Minimum Video card for Dell 2405FPW native res. gaming

H

HC77

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 20, 2004
Messages
88
Hi,
Could anyone tell me what the minimum video card needed to play current generation games at the monitor's (1920x1200) resolution is? Does a 6800GT have enough horsepower to do it, or ATI's comparable card? or is SLI/Crossfire or the nextgen (G70,R520 etc) the only solution?

Thanks
 
From experience the 6800GT is not powerful enough to run most modern games at 1920x1200, full detail with 4xAA 8xaf. It can play them that way at 1680x1050 though and I really don't notice a difference. I think you would need SLI or something but I think SLI has a bug where widescreen lcds aren't supoorted.
 
peacetilence said:
From experience the 6800GT is not powerful enough to run most modern games at 1920x1200, full detail with 4xAA 8xaf. It can play them that way at 1680x1050 though and I really don't notice a difference. I think you would need SLI or something but I think SLI has a bug where widescreen lcds aren't supoorted.
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Is 4xAA even necessary at 1920x1200? I wouldn't think so. Maybe 2xAA just to clear up some rough areas, but I think 4xAA would be overkill, no?

Anyone with a 2405fpw wanna chime in?
 
Well, while I haven't had the joy of testing out such a monitor, I do have a perspective to give. I think you are right on the money, in saying that the G70/R520 will be the only things that work at that resolution, as far as playability in modern games is concerned. Right now, what we have is still gpu limited in the most intense games, and will be more limited as new games based on those engines (Doom3, Source) as well as new engines (UnrealEngine 3) coming out. We all know about Quake 4, and the new Epic tech has already been displayed working on both consoles as well as current generation hardware from both ATi and nVidia.

My only advice, is to a) wait for G70/R520, or B) get a cheap 6600 and then wait. Nothing current gen (aside from dual 512MB 6800U's) will do much for you.
 
infocalypse said:
Is 4xAA even necessary at 1920x1200? I wouldn't think so. Maybe 2xAA just to clear up some rough areas, but I think 4xAA would be overkill, no?

Anyone with a 2405fpw wanna chime in?
Click to expand...

Having a massive resolution such as 1920x1200 does not mean that the jaggies will magically disappear, using 2xAA at 1920x1200 is the same as using 2x at 1024x768 on a small monitor. Therefore yes, your image quality DOES suffer a little for playing on such a huge screen. But if you are crazy enough about computers in the first place to get such a huge screen, then you should expect to upgrade your computer quite often anyways. :p :D
 
I've got a 6800GT and a x800XL... neither are up to snuff for 1920 really. I'm getting that monitor as well most likely.. hope to selll both of these and get a G70 with the monitor. I don't know man. Didn't mean to have 2 VC's so if I can sell & trade up on the cheap I'll be happy. I'd really wait for G70 if you don't have the monitor yet especially. It'd be nice to have that much power in one card, less hassle, plus vacant slot! *evil grin*

Maybe a 2405FPW user can help me here though.... how does 1680*1050 look stretched on that big boy?
 
Depends on how much you crank up the graphics. I was concerned about my 6800GT overheating so I swapped in my old GeForce3 and was still able to play WoW @ 1920x1200 pretty smoothly, just with the graphics sliders turned down.

I know WoW is no HL2 or D3, but still.
 
texuspete00 said:
Maybe a 2405FPW user can help me here though.... how does 1680*1050 look stretched on that big boy?
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I don't notice any loss of image quality between the two resolutions, It was something I was worried about before I bought the monitor but in games I can't tell the difference at all. On desktop things do look a bit more blurry however.
 
just ordered a 2405FPW

the only games i play are Halo(PC) and Guild Wars. I should be able to play these at max settings, NO AA/AF right?
 
texuspete00 said:
I've got a 6800GT and a x800XL... neither are up to snuff for 1920 really. I'm getting that monitor as well most likely.. hope to selll both of these and get a G70 with the monitor. I don't know man. Didn't mean to have 2 VC's so if I can sell & trade up on the cheap I'll be happy. I'd really wait for G70 if you don't have the monitor yet especially. It'd be nice to have that much power in one card, less hassle, plus vacant slot! *evil grin*

Maybe a 2405FPW user can help me here though.... how does 1680*1050 look stretched on that big boy?
Click to expand...
Thanks for the responses guys,
I have neither yet - I am in the market for a new mobo/cpu/gpu though. I'm looking at either an ASUS or DFI based NF4 board. NF4 because of the feature set and maturity, I've been using VIA boards for a long time and have experienced my share of problems w/ their chipsets... I'm interested in the new ATI chipset, but don't really want to wait until late July/Aug.

At best I'd be able to get the midrange G70 card at this point, along with the other components (Probably a 4400+ X2) I can't really justify spending $500-600 on a video card at the moment. The monitor would be extremely nice, and I might consider it in a few months as well. I'm just not hot on turning the sliders down, and I'm not so keen on dropping the resolution on the LCD either.

Currently using a Samsung 710T at native res, and am very happy with it - but I could use the additional desktop space, plus I'm sure movies look great on the Dell.

Anyone have any immediate complaints/downsides to the 2405? I tried sifting through the huge threads, but that's a lot of sifting - haven't been on the forum in about a month prior to this week.

Aloha,
HC
 
The only two games that I have found need to have the resolution lowered from 1920x1200 to 1680x1050 were Doom III and Battlefield 2. Half Life 2 seems to run fine at 1920x1200 as does WOW and every other game I tried. This is with a BFG GeForce 6800 GT and Dell 2405FPW.

Doom III is such a dark game that you can hardly notice a change in resolution.

You can notice a small loss of resolution in Battlefield 2 as can be expected, but interpolation on the LCD doesn't seem to negatively affect the image at all. Sure in windows things look a little bit blurry at non-native resolutions, but in-game, you will hardly even notice. I'm perfectly happy with how games look at non-native resolutions.
 
I just order this monitor today. Now I see cursor lag threads. :( OP beware I guess.
 
PKFGimpy said:
The only two games that I have found need to have the resolution lowered from 1920x1200 to 1680x1050 were Doom III and Battlefield 2. Half Life 2 seems to run fine at 1920x1200 as does WOW and every other game I tried. This is with a BFG GeForce 6800 GT and Dell 2405FPW.
Click to expand...

Do you have the AGP or PCI-x version of the BFG card? I have a agp one and was under the impression that it ONLY supported up to 1280x1024 for DVI. Hmm this changes things, might have to hop on the next 2005fpw deal
 
WoW runs very nicely with settings almost all the way up and AA turned off for me with a 5900FX. I guess it depends on what you play.

None of my RTS games have hiccuped yet, and WoW looks fantastic at 1920x1200.

I'm sure the newest FPS games would probably make the 5900 go up in a puff of smoke, but those I mentioned work very nicely.

-e
 
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