Widescreen, FEAR, and my bank account

A

AuxNuke

Gawd
Joined
Nov 11, 2001
Messages
605
So I've taken a vacation from some MMORPG's and have been on this single player FPS kick the last 2 - 3 months. I've found myself with a beautiful 2405FPW and played through a bunch of great games: Doom 3, HL2, Quake 4, and COD2

Up until this point, my setup (see sig) has been able to play these games at the minimum widescreen resolution of my monitor, 1680x1050, with little to no trouble. And then...

I bought FEAR. When walking around in an outside environment @ 1680x1050, I feel like im watching a power point presentation. Needless to say, I might need a few extra ponies under the hood if I want to experience this game in its full widescreen splender.

Knowing that there are new or "refresh" versions of video cards comming out in the next few months from both camps, does anyone know if any of these new versions will be a "budget" card? Now, i dont mean $200 budget I mean, Is there any card comming out around the $500 price point? If not, I guess it would be best to toss up another $450 for a 2nd 256mb 7800GTX in SLI for the performance increase that I'm looking for.

Your thoughts? Thanks!

~Aux
 
If there are completely new verions in the works in the next couple of months, they will probably be priced at about 500 bucks. That seems to be the trend lately with the exception of the GTX 512. Go for the second GTX. The next gen probably won't be able to beat them in SLI to bad if at all.
 
Skolar said:
If there are completely new verions in the works in the next couple of months, they will probably be priced at about 500 bucks. That seems to be the trend lately with the exception of the GTX 512. Go for the second GTX. The next gen probably won't be able to beat them in SLI to bad if at all.
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doesnt a single 7800 GTX come close to 6800 ultras in SLi? If it doesnt come close than i'm pretty sure it bets the 6800 Ultras.
 
pArTy said:
doesnt a single 7800 GTX come close to 6800 ultras in SLi? If it doesnt come close than i'm pretty sure it bets the 6800 Ultras.
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Eh...maybe. Don't know. If you can stand waiting a few months, get the next gen and put a second one in a few months after. It sounds like money isn't an issue for you. As for me, I'd still get a second GTX.
 
uhh i have your identical setup and i run at 1680x1050 every setting high (except soft shadows), AA at 2x and AF at 8x...
 
Skolar said:
Eh...maybe. Don't know. If you can stand waiting a few months, get the next gen and put a second one in a few months after. It sounds like money isn't an issue for you. As for me, I'd still get a second GTX.
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Money is definitely a concern. I saved for this system for almost a year and used a large budget to get the current system that I have. The reason I ask this question is that I want to be able to justify this over-the-budget $450 on the best possible option.

I don't mind if an $800 monster card matches the performance... I just hope a 2nd 256mb GTX doesn't get wiped by a moderate next gen card :rolleyes:

~Aux
 
Skolar said:
If there are completely new verions in the works in the next couple of months, they will probably be priced at about 500 bucks. That seems to be the trend lately with the exception of the GTX 512. Go for the second GTX. The next gen probably won't be able to beat them in SLI to bad if at all.
Click to expand...

Over on Rage3d, a Best Buy employee mentioned that the Radeon X1900 XTX had a SKU in their systems already for $649.99. Supposedly "in-stock" 1-22-06. That might just be the date the warehouses get it for distribution, though - I don't think the retail launch of the product is supposed to be until early Feb.
 
Well we're not 100% postive when the G71/7900 is coming out. So you might as well just grab another GTX and enjoy FEAR now at its greatest.
 
pArTy said:
doesnt a single 7800 GTX come close to 6800 ultras in SLi? If it doesnt come close than i'm pretty sure it bets the 6800 Ultras.
Click to expand...
depends on the game/drivers but yeah its about the same. the difference now is that we are just getting a "refresh" eg 7900 not 8800 or somthing. i doubt we will see the same "doubling of performance" over the previous generation with the 7900's. get the second 7800 and know you will still be kicking 99% of our asses after the 7900's come out any way.
 
dR.Jester said:
What he said! :p
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what he and he said!! That'll be as good as it gets without breaking the bank (1200+)

If that doesn't do it, I'm not sure what will!!!
 
Speaking of a 2nd BFG 7800GTX, I have the "newer" version with the copper heatsink like the one shown here at newegg. Is there any way to tell the difference (such as model number) between this version and the older nvidia reference design looking BFG?

~Aux
 
if you planned on playing anything with any kind of decent settings on that monitor then you should've started off with the 2 7800gtx's imo. I dont have a second one because I dont have plans to buy that monitor just yet. But when it gets in ill most likely dump another 550 for another one of my cards.
 
I was in the same situation a few months ago. I got Fear, and CoD2. Both "crippled" my system with one GTX at 1920x1200. I lowered the res, and settings, to get playable frames. I dont like to do that...

I found a great deal on a used GTX, and got it. Both games benefit greatly from it, and I have been gaming much faster in those two games ever since.Get the 2nd GTX, or wait a few weeks to see what ATi's new card does to get better frames.
 
fallguy said:
I was in the same situation a few months ago. I got Fear, and CoD2. Both "crippled" my system with one GTX at 1920x1200. I lowered the res, and settings, to get playable frames. I dont like to do that...

