Ultra-mode video card shopping guide
By
5th_Player,
Posted on: 2009-11-25 11:21 in Developers' Corner
well while the new UM looks nice, i would holdoff til it came out before i bought one,be pretty bad if UM got cancelled
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*blink* Ultra Mode is coming out in Issue 17, which is in turn coming out in April. Pretty sure it's not getting cancelled unless a meteor strikes the server farm.
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Originally Posted by MadHobbit
well while the new UM looks nice, i would holdoff til it came out before i bought one,be pretty bad if UM got cancelled
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!
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I am getting a Sapphire 4890 Vapor-X 2gb in the next few days...
I was aiming for a 58XX series, but they are waaaaaaaay expensive here on Brazil...
The modest Vapor-X i am getting will cost me around $ 520... :P
I guess I will have to settle for a middle-ground card... at least my power supply can run it (600w real power).
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I'm with Chad, I seriously doubt that Ultra Mode would get canned unless something really extreme happened. Of course, in the case of meteor impact, I hope noone gets hurt.|
Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man
*blink* Ultra Mode is coming out in Issue 17, which is in turn coming out in April. Pretty sure it's not getting cancelled unless a meteor strikes the server farm.
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Though I wouldn't mind being nearby and getting superpowers as a side-effect....
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Shego: Another one saved from the fiery pits of EEeeeeconomy Computing Hell.
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Originally Posted by Xandor
I'm with Chad, I seriously doubt that Ultra Mode would get canned unless something really extreme happened. Of course, in the case of meteor impact, I hope noone gets hurt.
Though I wouldn't mind being nearby and getting superpowers as a side-effect.... |
You probably wouldn't mind unless you turned into one of these.
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Yeah, I don't want to be a blob of...whatever they are made of.
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Originally Posted by drogoh
You probably wouldn't mind unless you turned into one of these.
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Leader of the British Superhero Corps on Pinnacle
Shego: Another one saved from the fiery pits of EEeeeeconomy Computing Hell.
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It's Blueberry-Lime Jello I think. Next time you fight one use a spoon, they hate that. But avoid the crunchy bits, they're not so tasty.
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Originally Posted by Xandor
Yeah, I don't want to be a blob of...whatever they are made of.
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It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.
So looking at prices of cards that will support Ultramode, who here is gonna shell out $400 for a card that can run it all at max settings?
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You mean who's shelling out $1250 for ultra mode testing and in preparation of other games in the pipeline? Spent $440 on a sapphire vapor-x ati 5870.
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Originally Posted by DJ_Shecky
So looking at prices of cards that will support Ultramode, who here is gonna shell out $400 for a card that can run it all at max settings?
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Be well, people of CoH.
For ultra mode I bought a Nvidia 295 for me, and bunches of new goodies for my gameputer, including an I7 processor and tri channel RAM...
FOr ultra mode I bought my husband ATI 5870 and a 5850 crossfire, plus the I7 Processor tri channel RAM...
And we both have the I9 on pre order from our computer store.
Sure all this stuff works for age of conan also, but we got in gear when they first announced ultra mode.
I am sure that total is over 400$.
Oooooooooops and we got Win7 64Bit too 
:edit:
We both got 1000 watt PS too, during all this upgrading.
My Settings now are
ATI HD 4870 1 Gig GDDR5
AMD 3.2 Ghz Dual Core Processor
4 Gigs of DDR2 Memory.
Will I be able to run Ultra Mode? I just got this card not to long ago and had to spend money already to get that. I was hoping Ultra Mode wouldn't me insanely taxing on the system, given I can play CoH right now at full power and not even touch 30% of my PC's strength, but now I'm reading I'll need top of the line stuff? Seriously?
A cheap alternative to a 280GX are SLI'D 9800's. If you have an SLI motherboard, you can get 2 of them with 1GB of memory for about $170. I bought the "low power profile" 9800s made with a smaller die so they do not need an external power connector, and I SLI'd them together for low wattage, high power performance.
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My SWAG says between minimum and medium Ultra Mode settings with that rig.
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Originally Posted by venombeyond82
My Settings now are
ATI HD 4870 1 Gig GDDR5 AMD 3.2 Ghz Dual Core Processor 4 Gigs of DDR2 Memory. Will I be able to run Ultra Mode? I just got this card not to long ago and had to spend money already to get that. I was hoping Ultra Mode wouldn't me insanely taxing on the system, given I can play CoH right now at full power and not even touch 30% of my PC's strength, but now I'm reading I'll need top of the line stuff? Seriously? |
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Did we ever hear whether CHV was being tweaked to utilize SLI/Crossfire? How about using multiple cores above the two threads it currently hits?
