Question about Video Cards and Hardware Compatibility

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ComputerBox34

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OK....

I currently have an ATI Radeon 9000 Pro and I want to buy this video card from New Egg. But I have a few question before I go and blow $500....


I have this LCD monitor. Will it be able to show 90-120 FPS?

Another question that I have is that can the human eye see high frame rates. Can't we only see 24 FPS or something?
 
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LCD monitors tend to be frequency locked (typically at 60Hz), so you won't really be seeing anything more than this. However, that doesn't mean the extra power is going to waste, as a card capable of pulling high fps is going to have a higher MINIMUM fps than a lesser card. Plus you'll be able to crank up additional features to make use of any "extra" power.

If you like the card, go for it. You'll be able to make effective use of it's power, even considering that you'll want to be running at the monitor's native resolution. Since you won't be pushing the card at 1600x1200, you'll just be able to crank up things like AA further before you start seeing a performance drop.

As for how many fps the human eye can notice, that's a nasty mess I'm not going to touch. It's subjective, and it's dependant upon lots of other things (motion blur for example).
 
the human eye can 'see' any fps

what you notice though is subjective

the change of fps is what people notice the most, your range is subjective to you
 
MonkeyBoy said:
LCD monitors tend to be frequency locked (typically at 60Hz), so you won't really be seeing anything more than this. However, that doesn't mean the extra power is going to waste, as a card capable of pulling high fps is going to have a higher MINIMUM fps than a lesser card. Plus you'll be able to crank up additional features to make use of any "extra" power.

If you like the card, go for it. You'll be able to make effective use of it's power, even considering that you'll want to be running at the monitor's native resolution. Since you won't be pushing the card at 1600x1200, you'll just be able to crank up things like AA further before you start seeing a performance drop.

As for how many fps the human eye can notice, that's a nasty mess I'm not going to touch. It's subjective, and it's dependant upon lots of other things (motion blur for example).
Click to expand...

Do you think my monitor can do 90 FPS?
 
The specs say that you won't get more than 85 FPS, but they do not tell at what resolution; also the response time is 30ms, a rather long time to change pixel colors and/or gray scale so you'll probably see "tails" or "phanthoms" behind moving objects in many games.
What applications do you use this monitor for, now?
That 24 FPS as human eye threshold is the lower limit to fuse images in movies, but you can see images that last much less; also you can see screen flutter at much higher refresh rates in CRT (in most ocassions about 60-70 FPS). Because of LCDs not changing all pixels in each frame only those that look different you do not suffer flutter in them as in CRTs.

Edit: confused about max refresh rate, fixed that.
 
dream caster said:
The specs say that you won't get more than 85 FPS, but they do not tell at what resolution; also the response time is 30ms, a rather long time to change pixel colors and/or gray scale so you'll probably see "tails" or "phanthoms" behind moving objects in many games.
What applications do you use this monitor for, now?
That 24 FPS as human eye threshold is the lower limit to fuse images in movies, but you can see images that last much less; also you can see screen flutter at much higher refresh rates in CRT (in most ocassions about 60-70 FPS). Because of LCDs not changing all pixels in each frame only those that look different you do not suffer flutter in them as in CRTs.

Edit: confused about max refresh rate
Click to expand...

Right now I'm playing UT2k4, CoD UO, soon to be Half Life 2, soon to be NFS:U2. I play all games online. UT2k4 allows a max of 90 FPS for their online interface.
 
ComputerBox34 said:
Do you think my monitor can do 90 FPS?
Click to expand...

As I mentioned and was repeated just above, the monitor you linked is going to be capped at 60fps, so while you might see a game reporting back "90 FPS" if you have v-sync disabled, that is just what the video card itself is rendering and not what you are actually getting from your monitor (which will always be locked at 60).

That said, I'll go ahead and repeat myself by stating that just because your monitor is locked at 60Hz doesn't mean that a video card that can run much faster than that is not a good idea. Sure, benchmarks may be reporting that the card averages 90FPS, but you should be more interested in the minimum FPS that the card pumps out when stressed. You'll be much happier with a setup that has a minimum FPS of 60 and an average of 90 than you would with a setup that has a minimum FPS of 30 and an average of 120.

My basic point is that I wouldn't worry too much about getting a video card that outperforms what your monitor is capable of. If you find you've got power left to spare, there are plenty of things you can start turning on/up to improve the overall game experience.

And I didn't look at the specific monitor specs, but if the previous poster was correct in that it has a 30ms response time, you may find yourself looking for a new monitor in the near future as well if you do a lot of gaming!
 
MonkeyBoy said:
As I mentioned and was repeated just above, the monitor you linked is going to be capped at 60fps, so while you might see a game reporting back "90 FPS" if you have v-sync disabled, that is just what the video card itself is rendering and not what you are actually getting from your monitor (which will always be locked at 60).

That said, I'll go ahead and repeat myself by stating that just because your monitor is locked at 60Hz doesn't mean that a video card that can run much faster than that is not a good idea. Sure, benchmarks may be reporting that the card averages 90FPS, but you should be more interested in the minimum FPS that the card pumps out when stressed. You'll be much happier with a setup that has a minimum FPS of 60 and an average of 90 than you would with a setup that has a minimum FPS of 30 and an average of 120.

My basic point is that I wouldn't worry too much about getting a video card that outperforms what your monitor is capable of. If you find you've got power left to spare, there are plenty of things you can start turning on/up to improve the overall game experience.

And I didn't look at the specific monitor specs, but if the previous poster was correct in that it has a 30ms response time, you may find yourself looking for a new monitor in the near future as well if you do a lot of gaming!
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm going to ask around about how well people are doing with LCD's and the X800 and their minimum FPS.

My 9000 pro has been under a lot of stress lately and I'm lucky to get 40 FPS in UT2k4. I got pretty good rates in Doom 3 at 1024x768 at lowest settings. I'd be perfectly satisfied at 60 FPS for any game. It's in my "green zone."

Thanks for all your help, greatly appreciated.
 
I think you'll find that the X800 will fit your needs pretty well. With the monitor you are listing, you'll be running at 1280x1024 and the X800 should be able to handle just about any game out today at that resolution with lots of eye candy turned on while maintaining high frame rates. I think the only problem you might have is with ghosting due to the slow response time, but that isn't something that you can change by swapping out video cards.

For what it's worth, I'm running a 6800GT w/ a 19" Samsung 191T @ 1280x1024, and with all of the current "big" games out there I've yet to run into a problem with frame rates. The X800 is roughly comparable so I imagine you'll be quite happy with it. Not knowing what the rest of your system is, the only downside is that you may find yourself CPU limited in some games.
 
MonkeyBoy said:
I think you'll find that the X800 will fit your needs pretty well. With the monitor you are listing, you'll be running at 1280x1024 and the X800 should be able to handle just about any game out today at that resolution with lots of eye candy turned on while maintaining high frame rates. I think the only problem you might have is with ghosting due to the slow response time, but that isn't something that you can change by swapping out video cards.

For what it's worth, I'm running a 6800GT w/ a 19" Samsung 191T @ 1280x1024, and with all of the current "big" games out there I've yet to run into a problem with frame rates. The X800 is roughly comparable so I imagine you'll be quite happy with it. Not knowing what the rest of your system is, the only downside is that you may find yourself CPU limited in some games.
Click to expand...

Check Sig for specs.

I can compromise with the CPU problem. Doom 3 had no problem with my CPU. I'm not sure about Half Life 2 because I don't have it but I'll be getting it for XMAS hopefully.

Thanks again.
 
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