Do I need an 8800 to solve my irksome framerate problems?

[Habeed]

RESPONSES TO BELOW : I forgot to mention. I am using a 52" 1080p HDTV, LCoS technology. It does NOT do scaling that well : it's "ok" but you lose the razor sharpness there is running in native resolution. Everything is blurry, especially text.

(1824x1028 is native because like all currently made rear projection HDTVs, the projector is set too far forward forcing overscan. Manufacturers did this to hide the ugly 'edge' of the projected image and to hide the edges of analog and digital TV, which have flaws in them)

I am actually sending a 1920x1080 HDMI signal to my TV, but my video card has been instructed to put 'black' pixels for the outer edges.

I CAN see the difference between this resolution and lower ones.

Come to think of it, this large a digital display, with it's extremely harsh intensity gradients, reveals flaws in almost ANY source.

I am glad to hear your opinions : evidently, when I built this system a couple of months ago, I should have went ahead and bought an 8800 GTS with 640.

Actually, I am not doing all that bad with my 7900. All the games I mentioned are quite playable, with framerates near 30, at native resolution with most graphics effects on. Just not the 60 FPS with all lighting and AA on like an 8800 can probably do... Which would make a big difference in how my games feel.

I have a 7900GS, the factory overclocked one from XFX.

For these games, I cannot quite max out the settings at the resolution of 1824x1028 :

Oblivion - had to disable GRASS to stay above 20 fps all the time! UGH!

STALKER - no dynamic lighting, no sun shadows or grass shadows, and it STILL runs barely above 20 fps most of the time. What a dog.

Marvel : Ultimate Alliance - have to disable advanced lighting effects which really really lowers quality of graphics

Rainbow Six Vegas - had to lower lighting effects quality

Neverwinter Nights 2 - shadows

About the only games that are rock solid smooth all of the time and have awesome graphics are Half Life 2 Episode 1 and World of Warcraft. Darn it, WoW is the best running game of the bunch. It has an FPS locked at 60 virtually of the time.

And of course, I never can enable anti-aliasing in these and several other games. Although, at 1824x1028 I can't seem to notice a difference.

CPU is a C2D at 3200 MHZ, 2 gigs of ram at 4/5/5

 

[uber_g]

All those games above need really good Videocards, a 7900gs will cut it but it wont be amazing


8800 FTW

 

[fender22]

if your running a monitor size around 20" You could try and turn your res down to the widesceen equivalent of 1280 x 1024..not sure what that is..
You don't really have the RAM capacity on that card to run much, if at all, higher.. Also, I have a 7900GT, which is probably clocked considerably higher that yours.. and I run all those games on full cept for AA and HDR at the same time, and stuff like that. Don't have stalker, but sometimes in oblivion, I stumble around 15 FPS, but thats the very minimum..

Oh, and about needing an 8800, no you dont a x1950xt xtx or 7900GT/GTX would solve your problems, yet the 8800 GTS 320 is the most cost effective at the moment, and the only dx10 of the bunch mentioned. the 7900GS is a pretty nice card, Id just keep it and lower my settings to what was needed, and then when its time, when there is more dx10 competition, and when we finally know how much dx10 really needs in terms of RAM and clockspeed from a dx10, then buy something really nice..

EDIT: Actually, I think that 1824x1028 is around the closest to 1280x1024.

 

[Habeed]

Fender : a 7900GT has more pipes in it, as well as sometimes a high clock.

I cannot run in anything but native resolution : my panel looks WAY worse, everything is noticeably blurred at anything but native resolutions.

The screen is 52", so I can't turn the res down for that reason either.

Sigh, I know what everyone is thinking. Friend said the same thing when I described my ultimate gaming box : "you put all that money into CPU, sound, and display yet you have a weak video card? wtf?"

 

[slashzapper]

You will definitly benefit from a 8800, I own one awesome dosent quite say it

 

[prozac26]

In games likte this, a graphic card is needed.

