more vid card questions

**gunslinger** · 11-14-2006, 20:27

Thank you for that info. Just as an update, I went ahead and plugged that x1300 xge in to my machine, and bought a new power supply to run it. It will run the gold demo, but not to the point where you can actually play it. With all the settings at low, no anti-aliasing or anything, it still gets jerky, especially when I try to move the camera around. And that's just on the agincourt battle. I've heard from others that Againcourt is about the easiest battle on the demo as far as hardware is concerned. I'm pretty sure the rest of my system is ok with 2.8 ghz HT processor and 512 RAM (I know another 512 wouldn't be a bad idea, but upgrading from my integrated graphics was the priority).

So, as a warning to others, the VisionTek ATI Radeon x1300 xge is NOT a good card for MTW2 even though it has 512mb of RAM and is overclocked to 600mhz.

Since I bought it at Best Buy, I'm pretty sure I can just yank it out of there and return it. After all, the salesman there told me it would run any game, and it turns out he was wrong!

I've been browsing for the 7600 and 7800 for AGP, but they seem pretty hard to come by.

**DukeofSerbia** · 11-15-2006, 20:03

Don't buy 7800GS! It is not woth. 7600GT is the best.
Because in Serbia it's impossible to buy Leadtek 7600GT AGP (I can buy it in Croatia) I will buy 7600GS (MSI model probably or Gigabyte, others manufactrers' of 7600GS are not good).

**Geezer57** · 11-16-2006, 02:31

That x850Pro, especially if you can find one that's unlockable to the full 16 pipes, is potentially a faster card for the money than the "next-best" thing, which is the GeForce 7600GT. But for someone not able to make the effort, or not wanting to take a chance, the 7600GT is certainly very close, much more widely available, and can be more often found at a better price.

As the Duke said, the 7800GS isn't worth the money (unless you can convince someone to give you one gratis!) - the performance difference between it and a 7600GT is virtually nil, while the price differential is usually quite large!

**Big King Sanctaphrax** · 11-16-2006, 02:51

Well, technically the fastest AGP card you can buy is the Gainward 7800 GS+, which is essentially a 7900 GT. But that's pretty expensive, and might be hard to find.

**Beirut** · 11-16-2006, 12:41

Originally Posted by DukeofSerbia

Don't buy 7800GS! It is not woth. 7600GT is the best.

Poor 7800GS. Everyone hates it for some reason.

I have a BFG 7800GS and it works very well. Looks good, tastes good, I'm very happy with it. Has enough juice to run all my stuff at high settings. (Runs quietly too.) The 7800GS got very good performance reviews.

It does cost more then the 7600GT.

**Geezer57** · 11-16-2006, 16:54

Tom's Hardware has an interesting tool to play with here: http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html
It should give you some idea of relative standings among the various graphics setups.

**gunslinger** · 11-16-2006, 18:22

Hmmm. That graph shows the 7600GT coming in way behind the 7800GS and almost all of the x800 types.

**Big King Sanctaphrax** · 11-16-2006, 18:41

The vanilla 7800 GS wasn't tested, they only used the 7800GS+, which, as I said, is essentially a 7900GT.

**DukeofSerbia** · 11-16-2006, 20:56

Originally Posted by Beirut

Poor 7800GS. Everyone hates it for some reason.

I have a BFG 7800GS and it works very well. Looks good, tastes good, I'm very happy with it. Has enough juice to run all my stuff at high settings. (Runs quietly too.) The 7800GS got very good performance reviews.

It does cost more then the 7600GT.

Nobody said that 7800GS is not fast. But it cost too much money.

Card is overpriced because of the high cost of production.

gunslinger

x8xx series is faster than 7600GT in games where are ATI preferred like HL. 7600GT is overall faster and better because of the newest technology.

**gunslinger** · 11-17-2006, 03:23

Originally Posted by DukeofSerbia

x8xx series is faster than 7600GT in games where are ATI preferred like HL. 7600GT is overall faster and better because of the newest technology.

So, what brand does M2TW prefer?

**Big King Sanctaphrax** · 11-17-2006, 06:09

As a general rule, Nvidia cards do better with OpenGL, and ATI cards do better with DirectX. Or is it the other way around? I can't remember.

**DukeofSerbia** · 11-17-2006, 12:54

Originally Posted by gunslinger

So, what brand does M2TW prefer?

In RTW and BI nVidia was preferred.

Originally Posted by Big King Sanctaphrax

As a general rule, Nvidia cards do better with OpenGL, and ATI cards do better with DirectX. Or is it the other way around? I can't remember.

It is true that nVidia cards are better in OpenGL and that is because of drivers. This is mostly past. ATI drastically increased performances in OpenGL last several months. In some OpenGL games like Q4 now ATI is faster.
In DirectX depend from publishers. Some publishers have contracts with ATI and much more with nVidia.

**Husar** · 11-17-2006, 22:42

Today my mind is torturing me with a maybe simple question:
If I look at benchmarks, my 6600GT shows for example 20 fps and a 7950GT shows 60 or 80 so I think it's 3-4 times as fast as the one I have.
Today though I ran some tests with Medieval 2 in metropolitan city with shader Model 2 and high quality textures, everything else maxed or high, resolution 1280*1024 and got a smashing 1fps or lower.
Now my mind keeps telling me that logically, if a 7950 is 3-4 times as fast, it will give me 3-4 fps or lower and that is not really what I would want to spend 250EUR for.
Is that right or can anyone ease my tortured mind and tell me that it's not true and that that card will run the game on maximum settings in a big city fight just fine.
For reference, big city is important because on the grassland map my 6600GT doesn't make any problems if only few units are present.