I want your opinions and feedback

Optimus said:
2) No help for generation leapers.
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This becomes difficult because of the jump from AGP to PCIe.
You could employ the ASrock motherboards that have both slots, but those boards can't do SLI and can't address any CPU other than the 939 and the 775.
At some point in time you have to make the break in technology

Since all the past reviews are available, the generation jumpers will have to use that as a rough guide.
 
I also forgot to mention that running a few tests with a low-midrange CPU would be nice, like lets say an athlon 64 3000+ or 3200+. Not everyone has a FX55/57 in their rig...
 
illgiveumorality said:
nottis said:
...mention of the shimmering with the NV cards.
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It has been addressed I'm pretty sure.
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Not well enough. There is obvious shimmering in some games, especially BF2, which they use to benchmark. Its much worse with the drivers set to Quality, which is what they use. Which is why I would like more image quality comparisons. I dont know how someone doesnt notice this shimmering, or dosnt think its a valid reason to be upset. That was at 1600x1200, AA and AF set in game, at 4x, and high. Drivers set to High Quality. As you can see, they have hardly "fixed" it, despite their claims of doing so. That clip quality is pretty bad, but its still easily seen. Going from 76megs to 1meg leaves a lot to be desired.... :(


illgiveumorality said:
2048x1536. I know you can do it, you did it with doom 3 when it was first being released. I also know most gamers don't run at that res, but it's still cool to see where technology is these days.
THEN widescreen.
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I can guarantee you WS is used more than 2048x1536. Although I would like both to be added.
 
oooh look at me coloring outside of the box!

How bout a [H] review podcast - lets hear from Kyle, Brent and gang about their impressions of the game play. If it flys, maybe something like TWIT (This Week in Technology) the bandwidth may be large, but you could make it subscription based - I know I'd pay to see videos of how the tests run and end of review editorials on the product.

Does that seem like the next logical step? Heck if the subscriptions go well, hire Leo Laporte and the gang to do a weekly [H] show recorded live from the majestic [H] compound (must provide a longhorn steer for added authenticity or at least ducktape horns to Leo)
 
Craz said:
I also forgot to mention that running a few tests with a low-midrange CPU would be nice, like lets say an athlon 64 3000+ or 3200+. Not everyone has a FX55/57 in their rig...
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Although true, would probably start showing a bottleneck especially with sli/crossfire setups.
 
DocFaustus said:
Brent,

The thing that stands out most to me is Tables below each chart. Right now they are Setup to be 5 columns stating: Card, MinFPS, MaxFPS, AvgFPS, Playable Settings. The Charts are supported by the tables below, the tables are in turn supported by the paragraph to follow. So, it is easier to read them all from bottom to top.

I believe the Tables could stand on their own much better if you added a 6th column that simply stated the difference in settings. Examples: EverQuest2 the 6th column would say “High Quality” or “Balanced” for game setting. FEAR would have “+soft shadows” if they fixed the AA bug in the future and only 1 of the cards in the test could run it fine that way.

Settings that are the same for all cards in the comparison wouldn’t need notes in the table as they will be stated well enough in the paragraph that follows “..all cards played very well with textures at extreme”

I believe this would make the tables much more meaningful to your readers and hardly change the way things are being done by you.
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That's a good idea. Do you suggest then seperating the tables from the graph and maybe putting the tables first, then the graph under the tables? Opposite as they are now?
 
fallguy said:
Not well enough. There is obvious shimmering in some games....
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They did not mention shimmering in the ATI reviews either :rolleyes:

And yes ATI cards do have shimmer.
 
Brent_Justice said:
That's a good idea. Do you suggest then seperating the tables from the graph and maybe putting the tables first, then the graph under the tables? Opposite as they are now?
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Well it would make more sense to have the graphs supporting the tables and therefore under them. But on the flipside of that argument, it is nice to see the table while reading your follow-up paragraph describing it. That will not be as easy with a graph between them.

Some other people have suggested thumbnailing the graphs all together (as someone that prints your articles for reading on breaks, I would be happy with that). Maybe that is a possibility.
 
tornadotsunamilife said:
Although true, would probably start showing a bottleneck especially with sli/crossfire setups.
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I was gearing that more for the single video card user, not many have the $$$ to shell out more for their video cards then they're entire system, although this is "probably" HardOCP's demographic. A few test runs with a lower end CPU would be more informative to readers (my opinion).

(I.E. Do I need an FX-57 to get x number of frames with x video card?)
 
Firingsquad did an article that did just what you want. Many CPU's. Bascically as long as you have a 3500+, you are going to get the same frames as the FX-57. The only noticable difference in frames, was with a 3000+. At least runing timedemos. They didnt use real gameplay, so that may or may not be 100 true.
 
