Upgrade warning (disappointment over dollars spent / performance increase)

DyerWolf

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 29, 2004
Messages
78
I have had my new 256 mb eVGA Geforce 6800 GT in for over a week, replacing my old 128mb GeForce4 ti 4800 SE. I got it on sale for $328 from MicroCenter.

Immediately noticed that my 3dMark03 and AquaMark benchmark scores increased significantly. Thought - wow this is great! I wonder what my games will look like?

The problem is, they looked the same.

I already had the graphics pretty much maxed out in FarCry, the Doom3 and Halflife Demos and was experiencing good quality game play. The only change I made to the graphics was to push FarCry water quality to Ultra - which was the only setting not already maxxed... The change in cards didn't affect my gameplay experience - perhaps a barely noticeable FPS increase. I say this, because while the FPS numbers may have increased, without the numbers being displayed, I really cannot see any functional difference.

What differences did I see? I can now run the 3dMark05 benchmark (the old card was not DX-9 compatible) but even with my new system, two of the tests run at 4 FPS (the second showing of the balloon thing and the second space battle...). Big whoop. It is not a game.

My warning is this: If you have a good processor and card - don't upgrade now. There are no games out there that need this level of processor power for the price they are charging.

I play DesertCombat (mod for BF 1942), FarCry, JointOperations Typhoon Rising, the two demos mentioned above, Rome Total War (which I won't open again until the next patch comes out) all of which can be fairly demanding of GPUs and CPUs. However, with no real increase in performance over what I had before, I caution anyone against rushing into a new purchase just because the reviewers and others are excited about the cards. None of these games need DX-9 functionality, none of them stressed my old card to unplayable framerates (EVEN AT MAX GRAPHIC QUALITY), and no current game is worth $300 plus just to get a few extra framerates...

So what advantage did I get? - Bragging rights. Also, I am future proof for a few years. That's it. Guess I won't have to buy another card for 3-4 years. I will keep the card I bought, but strongly recommend people looking to upgrade to either wait for the prices to drop significantly, or for the games to improve significantly. Without either happening, there is no reason for anyone to drop dime on a new card.

Just my thoughts.

Sys:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+
MSI K8N Neo Platinum NForce3 250 Gb
1Gb PC 3200
256mb eVGA Geforce 6800 GT

old: Geforce4 ti 4800 SE (Which is a kick ass card for the $$$)
 
What kind of 3dmark 05 score are you getting? I got around 5k with a 3.2ghz and my 6800 Gt. You should double check your system and make sure you have all the drivers etc.. installed correctly.
 
Did you even bother turning on AA or AF? That makes a huge difference and any card pre-Radeon 9700 had serious trouble turning those on without a major penalty.

I think you need to re-evaluate how you're comparing the cards. Look at this chart:
Tom's Hardware VGA Chart: Far Cry

Go to the second chart on that page. At 1024x768 with 4xAA and 4xAF in Far Cry, the difference between your new 6800GT and a Ti4600 (roughly your card) is 53.4 to 12.6!!

I don't care who you are, anyone would notice that difference and would enhance your gameplay experience substantially.
 
Try to play 1920x1200 on a Ti4600, and you will notice a difference.....Turn 4aa on and you also will notice a difference...
 
Nope, this always happens when you first upgrade. Game with it for awhile... then you will never go back. You'll find a new game that makes your jaw drop and you just know your old gear couldnt do it. Play chronicles of riddick on your GF4.. i mean c'mon.... 3 or 4 times the power not impressing you then hibernate a while until 10* comes out.

And what do you have an old ass monitor or soomething? You were playing FarCry maxed out at nothing over 800*600.... please. You sure you're not GF4Ti4200 from XS, OC550, thunderbird dude?
 
"but even with my new system, two of the tests run at 4 FPS (the second showing of the balloon thing and the second space battle..."

1 Arent those the CPU only tests? they run like crap for everyone.

2 If you cant tell the difference between a Ti4xxx and a 6800 GT then your just not hard core enough of a gamer to have needed that card. Real gamers want to play at highest resolution possible with aa/af as high as possible where it DOES make a HUGE difference.
 
Yeah, AA/AF make the difference. I am on a Ti4200 waiting on my X800XT/PE to get back from repair. I can paly all games jsut fine and they all look great, but no AA/AF...or all goes to shit. There is a large difference in games with AA/AF on or off.
 
