x1900/x1950 performance thread

M

Mccaula718

Gawd
Joined
Dec 11, 2007
Messages
528
I wanted to make a thread for all of owners the ATI x1900 series. We are no longer mentioned in reviews, so i thought we could make a new Most of us are very close to upgrading, but want all the performance out of our current card as possible Until recently, i could still max all my games out at 1440x900, but that isn't the case anymore.

I recently purchased Left 4 Dead and Call of Duty: World at War, and i can no longer play them at high settings. The framerate at high settings dips highly during the outside locations. Inside runs fine but gets choppy with a lot of enemies on screen.

Would anyone else post their experience and settings with newer titles
 
Thread below this, just ordered one for my wife's PC. As long as it does Sims 2 and the Lego Indy game for her she should be happy. Currently has a 7200gs in there... Think it'll be a slight step up :D.
 
Ower of a 1900gt, im pretty happy gta 4 issues have been resolved with patch and 8.12 drivers from ati, i dont feel to left out;)
 
I used to own a 1900XT, it served me good at the time.

What cards of today would be comparable to a 1900XT?
3850? 4650?
 
I will try L4D on the other PC, But im surprised u can't max L4D, that PC maxed out tf2/hl2 so i'd think the same for l4D too. I think GTA will make the game cry, but really should run any new game out there reasonably well.
 
as an owner of an x1950 pro what driver would you suggest I upgrade to. I often see that the newer ones are not good with the old cards. I haven't upgraded in quite a long while.
 
Had a X 1950 XTX, didn't seem fast enough for 1920x1200, upgraded to HD 3870 and then to a HD 4870 X2.
 
My x1900xtx is my backup card should my 4850x2 collapse on me. Drastic difference, but I have good memories from using it.
 
Me too, my old X1950XT had a very strong performance and top notch image quality. A nice and strange card with it's 16 pixel pipelines and powerful 48 pixel shader processors.
 
I went from x1950xtx crossfire to HD3870X2 crossfire-x, and now have a single HD4870X2. the 1950 setup was awesome for when I had it though. But yea, nowadays it doesn't really cut it.
 
zanthia said:
as an owner of an x1950 pro what driver would you suggest I upgrade to. I often see that the newer ones are not good with the old cards. I haven't upgraded in quite a long while.
Click to expand...

I just installed a x1950pro into my wife's machine, Vista using 8.12's, loaded up Sims 2 and it would blue screen in minutes. Rolled back to 8.10 and I left it running for an hour, no problems.
 
tungt88 said:
. Drastic difference, but I have good memories from using it.
Click to expand...

haha yeah, funny isnt it, I seemed to ''loved' my X1900XT more than my current 8800GTS which is at least twice as faster.
Probably because I jumped from a Radeon 8500 (6 year gap) to X1900XT + LCD. beautiful image quality.

I still believe X1900XT had slightly better IQ than the 8800GTS but maybe its the default colors or something.
 
pigwalk said:
I just installed a x1950pro into my wife's machine, Vista using 8.12's, loaded up Sims 2 and it would blue screen in minutes. Rolled back to 8.10 and I left it running for an hour, no problems.
Click to expand...

would that driver still be a good choice for windows xp. I have the PCI version of the card.
 
1950xt AGP here. still run all my games at 1600x1200 and almost maxed out. left 4 dead i run at 1600x1200 no AA, trilinear, shader high, effect high, model high, page pooled mem mediem. worst that happens is i drop down into the mid-lowish 20s in extreme conditions. hangs around the 40s most the time.
 
I dont see any 4670s near $55...most are $80 there.
But yeah, I wouldnt pay any more than $50 for a used 1900XTX
 
ihira said:
haha yeah, funny isnt it, I seemed to ''loved' my X1900XT more than my current 8800GTS which is at least twice as faster.
Probably because I jumped from a Radeon 8500 (6 year gap) to X1900XT + LCD. beautiful image quality.

I still believe X1900XT had slightly better IQ than the 8800GTS but maybe its the default colors or something.
Click to expand...

Games have stabilized in quality, too.

I'm running a Radeon 3850 (512mb) in a system with an AMD X2 '4800+' (the old 939s) and 2gb DDR500 CL3-3-2-8. Had an X1950 Pro in the same box for the longest time.

Anyway, I just build a system for a coworkers. Intel Q9550, which I conservatively clocked to 3.0ghz for all 4 cores (and tested out Prime95 for DAYS), 8gb DDR2 800, 64-bit OS, and a Radeon 4870.

Played a bunch of games on it from my Steam account - even installed the copy of 'Far Cry 2' that came with his processor. It just...wasn't as impressive an upgrade. I mean, yeah, I could run at max res with buckets of AA and crank every in-game setting in every game, but...meh. It looked nice and all, but just not a HUGE leap in quality over the Valve titles I'm running on my current rig with no problem.