I like your style of review using real world gameplay.

That said; however, I would like to see more online multiplayer information with the cards used.. I have played several games that seem to run fine with a high-end video card but the moment I go online and play against the unpredictable I find myself compromising my video settings so that I can be a competitor. Some examples are Battlefield 2, Quake 4 and FEAR. AND yes I note you have done some for quake 4 (but how about others?).

Being an avid reader of all thing [H]ard I feel like you should add a personal side note of how the experience was per casual experience. In onther-words, I do not have to see a pretty graph or some fps number always to get the big picture, In-fact I find those secondary, I would rather know that a [H]ard core gammer thought the card was worth it's salt because of actuall-away-from-the-test-bench playing experiences.

One other note: I know you use a testbed of highend pc goodness FX-55 Wd750 ata150hd and 2 gig! of ram to test the cards, but maybe you could ALSO use a lesser setup to see how well the card improves the experience. I dunno say a more mainstream setup P4 2.8 or amd 2800+ 1 gig of ram, normal psu 380watt normal HD.

For informations sake my setup is as follows:

P4 3.0c. Intel 865 perl Mother Board. 550w psu. 2x WD360 Raptor In raid 0. 1 gig Corsair twin x. Ati x850xt Non-pe. audigy 2 zs.
Xp pro sp2. Verizon DSL No oc (still have warranty).
 
The fact that some of these video cards won't run on a standard 350 watt PSU should DEFINITELY be mentioned in these reviews.

In addition, it should be mentioned that it is worthless to buy this card unless your system meets X requirements.

To exclaim that a card is so incredibly fast when you are only testing it on a monster machine misleads those who are gaming on their Dell from 2 years ago.
 
KingPariah777 said:
The fact that some of these video cards won't run on a standard 350 watt PSU should DEFINITELY be mentioned in these reviews.

In addition, it should be mentioned that it is worthless to buy this card unless your system meets X requirements.

To exclaim that a card is so incredibly fast when you are only testing it on a monster machine misleads those who are gaming on their Dell from 2 years ago.
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I agree

Just recently I bought parts for a computer and wasn't sure what to buy and not buy in this regards. I was thinking...well my 430 might be enought for a single card solution...or do I actually need 450...should i get 480...ended up getting 520...Overkill? who knows...who cares now....money spent...it's over...and I need a Silkwood shower
 
More apples to apples, at least as much as you do "highest playable settings." honestly i utterly dislike that stance in your reviews mainly because your idea of playable framerate differs from other people, to me, if hte game regularly drops into the 30s or even below 50, that isn't fast enough. i'd need have pure data ala apples to apples to make up my mind.
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
Seems a lot of people want apples to apples.

Fact is: Go somewhere else to find that. Just about every other tech site does it. We don't need another carbon copy. [H] does this on purpose and I like it personally. It really shows what kind of gaming experience you're going to get.
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consider the fact that this is one of the few sites that i (and many others) consider to be truly objective in their reviews. maybe an apples to apples bench means a bit more to some of us with an [H] attached.
 
again I want to say I appreciate everyone's feedback here

while I may not have responded to everyone, I am reading through each post carefully and making notes on what you all want to see and ideas for new evaluations, I've seen some very good things here that we will look at further
 
Brent_Justice said:
With the latest evaluations as of late we've been pumping out solid gameplay experience evaluations with our video card reviews.

I want your opinions and feedback. This is your chance to post what additions/subtractions/changes you feel we should make to the evaluation process to further improve them.

We want feedback from gamers out there to how we can provide better information that is relevant to you. What do you want to see as a gamer?

Please read our latest evaluations, see what we are doing, see how we are presenting the information and then give us some feedback.

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODg1
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODgy
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODc1
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODU1

All offtopic posts will be removed, please no flaming. If you wish to provide feedback in private instead please do so at [email protected].

Thanks
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You should compare it 100% apple to apples on the first 1,2,3,4 page at 1600x1200 4x AA and 16x AF, and 1800x1350 4xAA and 16x AF at highest settings, also include minimum framerate and average framerates too.

There is no reason to spend money on a 500 dollar video card and not run at the highest settings, that is just stupid.
 
gtx4u said:
There is no reason to spend money on a 500 dollar video card and not run at the highest settings, that is just stupid.
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It doesn't mean though that it is playable at those settings though.
 
GFreeman9 said:
It doesn't mean though that it is playable at those settings though.
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There's never been a generation of hardware where it could run the latest games at highest settings at playable framerates.. mostly it's been most settings at highest levels but resolution set to some medium. Running any game at absolute highest settings is silly no matter your hardware, unless you happen to like pretty slide shows.
 
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