usually on a 20" screen or 1920x1200 on a 23 or 24" damn if it makes much of a difference wih AA on or not.

Just my opinion, I have been playing GRAW lately @ 1920x1200 with AFR turned on in the drivers and I am getting sick framerates and it looks good too! Check out widescreengamingforum.com if you dont already go there. there are tips sometimes on how to get better performance while in a higher widescreen resolution.

Bottom line is jaggies arent as noticeable at highest resolutions, low resolutions, oh yes there are massive jaggies!

 

[cleeve]

I'd disagree, as for my personal preference I can see a notable difference at high resolutions, even with only 2x AA.

But there it is - how much milage you get out of it depends on how sensitive you are to image quality settings in the first place.

As far as benches, just use 1600x as a guideline. Performance will scale similarly to your widescreen resolution and benchmarks will give you a good idea of relative performance.

 

[delanooch]

While I humbly respect your opinion on this Cleeve, I must say that ATI hardware and Nvidia hardware really have differences without AA on.

While I dont have current ATI hardware its hard to say or have an opinion, but while I did, I had a 9600 XT couple of years ago , I couldnt play on my ATI hardware without AA on period.

Now I have to go buy an x1900 just to find out! damn you!!!

 

[davidflet9]

I think now most of the problems have been ironed out of crossfire, for super hi-res gaming out would recommend the x1900XTX xfire this setup is beastly and by far the most powerful and also if you decide you like AA then you have that option with ATI

 

[kHiTe]

Thank you for all the advice and thoughts. I can see the AA v. no AA debate running. I think it makes a small difference, but I am still getting used to gaming at this res. I used to go low and keep AA high.

I think I am on track with the 1900XT system. May go Crossfire now. May wait to see how the system performs with just the 1900XT or X and go Crossfire when the prices drop.

I notice the new x1800 GTO is promising cableless Crossfire, but I can't wait for ever for this to be available in high end boards.