Whether a 8800 now, or a R600 or 8900 later, you need a better card. nVidia's 8 series and ATI's R600 cards are your best option.

 

[FeareX]

Shouldnt stalker run much smoother on a 7900gs??

Even my x800gto plays it 15fps with dynamic lightning turned on :?

Without dynamic lightning i play it around 30-60fps @1024*768

Are you running it with the latest nvidia drivers??

 

[fender22]

Well in that case.. with that huge monitor, An 8800 would be great

 

[smokedyou911]

ok call me a noob but...

I'm using a 7600gs (agp), a p4ht 3ghx and a gig of ram, and I run stalker at medium settings @1024x768 with very little hitch just some loading hitch every now and then when the world loads into my ram. On bf2 Im running it with settings maxed and get 60+ fps always. What are you using to cheak your fps?

 

[FeareX]

i just put the graphics to high and dynamic lightning off
maximum runs good also, but takes some fps and i dont see the difference... I have done no tweaking to the game

 

[Heyyou27]

I have a 7900GS, the factory overclocked one from XFX.

For these games, I cannot quite max out the settings at the resolution of 1824x1028 :

Oblivion - had to disable GRASS to stay above 20 fps all the time! UGH!

STALKER - no dynamic lighting, no sun shadows or grass shadows, and it STILL runs barely above 20 fps most of the time. What a dog.

Marvel : Ultimate Alliance - have to disable advanced lighting effects which really really lowers quality of graphics

Rainbow Six Vegas - had to lower lighting effects quality

Neverwinter Nights 2 - shadows

About the only games that are rock solid smooth all of the time and have awesome graphics are Half Life 2 Episode 1 and World of Warcraft. Darn it, WoW is the best running game of the bunch. It has an FPS locked at 60 virtually of the time.

And of course, I never can enable anti-aliasing in these and several other games. Although, at 1824x1028 I can't seem to notice a difference.

CPU is a C2D at 3200 MHZ, 2 gigs of ram at 4/5/5

Well I know Rainbow Six Vegas runs like shit on my 8800GTX, I've heard that Neverwinter Nights 2 is a underperforming resource hog, Stalker was originally meant to be run on the Geforce FX line(WTF happened?), and Oblivion pretty much kicks the crap out of anything short of an 8800 GTS.

 

[javimars]

I have a 7900GS, the factory overclocked one from XFX.

For these games, I cannot quite max out the settings at the resolution of 1824x1028 :

Oblivion - had to disable GRASS to stay above 20 fps all the time! UGH!

STALKER - no dynamic lighting, no sun shadows or grass shadows, and it STILL runs barely above 20 fps most of the time. What a dog.

Marvel : Ultimate Alliance - have to disable advanced lighting effects which really really lowers quality of graphics

Rainbow Six Vegas - had to lower lighting effects quality

Neverwinter Nights 2 - shadows

About the only games that are rock solid smooth all of the time and have awesome graphics are Half Life 2 Episode 1 and World of Warcraft. Darn it, WoW is the best running game of the bunch. It has an FPS locked at 60 virtually of the time.

And of course, I never can enable anti-aliasing in these and several other games. Although, at 1824x1028 I can't seem to notice a difference.

CPU is a C2D at 3200 MHZ, 2 gigs of ram at 4/5/5

you have a powerfull videocard but there is not enough video memory on it. u can do a voltmod on it and run it gt speeds. i currently have a 7900gs and i run everything at 1024x max everything and get above 70fps on all games. mine runs at 650gcore and 880mem

 

[cleeve]

7900 GS + 1824x1028 = bad framerates, plain and simple.

You need an 8800 320mb minumum to push that resolution to any satisfaction... maybe an X1950 XT, but that's pushing it.

 

[cleeve]

you have a powerfull videocard but there is not enough video memory on it. u can do a voltmod on it and run it gt speeds.

No, this is incorrect. The video memory on a 7900 GS won't allow him to play at the huge resolution he wants to play at.

