Another Video Card Advice Thread...

With Ultra Mode on the horizon, I'm curious as to where my current card fits ... I know I'm not getting bells and whistles, but I was wondering if anyone has any theories as to how well this one will do with any of the UM options:

ZOTAC ZT-98XES2P-FSP GeForce 9800 GTX(G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Also, I'd like to know what ATI models would be comparable to this, just out of curiosity. Years ago, I was a solid ATI fan, but as time went on, I found my ATI video cards became less useful as more games worked better with the nvidia cards. A few years ago, I switched, and haven't looked back until recently reading all these threads about the newer ATI cards and how good they are, and also considering the controversy surrounding the newer nvidia cards. As it stands now, I certainly can't see spending $350 on a nvidia card that is about to become obsolete, or at least "old hat". The cheapest GTX 285 - also a ZOTAC - is $354.99 on Newegg - and I can't see going for the 260 for what I believe will be only a minor increase in performance, based on what I've read here and other places.

I would consider going back to ATI if all the issues with CoX have been solved with the introduction of UM.

Not in a hurry - I'm quite satisfied with the performance of my current card overall, but I AM a little bit of a geek and do like to upgrade when I can afford to. BTW, I have a Q6600 with 8 GB DDR2 to go along with my video card. I built this machine in July 2008, so I do plan to upgrade the entire system by mid 2011 or so, but money is always a factor there.

Any thoughts?

Storm

Wait. Right now is kind of the worst time for a CoX buyer to look for a video card since:

1) Nvidia cards work better on the current CoX client because there are fewer driver issues.

2) Nvidia has been caught with their pants down and screwed up their next generation launch windows badly.

3) AMD/ATi cards are way better than Nvidia cards right now.

4) AMD is the new partner for CoX going forward.

5) Ultramode is still not finished yet so no one knows what the final performance is going to be like on Nvidia or AMD

6) Without any real competition AMD cards have no pricing pressure.

If you can wait this out, Nvidia's new cards will hopefully put pressure on AMD to either drop prices or release revisions to their cards for better price/performance.

Also, in theory Ultra mode will fix all the driver issues that AMD cards have had, and hopefully have crossfire/SLI support so you can have a better choice of cards to work with.

Of course, if you are an Nvidia die hard, I wouldn't buy a card right now because the GTX2xx platform is quite old when compared to the 5xx0 series as well.

I was not under the impression that AMD and NCSoft/Paragon Studios were going to be partnering exclusively, just that they were working together more than they used to. Is this posted somewhere? Just curious...

Storm

PS,

Go to coh.com and scroll to the bottom of the screen. There you will see that the Nvidia logo is gone and has been replaced with a ATI logo.

It's been this way for quite a while, oddly enough. As for i-17 fixing all of the known ATI issues, we'll see come open beta. All we really have to work on is what was said at herocon.

I am happy with my recent ati 5870 purchase, but I didn't do any benchmarking of it in my last rig which is running the G92-8800gts. Tom's hardware shows a rather heavy performance boost.

I'm having pretty good results with my 5770, and Posi said they were getting surprising results from it in Ultra Mode as well. But until Ultra Mode is open to the public, not many people can offer advice on how the cards will handle. Only the devs and closed beta people know at this point. Sadly.

@The Omega Elementress
Currently playing Project Willow lvl 50 DB/WP Incarnate Shifted Scrapper

As you say, Bill Z, it's been this way for quite a while ... I've learned to ignore logos on pages, as they often only mean someone ponied up some $$ to have their logo placed there. For a long time, the nvidia logo was on the game intro screens, yet the devs, as I recall, indicated that they were still trying to work with ATI... sometimes my memory isn't what it used to be, so I could be wrong about that.

Have the devs made any kind of statement that nvidia is out and AMD/ATI is in?

Storm

Well ATI defined the price performance points with the HD 4xxx and 5xxx series. But because nVidia couldn't/wouldn't follow their prices are creeping up slightly.

On the other hand nVidia cards are quietly lowering their clock speeds on some of their existing products making long established benchmarks a bit moot. The 9800GT was released with a 600MHz GPU clock. Now I'm seeing more and more running at 550MHz. These were meant to be the "green" version of the 9800GT that doesn't require external power but some of these cards still do.

