yoaverez

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Feb 23, 2002
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I gotta question for all you gamers out there..

I'm a gamer myself.. I don't play a lot, but every few months I get a game I really love and finish it.. a few of the games I've played in the past year are:

Call of Duty - Modern Warfare
Call of Duty 5
GTA - Liberty City
FEAR 2
The Sims 3
Spore
Wolfenstein
Batman - Arkham Asylum

Now, I have a pretty good computer system. It's not the BEST gaming rig out there, but it's certainly fast and adaquate, comprised of:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 @ 2.5GHZ
4GB DDR2 800 Ram
Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTS 512MB
2 320GB 7200rpm hard drives (working at RAID 0)

I know I can go a lot higher when it comes to performance.. there are 10,000 rpm drives out there, better processors, DDR3 memory and much faster graphic adapters..

What I really don't understand is - W H Y

Every game I ever tried to run on this machine works FLAWLESSLY, looks GREAT, and works at maximum details at 1400x900 resolution (which looks very nice on my 24" monitor).

I'm a total geek and I love upgrading my machine, but if I go out today and buy a new motherboard with DDR3 memory, and 2 graphics cards working in SLI, What will that give me??

I know the games can't run any better (any higher FPS would go unnoticed)... but will they look better? "feel" better?

What will be the difference? what are all these new graphic chips for??
 
Solution
Ignorance is bliss.

My advice to the OP is to walk away from these forums and continue to enjoy your gaming experience on your current machine if you are satisfied with it's performance. Knowledge can be extremely expensive. Once you cross that line over to high-end gaming it's pretty hard to be satisfied with lesser quality.


...saying that 1440 resolution on a 24" monitor using an 8800GTS is as good as it gets is pretty entertaining though.
because i like having all of the eye candy at native res (1920x1080)
because i am a programmer and use ATI Stream or CPU intensive programs
because i use VM's an actually need 8GB of memory
an best of all - because i am an enthusiast

i have a felling at 24" you are not using native res, the 1920x1200 will look better on the panel then 1440x900 (though at least it is the same aspect ratio)
 
beacuse most of us are enthusiast!
my rig is
*G.Skill 4gb ddr2 800 @954mhz
*Vista 64bit
*Intel Core2Quad q6600 @ 3.4ghz
*Antec TwelveHundred full tower case
*Silverstone 700w modular striker series
*Coolermaster v8 heatsink
*Power Color Ati 4870 1gb ddr5 edition (800core/1090memory)
*ASUS 20X DVD±R DVD Burner
*Seagate Barracuda 500gb HD (2x)
*P45 ASUS P5Q SE
*Acer 22"


im thinking about getting 5870 when it comes out
why?
because i can :p it feels good.
 
Obviously better cards are intended for higher resolutions and/or more demanding games like Crysis. In fact if that's GTA IV you are talking about I'll bet you definitely would've noticed the improvements a better card would bring if you are running with the settings maxed as you say, even at that resolution.
 
:lol: Why? Because we can. And also, if we don't the tech field as you know it would be stagnant. The enthusiast drive the tech arena. With out us we'd still be on P4s and x800s!

2 320GB 7200rpm hard drives (working at RAID 0)
Bad idea bro, go RAID 01 or RAID 1. If one drive dies your data is HISTORY. Make SURE you backup the important stuff at lease once a week.
 


i on't know if it would be that bad, though we wouldn't be as far as we are without us
 


yeah, newegg pulled the 24GB (3x8GB) ECC registered memory from there site a little while back

as for res, i can't stand anything below native resolution (1920x1080)

EDIT: if i miss any 'd' keystrokes, i think that key is dying on my keyboard
 

microterf

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It's because we can, and because we WANT to. Some people have boats, some people have beer. I have my PC. It's cheaper than a boat, or drinking all the time, so WHY NOT?
Cheaper than my ex wife, that's for sure
 

lorik

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Well...upgrading for me would be fully justified seeing as my hd2900xt is really starting to show the rust ,it could barely hold when I had a 19" monitor with 1280x1024 res .And now that I got a new screen and a resolution of 1920x1080 ,hd2900xt is finally strugling for survival and whats worst lately its been showing these strange dots artifacts or long lines artifacts which are also the first sing of dying...so yeah my case is just and meeting is adjurned
 

yoaverez

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well, I wanted to say THANK YOU for convincing me there really is NO difference between your super computers and mine.. When I change the resolution to 1680*1050 it looks good, but frankly - not that different than 1400x900, I dare you guys to tell the difference. Seriously - get a friend and ask him to change the resolution on a game, and then see if you can tell.. I bet you couldn't

Anyway, what I was looking for is a more TECHNICAL answer, for example:

If you upgrade to the new Nvidia Geforce cards the games will look better cause they'd support x10 as many shaders, or something...

But they look the same, and they play the same.. I'll spend the rest of my money on beer..

Now if you will excuse me, Arkham Asylum awaits!
 

smithereen

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Yes, you can tell the difference between different resolutions. You have a very solid system that should be able to play most games well to flawlessly, but better resolutions simply look better. Granted, some people's vision is better than others, but there is a case for the supercomputer. And I invite you to try setting the AA to 16X on Arkham Asylum!
 

microterf

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yoaverez, yoaverez,

I invite you to Ohio to come see my 30" running 2560*1600 in any of those games, and then I dare you to tell me you can't tell a difference than your 1440*1900. To run games at that resolution at very high settings with AA, I need every bit of the 3gb on my trifire setup.

Do you have to upgrade, maybe not. If you are happy with your setup, then that's all that matters. If you're not, it's time to upgrade. I don't understand your reason for this thread at all.
 

yoaverez

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Sorry man, just sounds like you're full of it.. :)

The AA IS on x16 on my machine, and when I raise the resolution on most games, it actually looks WORST, why? because the texture files in the game can only go so far.. at higher resolutions it just makes them look more "digitized", cause you can more clearly see the lines that make them, it looks less natural.

Just finished Batman, MAN what a game!
 

microterf

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You have a 24" right, raise the resolution to 1920*1200. Put your AA on. If you're saying that you can "see the lines that make them" it means you probably don't have AA enabled. The reason you don't have AA enabled is because your 8800 can't handle it. Moral of the story is that if you're happy with your setup fine. If you upgrade, you WILL notice a difference. Is it worth it to you? maybe not.