Ultra-mode video card shopping guide
By
5th_Player,
Posted on: 2009-11-25 11:21 in Developers' Corner
Quote:
Positron was giving recommendations for nVidia and AMD cards, because AMD now owns ATI. I'm pretty sure he put "ATI/Radeon" in parenthesis to remind people, not to suggest his recommendation was for an AMD CPU/ATI Card combination.
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Originally Posted by Flarecrow
Am I to take this that Having an nVidia Card and an AMD processor is a bad combo?
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WOO HOO! 
A GeForce GTX 285 is exactly what I have! I is set!
May I ask one thing Positron? What is the resolution that the hardware is being tested against?
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My wife has a GTX 260, I have the 285...
Looks like we are good to go.
Thanks for the info Posi, and Happy Thanksgiving to you and your awesome team
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Quote:
Well, I'd gladly tell you how it runs on my 4850... unless I upgrade my graphics card beforehand.
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Originally Posted by Positron
For AMD (ATI/Radeon), we dont have enough of these cards at this price point to get you good data. This would be the minimum card for enabling all the features, only at reduced quality settings.
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Quote:
Not at all - Your Radeon X1650 will continue to work just fine with City of Heroes... just not with Ultra Mode. Just as a reminder: Ultra Mode is not mandatory! Going Rogue will be playable just fine without it.
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Originally Posted by Smash_Zone
Does this mean my ATI Radeon X1650 will become obsolete? I can run the game with max settings now, but I'm not a Graphics guru, so I don't know what will work and what won't...
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I recently purchased --> this card from newegg.com. I'm hoping it will meet the requirements of Ultra-mode?
Quote:
Sure.. it'll be playable without it.. but why buy a brand new car and never use the GPS? |
Originally Posted by Mikuruneko
Just as a reminder: Ultra Mode is not mandatory! Going Rogue will be playable just fine without it.
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*foams at the mouth*
Graarrghhh... must know what screen resolution they're testing the hardware at...
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Samuel_Tow: Your avatar is... I think I like it
I was already leaning towards Dual 1.8GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 - SLI Enabled when I get my new system...glad to see it would handle the load. Thanks Posi!
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@Portland Underground
Speaking on the power-supply bit, if you are stuck on a budget, I'd suggest dropping by Thermaltake's B-Stock shop : http://www.thermaltakestore.com/
You can pick up something like the TR2 RX-850, which as you would expect from the name is an 850watt processor, for around $100 : http://www.thermaltakestore.com/w030319.html
I've got a couple of these refurbed units and really, unless you want something beyond the 2 year warranty they come with, I'd have a hard time buying a power-supply at retail.
Thanks for the info - now I can start ramping up the hints to mom and dad 
EDIT: Would one GeForce GTX 285 be ok, or would you recommend two, to avoid any graphical lag?
@Golden Girl
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Great! I'm already running a GTX 260, so I don't really need to finish building a super-rig to run GR.
I'm still building it, mind you, but now I can play on either PC.
Just because there are a huge number of Invidia 8800's out there: any idea if those will be able to enable much of Ultra Mode? Even if it's just for walking down empty streets on a low-population server?
I noticed a few people mentioning that they're not tech savvy & want to know how their card will do/compare. So... I thought I'd mention that every so often a site called Tom's Hardware publishes a guide on graphics cards, be it best for the money or best for gaming or whatever. Near the end of the articles, they publish a Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart which allows people to see more or less how their cards compare to the cards mentioned in the article. I figure access to such a chart might be helpful, so... Here's a link to the chart in the latest article I could find.
Hope this helps both here and when it comes time to make upgrade decisions.
Hmmmmm.. I may have to upgrade.. I was looking at some of the cards Posi listed and comparing them to the 8800 GTX. The fill rates are almost identical. But on the 2 series cards he listed the memory and the core clock is a bit faster. I haven't had any problems with any game I played yet, so I suppose I will wait and see if the card can handle it.
Quote:
I'm having to head tilt here on this one. The 9600 GSO 512mb is reported to have a fill rate of 10,400 MPixels; 15,600 Mtexels , and 57.6gb/s of bandwidth with a 256-bit memory bus. However, the one you picked up is listed as having the 192-bit memory bus, which means that your memory bandwith is going to take a hit. It's probably going to be around 38.4gb/s|
Originally Posted by Mystic_Fortune
I recently purchased --> this card from newegg.com. I'm hoping it will meet the requirements of Ultra-mode?