Last time I tested, there was little to no performance increases when using SLI.
Be well, people of CoH.
Check the first post in the thread. Posi updated it about 2 weeks ago.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
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Lime jello not a problem...blueberry-lime, not a fan.|
Originally Posted by Back_Blast
It's Blueberry-Lime Jello I think. Next time you fight one use a spoon, they hate that. But avoid the crunchy bits, they're not so tasty.
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Back OT, was planning to get a 260GTX to replace my 8800GT.
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Shego: Another one saved from the fiery pits of EEeeeeconomy Computing Hell.
I had just recently upgraded my computer with a second 260 for sli. Then I read the update by posi that was posted a few weeks ago after the second card arrived from Newegg.
*Face Palm*
Please oh mighty devs! Get sli to work! (I know they also have to deal with Nvidia and Radeon to get them to dish out an update. Wish I could figure out a way to spam the card companies.)
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doh. I even read that when he posted it. Which means those running quadcores and quadcores with hyperthreading will probably be left under-utilizing those as well.
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Originally Posted by Father Xmas
Check the first post in the thread. Posi updated it about 2 weeks ago.
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Be well, people of CoH.
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Are you talking quad sli? Cause as far as I knew, the game engine only supported 2 cores right now and haven't heard of that changing. Or am I missing something?|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
doh. I even read that when he posted it. Which means those running quadcores and quadcores with hyperthreading will probably be left under-utilizing those as well.
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Leader of the British Superhero Corps on Pinnacle
Shego: Another one saved from the fiery pits of EEeeeeconomy Computing Hell.
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Nope, you hit it. Was wondering if maybe the game engine could be/will be tweaked so that it utilized quadcore processors like the Intel I7.|
Originally Posted by Xandor
Are you talking quad sli? Cause as far as I knew, the game engine only supported 2 cores right now and haven't heard of that changing. Or am I missing something?
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I remember way back in the day showing that even the lowly P4 showed a performance boost when hyperthreading was turned on and the flag was set in the CHV shortcut.
Then they made usage of dualcore/threads the default so the flag wasn't needed anymore.
Now the question is, can we get the game to utilize not only the 4 real cores of quadcore procs, but all 8 virtual cores on the I7 proc?
Be well, people of CoH.
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Says the man with the shiney new overclocked I7 |
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Now the question is, can we get the game to utilize not only the 4 real cores of quadcore procs, but all 8 virtual cores on the I7 proc?
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Seriously though, I remember doing tons of testing on how CPU intensive CoH is back when they first allowed us to use the -renderthread flag. Do you think only using two cores is bottlenecking the system when compared to mainstream video cards? I'm going to assume that the majority of the CoH player base are using Nvidia 6xxx to 8xxx cards, or the ATI equivalents, and making the game run in four threads (or even 8 threads considering the i7s virtual 8 cores) probably wouldn't help them at all with their current graphics cards holding them back, especially with Ultra-mode.
Now, when considering people with higher end video cards, such has the new ATI 5xxx (I've never been good with ATI models, sue me), then I can see the CPU being the weaker link considering that CoH only runs in two threads.
I'm not saying I'm against it, especially since I'm all for the possiblity of running CoH as well as possible. I just don't think it would be high on their list of things to do, especially after already giving us enthusiasts Ultra mode.
I don't know. I WANT to know. If CHV was suddenly able to utilize as many cores/threads as a system had access to, would we all see a performance boost?
Be well, people of CoH.
I think everyone who was able to use more threads would see a small increase, but the ones with the top of the line video cards would see the best performance increase. This is obviously pure speculation, it would definately be a neat feature to test out.
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They aren't really virtual cores in the same sense as the P4, but nevertheless Win7 is going to try very hard to *not* schedule threads on those cores unless you use up the other cores first, since that will generate better performance. For CoX to "utilize" all eight cores it would have to basically generate so much CPU load that it forced Windows to schedule all 8 cores, and performance would probably suffer.|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Now the question is, can we get the game to utilize not only the 4 real cores of quadcore procs, but all 8 virtual cores on the I7 proc?
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CoX is actually significantly threaded; things like 3D sound and even demorecords seem to use different threads from the main compute threads. The real question is whether any version of CoX will use up more than two i7 cores' worth of computing power, even with Ultra Mode processing. If it doesn't, it really doesn't matter how many cores are in use. Two full cores of i7 power is quite a lot relative to the stated minimum system requirement. What would you use that for in terms of optional enhanced capability? Artificially intelligent veteran pets?
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My Sapphire 5870 arrived today
My new PSU did not
I will be all Ultra Mode ready soon, though
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