Same goes with the GTS 250. Original spec was a 738MHz clock and now I'm seeing 675-700MHz ones which are a lot cheaper than the ones running 738MHz or higher. I'm not sure if this is just the manufacturers fault or not but be on the lookout. There wasn't an official "green" version for this card. 675MHz was the speed of the original 9800GTX. Makes me wonder if someone found a shipping container full of older, not rated for GTS 250 speeds, GPUs and are sticking them on cards.

The new GT 220 and GT 240 cards are targeted to replace the 9500GT, 9600GSO and 9600GT cards.

On the ATI side, the HD 57xx series fall between the GTS 250 and GTX 260 cards. The HD 5670 is less powerful than the 9800 GT but more powerful than the 9600 GT or GT 240.

Thanks, Father Xmas ... that helps me compare my card to the ATI side so I can be sure I'm really UPgrading if I decide to go that way.

This page has the specs on my current card. Core clock is 675mHz.

Storm

Take it for what you will. While the ATI logo has been plastered all over many of the webpages and several of the prizes at HeroCon were ATI cards, there was also a heavy nVidia representation with their 3d vision or whatever they are calling it.

We had an Agent Ruby that was supposed to be an ATI rep at one time, but the only thing I ever saw come of that was a costume contest.

Since we know GR won't launch until July, I'd wait until I17 hits open beta (or if you are lucky and get into the closed beta) and check the reports from various people using different cards and configurations, then make the decision.

For myself, I'm waiting to see how my 1 Gig HD 4850 fares during I17 Closed or Open beta since the rig is less than a year old. If it's sliding too far down on the UM looks, I'll likely upgrade to a 5xxx model.

NVidia is also releasing next-gen GTX cards later this month.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvi...deon,9819.html

I'd wait until the dust settles a little bit first, since a new brass ring does tend to affect the pricing of mid-range and value cards. Don't take this as hand-on-the-bible truth or anything, but GTX 260 and lower cards may see a drop in price as they shuffle off the last of the 8000's/9000's out this year and they fill out the low end with these "G 100/200" series models instead. (Hint: pass on the 100's if you want Ultra Mode.)

The top of the pile cards usually have little variance in price after a new one is released I've found, maybe as much as a 15% price drop, but they make as small a cut as possible and stop manufacturing them so they go away faster. The now top of the line GTX 280-290's will still cost quite a bit well after the 400 family launches. (Guessing they're skipping the number 300 for some reason... only using it for integrated solutions for now.)

I tend to follow NVidia more than ATI myself, it's all preference to each individual player. For me, their drivers are more forgiving when installing/uninstalling, and their manufacturers are very generous with Technical Support (EVGA's cross-shipping is awesome if you get a skunked card out of the box. BFG troubleshooted problems over the phone that were not even related to their card to get my little bro up and running on an older PC.) NVidia is a bit pricey though, and I haven't honestly tried ATI's products. ATI, on the other hand, I'm even thinking about trying once I can afford to make another PC again with their Radeon HD 5000 line. Much like deciding which server for CoH when starting off, unless you know something in advance, just pick one brand over another and try it, I guess.

But if none of that made sense, the timing of this should make it all old news once Open Beta begins.

Not trying to kiss up to them, but seriously, pay attention to BillZBubba and FatherXMas' posts over the next month in this tech forum, and you will learn all you need to about CoH and the new cards. Their past advice helped me build capable CoH running PC's as well.

To address the OP, the card you have should do UM at some level as it is above the minimum spec cited by Posi. For upgrades, I'd say you should be thinking either one of the new upcoming Fermis or a more economical ATI like the 5850 or 5770. All of those will do DX11 and the new OGL standards. The GTX 2xx's won't. But it doesn't hurt to wait till the Fermis get rolling good and see wht happens before making a final choice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Defenestrator Dumb (or maybe not so dumb) question. Is the GT 220 going to be enough to run Ultramode competently? I'm not looking for a high end machine as COH is about as far up the scale as I go for PC gaming, but my current computer is starting to show its age.

I'd say not as the cards it is intended to replace, fall below Posi's minimum spec.

Okay, good to know. I've been debating about using my tax return to either upgrade my computer or get a new rig. Upgrading means adding a new power source (just saw I'm running at 250 watts ), adding 4 GB of memory, and a new graphics card. (Plus my Network Interface Card needs to be replaced.)

Alternatively, for a bit more, I can get a new computer.