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The card you bought is also reported to have the slower core and shader clocks; Core 550MHz; Shader Clock 1375MHz; which means it could have the lower MPixel performance of 4,800 or 8,800 MPixels; but it is also reported to have the increased shader count from the GSO 384mb with 96 stream processors... soo the theoretical MTexel performance is supposed to be around 26,400 MTexels'.
The RadeonHD 4850 that Ghost Falcon used as a baseline during HeroCon has a fill rate of 10,000 MPixels; 25,000 MTexels, and 64gb/s of bandwidth.
On paper, the card you bought isn't as powerful as a RadeonHD 4850, and you will be taking a hit in the memory bandwidth. Depending on how Going Rogue stacks up, whether or not it's Texture or Shader limited, could very well depend on whether or not this card will be powerful enough.
If Going Rogue is more shader dependent, and you lay off the AA and AF, you should be able to run Ultra Mode. If Going Rogue relies on textured models as much as Shaders... I seriously doubt the cards capability to run Ultra Mode.
My brand-spanking new GTX 275 should handle things quite nicely. It was a pain to fit in the box, and my 550W PSU is stretching to power it, I believe, but it works FINE.
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Quote:
We'd have to figure out if they will support SLI in Going Rogue before you could get that answer. |
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Thanks for the info - now I can start ramping up the hints to mom and dad
EDIT: Would one GeForce GTX 285 be ok, or would you recommend two, to avoid any graphical lag? |
Playstation 3 - XBox 360 - Wii - PSP
Remember kids, crack is whack!
Samuel_Tow: Your avatar is... I think I like it
Thank you very much cut and pasted your info and sent it off to the wifey and kids
On a semi-related note, my understanding is that currently CoH will use two CPU cores (the second for physics, if you don't have a physics card). Will ultra-mode gain any additional advantage with more CPU cores?
Tech support IRL, CLR/DRU/MED/WHM/PRI/DEF. Hmm, I sense a pattern...
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Quote:
That's kinda why I was asking |
Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards
We'd have to figure out if they will support SLI in Going Rogue before you could get that answer.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
*heads to the top of a tall building in Steel Canyon with his GeForce 8800 GTS and weeps as he plummets to his death*
...aww crap... 1 HP left...
"Turn off that ^%$^ Healing Aura!!"
*limps off to go Rogue and mug some people for his new computer fund*
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we should have a rikti invasion weekend when it's live to test out all these new shiny cards...*ducks many tomoatoes and a live pig*
Hey who threw the pig!!! XD
Quote:
Well, as much as I want to cry now.. I kind of figured as much. I imagine tax time will come around again just before beta for GR starts. Looks like I'll be doing a complete desktop upgrade in 2010.
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Originally Posted by je_saist
I'm having to head tilt here on this one. The 9600 GSO 512mb is reported to have a fill rate of 10,400 MPixels; 15,600 Mtexels , and 57.6gb/s of bandwidth with a 256-bit memory bus. However, the one you picked up is listed as having the 192-bit memory bus, which means that your memory bandwith is going to take a hit. It's probably going to be around 38.4gb/s
The card you bought is also reported to have the slower core and shader clocks; Core 550MHz; Shader Clock 1375MHz; which means it could have the lower MPixel performance of 4,800 or 8,800 MPixels; but it is also reported to have the increased shader count from the GSO 384mb with 96 stream processors... soo the theoretical MTexel performance is supposed to be around 26,400 MTexels'. The RadeonHD 4850 that Ghost Falcon used as a baseline during HeroCon has a fill rate of 10,000 MPixels; 25,000 MTexels, and 64gb/s of bandwidth. On paper, the card you bought isn't as powerful as a RadeonHD 4850, and you will be taking a hit in the memory bandwidth. Depending on how Going Rogue stacks up, whether or not it's Texture or Shader limited, could very well depend on whether or not this card will be powerful enough. If Going Rogue is more shader dependent, and you lay off the AA and AF, you should be able to run Ultra Mode. If Going Rogue relies on textured models as much as Shaders... I seriously doubt the cards capability to run Ultra Mode. |
Story arcs:
The Golden Scepter: #9852 [Winner of American Legion's July 2011 AE Author Contest]
Let your voice be heard! Sign the petition to keep CoH alive.
I wonder what my GTS 250 (1gig) will be able to handle...
Does this mean my ATI Radeon X1650 will become obsolete? I can run the game with max settings now, but I'm not a Graphics guru, so I don't know what will work and what won't...
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