I found a great deal on a used GTX, and got it. Both games benefit greatly from it, and I have been gaming much faster in those two games ever since.Get the 2nd GTX, or wait a few weeks to see what ATi's new card does to get better frames.
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When you say gaming much faster do you mean at 1920x1220 with some AA / AF turned on or 1680x1050 with some AA / AF on? :)
 
1920x1200. Like you, I had to lower my res to 1680x1050 to get decent frames in Fear. With the second GTX, I went back up to 1920x1200, with a mixture of high and medium in-game settings. Fear is probably the "poster child" for SLI, as it gets a huge boost from it.
 
Gaming on the 2405 with 2 GTX's in SLI for FEAR is frickin sweet. Justified the purchase.

...now in 2 months, I need to sell it all so I can get 7900's to run a damn Dell 30 inch LCD.

The key to life is to rotate your vices, one day it's creamy French cheese , the next it's wildly expensive videocards in SLI and widescreen LCDs.

Mmmmmmm, videocards.
 
And the key to rotating your vices is knowing people who'll buy your "old" product, like my motherboard, a 3 month old Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe. Gone to my neighbour on sunday, what do I get? A nice quiet Premium. Cost difference? $10.00. Sweet...
 
fallguy said:
1920x1200. Like you, I had to lower my res to 1680x1050 to get decent frames in Fear. With the second GTX, I went back up to 1920x1200, with a mixture of high and medium in-game settings. Fear is probably the "poster child" for SLI, as it gets a huge boost from it.
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Which in game settings did you have to change to get a playable rate @ 1920x1200? Thanks!

~Aux
 
I have similar setup as OP, except single core @ 2.8ghz and 2005FPW, I can run at 1680x1050 with 2x AA and 8x AF (everything else maxed) pretty well in FEAR. What sort of FPS do you expect?
 
Hmmm. Ok I'll set my settings to yours above and run through 5 mins of the game with FRAPS. I'll post my results here.

~Aux
 
I bought FEAR last night and installed it.
I played about an hour of the Single-player, and about 45 minutes of multi-player.

Holy crap it's horrible on my 9800! I ended up with 1024x768 with everything on minimum. It plays smooth, but all the things that make it look good are gone!

Hopefully my new card will do it a little better justice when it gets here tuesday.
 
I don't have a widescreen, but am at 1600x1200 which is actually more pixels than 1680x1050. A single 512 GTX can't run F.E.A.R. at maxium detail (no soft shadows) at 1600x1200 4aa/4af. A second can well however. So the second GTX will fix your problem.

A few people here are saying that can run F.E.A.R. at 1920x1200 I guess at 2aa even. I doubt any single card even next gen will be able to do that, until the DX10 parts come out.

Looks like single X1900XT will beat a single 512 GTX in F.E.A.R. from the chatter that's been going on. I guess we'll know the extact number in less than two weeks.

F.E.A.R. is a great game. I'm looking forward to an expansion pack or something. I'm sure there will be a F.E.A.R. 2, which hopefullt is just more of the same with upgraded technology.
 
Yeah, that 9800 won't cut it. Yes, the game looks SOOOOO much better at max detail and AA and AF on, in some spots it looks photorealistic.

I know that a lot of people compalined about the lack of variety in the F.E.A.R. environments, but the ones that are there are simply overall the most realistic environments that I've seen in a game to date.

What card are you getting?
 
I have an 16 pipe X800GTO2 coming.
It's just to hold me over until the next gen cards are out. I've only bought mid-range video cards(~$200 price range) before, and when the new cards hit I'm going all out on whatever the fastest single-card there is.
 
Yeah, I cursious to see how good the X1900XT and 7900 are, but I think I wait on the real nextgen parts, DX10 parts I would think.

I'd like to see a single card handle F.E.A.R. at 1920x1200 max detail and at least 4aa/16af at an average of 60fps. Now that's a card that I would go for, but I don't think we're going to see that in this next round of cards, as they are just refreshes, not true nextgen technology.
 
Ok here are my results from running fraps with FEAR. I ran fraps for 4 mins on the level "First Encounter."

1680x1050, 2x TR MSAA, 8x AF, Maximum Settings - System in Sig

Frames = 12739
Time(ms) = 240000
Min = 25 (I took out the 0 minimum during the checkpoint save)
Max = 181
Avg = 53.079

To me, those look like good numbers! My question is it still doesnt "feel" smooth. Hmm... can someone else run a similar benchmark? Thanks!

~Aux
 
AuxNuke said:
Ok here are my results from running fraps with FEAR. I ran fraps for 4 mins on the level "First Encounter."

1680x1050, 2x TR MSAA, 8x AF, Maximum Settings - System in Sig

Frames = 12739
Time(ms) = 240000
Min = 25 (I took out the 0 minimum during the checkpoint save)
Max = 181
Avg = 53.079

To me, those look like good numbers! My question is it still doesnt "feel" smooth. Hmm... can someone else run a similar benchmark? Thanks!

~Aux
Click to expand...

Those are good numbers man, my average is 55.7 with my setup and exact same config. Have you tried toying with V-sync, triple buffering, different driver sets?
 
neubspeed said:
Those are good numbers man, my average is 55.7 with my setup and exact same config. Have you tried toying with V-sync, triple buffering, different driver sets?
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V-sync = off
- V-sync seems to make my aim very far off, like there is some sort of input lag from my mouse. It smooths out gameplay slightly but the loss in aim takes away from the experience

Tripple Buffering = off
- Enabling tripple buffering in other games (Quake 4, COD2) had a performance hit on my system. I could enable it and then redo the benchmark. Hmmm.

Drivers = 81.98
- The 81.95 drivers were much slower than the newer 81.98's for me.

~Aux
 
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