And I think a lot of that has to DO with the games. 'Oblivion' compared to 'Morrowind' was an enormous jump in graphics. And words can't even compared how improved 'Morrowind' was over 'Redguard'. Yet compare 'Fallout 3' to 'Oblivion', and...what? It looks the same! Slightly better shadows, longer view distance, a few particle effects here and there....so what?
 
ihira said:
I dont see any 4670s near $55...most are $80 there.
But yeah, I wouldnt pay any more than $50 for a used 1900XTX
Click to expand...

There must have been some rebate deals that aren't there now... the only $55 4670 or 3850 cards now are open box deals. As I write this, the 4670 goes for $80 (with an Asus at $70 after a $10 rebate), while the 3850 goes for $90 for a Sapphire or $80 for a Diamond after rebate. Judging by the 4670 vs 3850 review I linked, that is about the right difference in price. If you were really hard up for cash, you might gamble on that $51 open box Powercolor 3850.
 
I wouldn't bother with a 4670 when you can get a 4830 for 97 AR.

Either way, I still occasionally break out the crossfired X1950XTXs on a PD/975X system. It was good stuff a little over 2 years ago.
 
4670 is more of a card for people who are stuck with a wimpy PSU, from a dell or HP box, and want a smallish card to put into there case. Many better choices if you have the power/connectors to go to the 4830/4850 ect
 
I absolutely love my X1900XT. It is by far the best card I have ever owned.

Only recently have I been noticing the effects of running the outdated beast.

I play TF2 and COD:WAW on a regular basis. TF2 runs perfectly for the most part. I experience some hitches in very intense battles but otherwise, everything runs smooth.

COD:WAW on the other hand is pretty sluggish at times. Forget sniping. Get more than 2-3 people shooting at me and FPS drops quite a bit.

I don't really feel that upgrading my video card would do much good because the rest of my system would be a bottleneck.

But oh, how I love this card. I think when I retire it I will lay it beside me on my other pillow while I sleep. Or maybe have it framed?
 
I currently play Fallout 3 using my X1900XT 512MB @ 1920 x 1200. I find that performance at medium graphics quality (with some tweak ups) to be good. I still use WinXP so I am not using DX10.
 
My X1950XTX was from release when I was sent one to put in when the one I ordered was never put in my computer. It hardly ever booted, so I never turned my computer off. But one day the computer auto-restarted for some "critical security fix" on Windows, and it never turned back on.

It always performed nicely in CoD4 when noone was around. The card was garbage. My 6600GT got better framerates in WoW.
 
burro said:
My X1950XTX was from release when I was sent one to put in when the one I ordered was never put in my computer. It hardly ever booted, so I never turned my computer off. But one day the computer auto-restarted for some "critical security fix" on Windows, and it never turned back on.

It always performed nicely in CoD4 when noone was around. The card was garbage. My 6600GT got better framerates in WoW.
Click to expand...

So you're saying a 6600GT had better framerates then a X1950XTX? That's a good one. :rolleyes:
 
Mystic-Micro said:
I will try L4D on the other PC, But im surprised u can't max L4D, that PC maxed out tf2/hl2 so i'd think the same for l4D too. I think GTA will make the game cry, but really should run any new game out there reasonably well.
Click to expand...


With L4D his opty 170 is prolly what is slowing him down, even with his OC. Source loves cpu cycles, and L4D seems to really need those cycles during horde attacks. L4D on a core 2 @ 3.0GHz with a x1900xt plays quite well at 1600x1200 with 2xAA. as long as hdr is left off.


ND40oz said:
So you're saying a 6600GT had better framerates then a X1950XTX? That's a good one. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

No doubt, the 7900gtx traded blows with the x1950xtx and often came out on the loosing side against it. The 6600gt was not even in the same ball park with the x1950xtx. Though it sounds more like he either had a bad card or a PSU that was not up snuff.
 
it's in the girlfriend's PC now, but my X1950GT is still running VERY strong, she's able to max out Guild Wars (with the newer expansions) and thats all she cares about
 
1950pro sittin in my old 754 box right behind me.. poor thing gave me an extra year outa that build though.
 
X1950XTXCF edition is in my backup system. I gave my X1900XTX to my sister when I moved to a 4870X2. She uses it for HL2 games at 1280x960. She can max them out. Gonna set her up with Mass Effect next time I'm over at her house.

I needed crossfire for gaming at 2560x1600. Now I play at 1920x1080 on a 4870X2 and I couldn't be happier with the quality/performance.
 