DyerWolf said:
I have had my new 256 mb eVGA Geforce 6800 GT in for over a week, replacing my old 128mb GeForce4 ti 4800 SE. I got it on sale for $328 from MicroCenter.

Immediately noticed that my 3dMark03 and AquaMark benchmark scores increased significantly. Thought - wow this is great! I wonder what my games will look like?

The problem is, they looked the same.

That can't be right. :confused:

I just recently got a BFG 6800GT OC, and my roomate is using a Ti4200 (OC'd running @ 4600 speeds).

The difference between his performance in games (like Doom 3, HL2, etc) and my system is night and day.

Not only do I have a significant increase in FPS, but on his card he isn't running with any AA/AF, whereas on mine I leave it on 4xAA/8xAF with all my games basically maxed.

He's lucky to pull off playable conditions with half my settings and no AA/AF.
 
Honestly, the largest IQ jump I had in my older games was when I went from my 1700+ palimino to my 2600+ a-xp. I have no idea how that happened though.

~Adam
 
If you can't tell a difference in smoothness in your games then somethings not running right.

I can tell a huge difference between an X800Pro and a 6800GT in most games. I can tell the difference in smoothness between a 9600XT and a X800Pro. both of which are faster than the card you had and I upgraded from both of those to a 6800GT and immediatley saw a difference.

When people talk about image quality in a game, it's not that they look better at the same settings your old card had. You have to change the resolution and turn on more eye candy. You have to enable AA and AF. Then you'll see the quality increase.

Theres a world of difference between Half Life 2 at 1280x1024 w/2x AA and 8x AF vs. 1600x1200 4x AA and 16x AF. That's the difference you get between a 6600GT and a 6800GT. On the high end you have to spend an exponentially larger amount of cash for a smaller improvement. On the low end the jumps between a $100 card and a $200 card are huge performance wise.

Some games AA and AF aren't noticable. And for some games like UT2004 you won't see that much of an improvment aside from higher average FPS.

Your monitor also has to be set to a higher refresh to really get the bennifit of all the extra FPS too. 60Hz caps your FPS at 60 whether you know it or not. Because that's all you'll see.

When I first got my X800Pro I was blown away compared to my 9600Pro. My 6800GT was a improvement but the only thing I really noticed a huge change in was Doom 3. Which I was playing alot of at the time.

UT2004 and some other games felt a little smoother too. But not something I noticed right away.
 
Do you have glasses? When I play games without glasses, everything seems alright, but when them, everything looks so much crisper.
 
mickey987 said:
Do you have glasses? When I play games without glasses, everything seems alright, but when them, everything looks so much crisper.

I can't look at the screen for more than a few minutes with my glasses on. Everything goes so out of focus if I keep them on. They're made for distance though, so it makes sense I suppose.
 
You must be blind, stupid or insane to not be able to tell the difference in games between a Geforce 4 Ti and a 6800 GT.

Have you tried, you know, turning up the resolution & detail settings on the games you are playing? You will notice that when you do this with the faster graphics card, the game will still run smooth. Because it is FASTER, see? :p
 
Haha, are you insane. I updated from a GeForce 3ti200 to a 6800Nu and it makes a world of difference. Up your Res and up your Qaul settings and then you shall enjoy. + Sure your G4 and G800 play the "same" at lower levels. Up it, and you will see your G4 go from a nice 50FPS to a killer 10FPS while your G800 chuggs along at 50 and 50. :-P

*Framerates Made Up :p Too lazy to do real testing...
 
Did you use driver cleaner when installing the new drivers? (if you did)
Have you installed new drivers!!!??? :p

There is something wrong, you should try giving your system a fresh re-install of windows and see if that maks a difference.

Mabye you should go back to yout Ti for a day, and then see if you can notice a diff then.

good luck!
 
Yeah, I have a 9500 pro and one of the reasons that I haven't upgraded was because...Hey, the games will most likely look 98% the same with even the newest graphics card...Only thing is the performance increase, but I get 30-45 FPS with half life 2...So i'm satisfied for now...I'll wait until prices on 6600gt or 6800gt/non-gt go down in about 3-4 months when battlefield 2 comes out.
 
Despite the flaming, there are some good points here. However...

Yes I have good clean drivers, and yes I can play at higher resolutions...

