ATI Radeon HD 3200

I was wondering if anyone know if this graphic card will run bottom lvl ultra mode, or will it not be good enough?

Well, UM testing is still in Closed Beta, so no one can give you an informed answer.

I believe this thread provides the best answer you can get at this time.

[Edit:]

After scanning the thread my guess would be that the answer is "no".

simple answer is NO :-(

in fact, it PROBABLY won't be enough to play the game acceptably, other than on minimal graphics settings.

AS far as I've been able to find out, the hd3200 is basically a geforce 2400 repackaged.

At least according to 3d benchmarking(dunno about actual in-game performance) the list goes

Radeon x1300(949 3dmark) < Radeon HD 2400 Pro(1490 3dmark) < Geforce 8400 GS(1640 3dmark) < HD 3200(1700 3dmark) < Radeon HD 3450 (1799 3dmark)

Now, 3dmark doesn't exactly equate to City of Heroes FPS's, but it's close enough to let you know wether you're going to regret not buying a dedicated card. That's going to be a great workstation/video watching machine. You MIGHT be able to get Ultra mode with a "hybrid sli mode" but that card alone isn't going to cut it.

Particularly if that card is IGP (Integrated Graphics). Does it say if it's in-board, or is this a separate card you're looking at? Easiest way to tell is the VGA Plug: if it's in the lateral slots, it's a card, if it's in the big block with a jumble of other ports near the USB, Network and Audio plugs, it's in-board. (Laptops: look at the sticker on the wristrest. You can't tell otherwise without prying into the Control Panel.)

NO IGP PRODUCT will run Ultra Mode. It's doubtful it'll leave the "Performance" slider at have better than 30 FPS.

However, keep in mind that if this is a laptop that has Radeon HD 3200, this shouldn't dissuade you from purchasing the machine if you're thinking about it: gaming laptops that CAN run ultra mode are really expensive... $1,000 and up. Laptops that can play City of Heroes acceptably or well at all are not as expensive ($600-800, $500 if you're lucky, $400 if you can settle for a netbook). If you want to play on the road, this is still a good way to do it; it's at least worth getting, compared to a laptop that doesn't have a Radeon or GeForce card which will not run COH at all.

Just so we're totally clear here, the mobility version of the HD3200 would not be equivalent to a stand alone HD3200 found in, say, a desktop. Not by a long shot.

The HD 3200 is a Tier 3 level graphics card:http://www.notebookcheck.net/Compari...rds.130.0.html

It may run base COH fairly well but it will NOT run ultra mode anywhere near playable standards.

Honestly now, it's good that Novawulfe is getting what he feels is an acceptable performance for him. I would love to see a CoHHelper report to see what the settings are but given he's running a dual core, with 3GB of system memory (yes some will be stolen by the HD 3200) and at a relatively low resolution, all which helps overcome some of the limitations of an underpowered GPU.

It's my understanding, from a programming point of view, that features like ambient occlusion is very computationally intensive. Since it would be running on the graphics hardware and Positron's listing the 9800GT as a minimum starting point it's only logical that the limited shader hardware in the HD 3200 isn't going to cut it.

But we simply really won't know until someone gives it a try ... and can talk about it, which means once Issue 17 goes into open Beta.

It bugs me that somebody KNOWS, and just can't talk about it right now. (Damned NDA's.) That's the only reason I was disappointed about not getting into this CB. Personally, the rest of the CB's later for the loyalty program I can happily pass up now, I was interested in Ultra Mode more than anything else. But I digress...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Novawulfe The last laptop I have has a igc and it's rating was 950 and almost ran the game above the recommended settings, and this one can run max lvls and has more options open than my last one. And as far as I can tell, the card is not integrated. It's not gettin too warm and I can run multiple apps at once.

Most laptops with named graphic cards from ATI or NVidia with a few exceptions* are not "integrated" but "dedicated". You can't tell from the outside the laptop apart from the cover stickers/system specs for your model. The model you linked is a Dedicated Graphic Card model (can't speak for your prior one, since I have no clue what it is.)

The laptop difference for dedicated cards is that the graphics are not on a single on-board chip and usually does not share memory with your System RAM. Dedicated laptop cards are separate from the motherboard and typically use their own Graphics Card Memory chips.

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* Examples are on both sides of the fence: My Gateway Netbook is using an integrated ATI Radeon X1270 (LT3103u), and NVidia ION Chipsets on netbooks and uITX motherboards are examples of an on-board integrated graphic card. Also, anything Intel provides is an integrated graphic card, and with few exceptions, will not run CoH at all.

Edit: 333 posts... I'm officially half-evil!

Well, my other half replaced a netbook with a hd3200 powered 12 inch model from MSI.
running a 1.6 mv-40, on 2 Gb ram.

It works OK, but it's no speed demon.

Frame rates are fine, at normal settings.
UltraMode would bring it to it's knees.
Even cranked up "normal" mode drops framerates below acceptable.