I've had my X1900 XT 512MB for about a year-and-a-half now. I upgraded from a vanilla Radeon 9600 to a 7900GT 512MB in 2006 which was an incredible jump in performance but games came out with the Unreal 3 engine I was looking for more shader power so I made a side-grade to an X1900 XT. Naturally, performance in older games like F.E.A.R. stayed the same but I saw a big jump in performance in shader-heavy games like Need for Speed: Carbon, Rainbow Six: Vegas, and Oblivion.

Games from the 2005-era I can play at 1600x1200, 4xAA, 16xAF. This includes:

Source-engine games
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Age of Empires: 3
Quake 4
Call of Duty 2
Battlefield 2
Far Cry
F.E.A.R.
Serious Sam 2
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Hitman: Blood Money

Games from the 2006-2007 era I can play at 1280x960, 4xAA, 16xAF. I did this with:

Call of Duty 4
Company of Heroes
Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
Need for Speed: Carbon

Exceptions were:

Oblivion (maxed out but no AA)
World in Conflict (not quite maxed out, no AA)
Rainbow Six: Vegas (no AA).

I now play games at 1280x960, maxed out settings, but no AA. This includes:

Unreal Tournament 3
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway
Medal of Honor: Airborne
Call of Duty: World at War
Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 (2xAA or 4x AA)
Mass Effect
Red Alert 3
Assassin's Creed
Gears of War
Need for Speed: Pro Street
Need for Speed: Undercover
BioShock
Fallout: 3

Exceptions:

Far Cry 2 (all settings at "High")
Crysis: Warhead (1024x768, medium settings, ha ha)

My gameplay experience at these settings are very enjoyable but not smooth 100% of the time. Call of Duty: World at War lags a bit in areas with a lot of grass and Red Alert 3 is a little sluggish when there are many units on the screen, although it may be CPU-limited. Far Cry 2 and Need for Speed: Undercover are never completely smooth unless I'm looking at a wall. Still, I am very pleased as most of the games I play use the Unreal 3 engine and the X1900 XT 512MB is capable of handling those games at maximum settings at the resolution I commonly use (1280x960). If I were still using my 7900GT 512MB I'd be in trouble.
 
X1900XT(X)s were the kings until the 8800s came...
now it seems everyone and their grandma has at least a 8800class or better card.

I had a great experience with my X1900XT when I owned it but I sure don't miss it :D
 
The thread I had been waiting for...

I have a 1900XT from HIS with the ICEQ cooler and its been in my system for almost 3 years now. I just got an HDTV and am using it as my main monitor, so I'm forced to run things at 1920x1080 because the TV only supports a handful of resolution. I got L4D recently and it plays smoothly with no AA and 8xAF rest of the settings maxed, I have a AMD 5000+ and only 2GB DDR2 800 running XP and it seems to still get the job done over the years, but I'm itching to upgrade with the new phenoms out and I'm waiting for the 5xxx series from ATI until I do.

But i do wish more reviewers would throw in a few of the last generation cards so people know how to upgrade.
 
GTX 3xx/5xxx cards probably wont come till Q2 2009 at least.

The reason why this card isn't in reviews anymore...well its about 3 generations old lol.
Reviews today have 9800GTX and 4850 (which are about ~$140) as their lowest comparison.
Those are about equivilant to a 8800GTX so look for those reviews to get an idea.
 
I ran X1900 CF from October 2006 to December 2008 and it was one of if not THE most satisfying VGA setup I've ever owned.

I passed both of my cards down when I upgraded and they are both still gaming happily, one with my friend who's away at college and can never afford to upgrade and the other one is in my girlfriend's rig totally pwning The Sims 2 and stuff of the like. Although now that she moved up to Fallout 3 and L4D I think she might appreciate more horsepower. Her single-core 939 box can still play modern games (Fallout 3, L4D, R6Vegas2, STALKER, SupCom, etc.) at Medium settings with this card so I'd say these are still acceptable for general use.
 
I recently ventured into overclocking my card as well. I had a lot of problems with it previously, so i gave up on it for about 2 years. I decided i would raise the voltage to help stabilize the problems that occured previously. This raised my temperatures too high on my vf900. I replaced it with the stock cooler(only ran previously for about 10 minutes.) Though the sound is louder, The cooling performance is much nicer than the vf900. I now see that the vf900 was one of my worst pc investments.

That being said, with only a .25 voltage increase on core and .1 on memory, i was able to get my clocks up to 700/1000! This gave me a nice 5+ fps improvement in all my games. I am now able to turn on all settings to high in L4d with 2xaa 8xaf @ 1440x900 with an average of about 75fps. The overclock is going to allow me to stretch this card even further! I hope my next upgrade gives me this type of performance for 3 years.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top