I previously ran games at 1024 x 768 with 85 mhz refresh. I generally max the graphics and ran AA and AF where applicable. I like eye candy. In FarCry was getting about 40 - 58 fps on average in the wide open areas - much better indoors (Very playable). Now I get 50 - 68 on average. Notice that the only difference in my system is the card. Upgrading to the 6800 gave me increased framerates, which are not jawdroppingly noticeable. But think about the science here. When you go see a movie, and even watching your TV, typically the framerate is 60 fps. More is definately candy, but not truly noticeable and less than that the eye starts picking up on the frames.

The point is that there is not a jaw droppingly huge difference. There is NOT $300 better playability AT THIS POINT. Perhaps there will be in the future. But not now. Until games come out with true DX-9 functionality using all the shaders and lighting effects, I don't think an upgrade is worth it.

Increasing AA and AF a couple of notches does not make such a huge difference.

What I am saying to those who are thinking of an upgrade is this: If you have a good card (like a 4600 or 4800 - or a 9800 or even a 9700 or 5700 ) there is no reason to drop new dimes on a card when there are no games that currently stress your present setup. IF - AND ONLY IF - you are getting unpleasant slow downs and freezes should you upgrade. Otherwise save your sheckles until the price drops or the programmers catch up with the technology.

The ultimate point is: the price to value currently doesn't add up.
 
I think there is something wrong with you. What you are saying IMO is impossible.
Previously I had a 9800PRO oc to XT speeds and then switched over to a 6800Ultra and saw DRAMATIC differences. In Doom3 going from lower quality low FPS to High Quality and 85FPS constant(vSync enabled).

You are wrong mister, It is worth an upgrade if you have an 8pixel pipe card vs the new 16pixel pie cards.
 
You guys keep saying he should be able to turn up AA and AF and resolution to see a difference. Those are nice, but you don't need to do any of that to see a difference between a GF4ti and a 6800GT. The GF4 is directx8 only, and if you can't tell the difference between directx8 and directx9 in Farcry, you're missing the point. Eye candy is NOT higher FPS. It is higher res/AA/AF, but it is also the nicer effects that newer cards can give you. I almost find it unbelivable that you can't see a difference between directx8 water and directx9 water.
 
hes a fucking retard whos not tech savy at all, i see a major differnce from a ti4600 going to a 6800gt. doom3 at 800x600 med quality avg 30fps to doom3 1600x1200 4xaa 8xaf high quality and average 50+fps
 
The upgrade is only really noticeable when you play at higher resolutions with some degree of AA and AF turned on. It's all about fps with high image quality. By the way, "Dyerwolf" did you chose that name after a Grateful Dead song. If so, congrats. :D
 
DyerWolf, what you said is impossible. I'm telling you there is NO WAY that with a Ti4800 at 1024x768 in Far Cry with ANY AA enabled would you get any decent frame rates. Certainly not in the 40+ range as you were suggesting.

I think you should re-install your old card and do some benchmarking if you're not convinced.

Remember that link I sent you earlier in this thread?

Ti4600 - Far Cry - 1024x768 4xAA 4xAF - 12 FPS!!!!

What you're saying is simply not true. 12 fps is the average, which means it would probably range between 4 and 30 or something. In other words: extremely choppy.

Adrian
 
DyerWolf said:
Despite the flaming, there are some good points here. However...

Yes I have good clean drivers, and yes I can play at higher resolutions...

I previously ran games at 1024 x 768 with 85 mhz refresh. I generally max the graphics and ran AA and AF where applicable. I like eye candy. In FarCry was getting about 40 - 58 fps on average in the wide open areas - much better indoors (Very playable). Now I get 50 - 68 on average. Notice that the only difference in my system is the card. Upgrading to the 6800 gave me increased framerates, which are not jawdroppingly noticeable. But think about the science here. When you go see a movie, and even watching your TV, typically the framerate is 60 fps. More is definately candy, but not truly noticeable and less than that the eye starts picking up on the frames.

The point is that there is not a jaw droppingly huge difference. There is NOT $300 better playability AT THIS POINT. Perhaps there will be in the future. But not now. Until games come out with true DX-9 functionality using all the shaders and lighting effects, I don't think an upgrade is worth it.

Increasing AA and AF a couple of notches does not make such a huge difference.

What I am saying to those who are thinking of an upgrade is this: If you have a good card (like a 4600 or 4800 - or a 9800 or even a 9700 or 5700 ) there is no reason to drop new dimes on a card when there are no games that currently stress your present setup. IF - AND ONLY IF - you are getting unpleasant slow downs and freezes should you upgrade. Otherwise save your sheckles until the price drops or the programmers catch up with the technology.