The 7900 GS is a great card for 1280x1024, but it's never going to perform well at 1824x1028 - no matter what clockspeed or amount of memory it has.

 

[Dr_asik]

Why don't you lower the resolution to, say, 1280x1024? It's still a great resolution. I'm happy when my games are playable at 1024x768. Problem solved, 0$ involved. I don't get why people should want to play at such crazy resolutions, I honestly can't see any difference in quality going above 1280x1024.

 

[cleeve]

1824X1028 will kick a 320mb 8800gts right in the balls, especially if any amount of AA and AF is enabled. For 1680X1050 and up either a 640mb GTS or a GTX is recommended.

I dunno about that. Even my old X1900 XTX can handle 1680x1050 pretty easily.

Admittedly it's a 512mb card, but I can't imagine that extra 144 pixels across will make or break a 320mb GTS. The OP never said he needed AA at that high resolution, or even max detail at that res.

 

[Dr_asik]

Well maybe you see a difference because you want to.

 

[Dr_asik]

Well maybe you see a difference because you want to.

No, I see a difference because there is a difference :roll:That can't be, since there is no difference because I see no difference, and not because I want to.

 

[Dr_asik]

Glad you admit I am right and you are wrong on no rational basis.

 

[cleeve]

Well on the same token he never said he didn't either.

He kind of did. He mentions all of the steps he's taken to reduce in-game settings, and about AA he said: "...anti-aliasing in these and several other games. Although, at 1824x1028 I can't seem to notice a difference. "

I'll agree with you though that if he wants to max out detail and IQ, a 640mb GTS is the way to go.

But the man is making due with a 7900 GS right now, even a GTS 320 will be a huge step up at that high resolution. Depends on how much he's willing to spend.

 

[Dr_asik]

Yep, im packing up my new 22" LCD right now and sending it back in favor of my CRT 1280X1024 monitor. :roll:

Better dissassemble the nasty thing and burn it piece by piece, just to make sure you don't fall again for the useless pixels in the future. :lol: Ok enough brain inactivity for today.

 

[rodney_ws]

7900 GS + 1824x1028 = bad framerates, plain and simple.

You need an 8800 320mb minumum to push that resolution to any satisfaction... maybe an X1950 XT, but that's pushing it.

Agreed. All of these people saying "blah blah blah runs fine on my blah blah blah at 1024 X 768" are ignoring one key point... the OP is NOT trying to run those games at that resolution.

 

[bfellow]

1824 x 1028 with high graphics on any card is gonna be a heavy load.


Also, about not seeing a difference above 1280 x 1024 check out the windows icons and see if they're smaller or not.

 

[warezme]

1824 x 1028 with high graphics on any card is gonna be a heavy load.....

really, not that heavy of a load on 8800GT 640 8800GTX, they start to choke but only so much around 2560 x 1600 which is native only to dual displays or a freaking huge monitor.

His problem is simple, that resolution he's trying to push native, is requiring lots of bandwidth for huge textures. That 7900gs ain't gonna do it. Plus most of the games he mentioned are not well optimized, lazy programming.

All he has to do is lower the resolution but is sounds like he doesn't want to do that..., you can lead a horse to water....

 

[rodney_ws]

1824 x 1028 with high graphics on any card is gonna be a heavy load.....

really, not that heavy of a load on 8800GT 640 8800GTX, they start to choke but only so much around 2560 x 1600 which is native only to dual displays or a freaking huge monitor.

His problem is simple, that resolution he's trying to push native, is requiring lots of bandwidth for huge textures. That 7900gs ain't gonna do it. Plus most of the games he mentioned are not well optimized, lazy programming.

All he has to do is lower the resolution but is sounds like he doesn't want to do that..., you can lead a horse to water....

Unlike the old CRT days, lowering a resolution on an LCD is a rather unpleasant thing do... it has less to do with pride and more to do with image quality now on the newer screens.