The ultimate point is: the price to value currently doesn't add up.

There are plenty of games that STESS your system IF you have all of the eye candy on. I think you should maybe have said this... IF AND ONLY IF you DO NOT want to play at high res and all the eye candy.. you should then not upgrade..
 
Most modern graphics cards are CPU-limited below, say, 1280x1024 with AA and AF. Sometimes frames don't drop significantly till you hit 1600x1200 with these cards. Running a 6800 GT at 1024x768 is, frankly, fucking retarded. It is like buying a Dodge Viper so you can go 45 in a 55 zone. If you won't turn up the resolution, why the fuck buy a fast card? :confused:
 
I bet a X800XT-PE would Kick-Ass! over the 6800GT on the 3DMark05 CPU tests!!!! And DX8 is visually no different from DX9. Thousands of Nvidia FX5xxx users who own HL-2 agree.


Just kidding....
 
I'm confused.... so you have played on your new card at a resolution above 1024x768? That's not a very high resolution really when you consider that these new cards make doing 1600x1200 with AA and AF easy. I suggest (if you havent already) running the new card at a higher resolution, I think you might be more impressed. Also, this might be a stupid question, but you do have vsync off right?
 
Sorry, I have a 3400 with a ti4600 and I barely push 30fps in Tribes:Vengeance multiplayer. It drops to 20-25 in heavy firefights. Settings I use are 1024x768 at 1 step above the middle quality setting.

Mine will get here once they get off backorder (Microcenter) and if I dont see stuff night and day (not just IQ, but game feel) I'll buy you a soda.
 
I have just upgraded from a 9800Pro to a 6800GT and was very pleased with my upgrade. And I bought the 9800pro back when I got Farcry as my Ti4600 ran like crap in that game.

Mongoose
 
When i switched from a GeForce 3 Ti200 to a 9800Pro, I automatically saw a difference in the menu screen of Doom 3! With the GeForce 3 all it was, was a planet, space and the menu but with the 9800Pro there were all these lines and stuff...
 
Sounds to me like CPU limitation, although he did say he plays at higher resolutions with AA and AF sometimes. I myself noticed large increases in my max playable IQ (i.e. resolutions, AA, AF, details) in Far Cry and Doom 3. It depends on the person as to whether it is worth the money or not I suppose. But overall I have been very pleased with my investment and feel it was worth it.
 
hey man make sure your bios is set up for the new card. re-adjust your agp apeture & other settings so that they are at 256 megs.

I upgraded from a 4200 to a 6800OC without changing those settings and I was thinking the same thing you were.. but once i adjusted them it was night and day.
 
Well i am on a Ti 4400 and i am waiting for my 6800 GT. Have you tried playing HL2 with both the cards if you havent than definatey there is one major difference which i noticed. Try looking at water in the game. With a Ti 4400 its looks crap while with a 6800 GT it looks amazing.

What i am trying to say here is that a $300 upgrade dosent necessarily mean you are just speeding up your FPS. You are getting the latest technology along with that. Ti 4400 is a DX8 while 6800 GT is a DX9. The new games does try to take all possible advantages of DX9 features which a person with DX8 card would miss out.

When i see your argument i see that you are saying that" Why do you need a Merc when your five year old fiat does the same job. "
 
lol, all you guys are giving him suggestions on how to fix it. Imho hes just trying to start a discussion / flame war because it is a physical impossibility to play far cry at those settings with ANY cpu on that card. That and the fact even at low resolutions with high cpu limition the 6800 would rape the ti4800 mercilessly w/o lube... end this gay thread. He doesnt know what hes talking about.
 
If you dont see a benefit going from a 4800 to a 6800 i dont know what to say about it. 99% of everyone else sees benefits in image quality, performance, and consumption of power.
 
He forgot to mention he is on a 15 inch compaq monitor.
Go into your video cards settings and turn the AA and AF to Quality. Then set the game to 1600 x 1200. I had a 8x Ti 4200 and couldnt play any games over 1024 x 768 with any AA/AF turned on. same pc setup as you. I noticed a massive improvement in all games upgrading to a 9800 pro. yes at 1024 x 768 the picture quality is identical just a few fps better. but at 1600 x1200 with all the eye candy thats were the new card shines.
 
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