Computer Build Help

[AIpha]

Originally Posted by Kasumi

1680x1050 is the sweet spot for the 8800 GT. You're assured of more than playable framerates even when things are maxed out. And most of the time (if not all), these graphics look much better than that of the Xbox 360's or PS3's. GRID on my PC totally owns GT5 Prologue on my PS3.

And regarding resolutions, it's absolutely a must to play at the native resolution of your LCD monitor. With CRT, it's okay. But with LCD it's just not. The screen will look blurred out if you choose a resolution other than the native.

To compute for the amount of pixels a resolution, just multiply the length and width:

From lowest to highest amount of pixels. These dictate the performance cut:

1440x900
1280x1024
1680x1050
1600x1200
1920x1200

BTW, for the OS. Just stick with Vista despite the protest of other people. Without Vista you won't be able to play with DX10 graphics. But IMHO, I don't see much of a difference between DX9 and DX10 in any game.

Oh damn..that means I now have to find a vista, 64 or 32 bit, which would you suggest?

(Giving price wasn't an issue)


calling it a night

[Kasumi]

Vista 64-bit for me. But IMO, if you already have XP, don't bother. It's just because nowadays most people have Vista. I swear, playing with everything turned on in DX9 and DX10, the difference is just negligible. You literally have to stop what you're doing and stare at the screen to notice that 'ooh, this area is lit a bit better' or 'wow, the fogs like a bit tad thicker'.

You also mentioned 'not playing with everything turned up'. If that's the case, a mid-range card would do you fine -- but I wholly protest against this as this is a desktop we're talking about. I just mentioned that for emphasis. My laptop with a Geforce 9500M GS (comparable performance to the 8600 GT) plays COD4 @ 1440x900 with nearly everything maxed (except for DX10 options and no AA) out and I still get around 30 FPS on average. Some maps give me over 40 FPS. Running it on Win XP BTW.

On high-end cards like the 8800 GT, everything is meant to be maxed out.

[AIpha]

Originally Posted by Kasumi

Vista 64-bit for me. But IMO, if you already have XP, don't bother. It's just because nowadays most people have Vista. I swear, playing with everything turned on in DX9 and DX10, the difference is just negligible. You literally have to stop what you're doing and stare at the screen to notice that 'ooh, this area is lit a bit better' or 'wow, the fogs like a bit tad thicker'.

You also mentioned 'not playing with everything turned up'. If that's the case, a mid-range card would do you fine -- but I wholly protest against this as this is a desktop we're talking about. I just mentioned that for emphasis. My laptop with a Geforce 9500M GS (comparable performance to the 8600 GT) plays COD4 @ 1440x900 with nearly everything maxed (except for DX10 options and no AA) out and I still get around 30 FPS on average. Some maps give me over 40 FPS. Running it on Win XP BTW.

On high-end cards like the 8800 GT, everything is meant to be maxed out.

Oh well what I meant by that is if I have to turn something off for performance, then I will.


I would like to have a 512 mb card though. (Such as that 8800 GT)

[Aztec]

Nigs. The amount of memory in a graphics card is insignificant if you have enough ram. You want the fastest core/memory/shader clocks.

[Kasumi]

Originally Posted by Aztec

Nigs. The amount of memory in a graphics card is insignificant if you have enough ram. You want the fastest core/memory/shader clocks.

Clueless fool. If you've read the previous posts you'd understand.

VRAM is a buffer. The higher you the resolution the more RAM you'll need though currently the threshold for 256 MB is WSXGA+ with newest games before you see it trailing 512 MB models. And AIpha would potentially get a WUXGA monitor, hence we recommended a 512 MB model. Besides, games these days, despite being shader heavy when it comes to rendering, also use extremely high resolution textures. You'll begin to see memory clamping the higher you go which in effect, will cause a bottleneck.

[Fail9000]

i wanna make my own computer, seems really cheap but i don't know where to start and what works with what, i know how everything slots but you have to buy all the right shiit which i'm not good at.

[Aztec]

Originally Posted by Kasumi

Clueless fool. If you've read the previous posts you'd understand.

VRAM is a buffer. The higher you the resolution the more RAM you'll need though currently the threshold for 256 MB is WSXGA+ with newest games before you see it trailing 512 MB models. And AIpha would potentially get a WUXGA monitor, hence we recommended a 512 MB model. Besides, games these days, despite being shader heavy when it comes to rendering, also use extremely high resolution textures. You'll begin to see memory clamping the higher you go which in effect, will cause a bottleneck.

These "newest games" won't be played on his budget and cards with 256 mb can play these newest games fine.

[AIpha]

Originally Posted by Aztec

These "newest games" won't be played on his budget and cards with 256 mb can play these newest games fine.

What do you mean they won't be played on my budget?

If your referring to the specs I have right now, I have a friend who has a 3.0 ghz processor that runs CoD4 on high everything and still gets good FPS, he has a 512 mb card, 3 gb of ram.

About the ram statement:

I have a laptop with 3 gb of ram and only get like 30-60 fps on low.
CoD4 only requires about 2(at the most) Only recommends 1 for vista.
It's because of my gfx card being only a 128 mb card. My processor is a 2.2 ghz dual core. My hard drive is a little slow(laptop speed).

Originally Posted by Fail9000

i wanna make my own computer, seems really cheap but i don't know where to start and what works with what, i know how everything slots but you have to buy all the right shiit which i'm not good at.

Well I thought it was hard, until I started. It's rather easy if you have someone helping you with some of your questions, it can go by no problem at all. If you have a bigger budget, it also helps a lot ;P

[Faggotry]

why still get 8800?

9 series are out, GOGOGOGO

[AIpha]

Originally Posted by Faggotry

why still get 8800?

9 series are out, GOGOGOGO

Want to chip in the extra cash?

[Kustomize]

Originally Posted by Faggotry

why still get 8800?

9 series are out, GOGOGOGO

9600 < 8800GT.

8800GT SSC > 8800GTX even the ULTRA if Voltmodded.
And 9800GTX < 8800 ULTRA


So that's why.

[AIpha]

Bump for edit first post edit~

[Hotshot]

Originally Posted by AIpha

Bump for edit first post edit~

what u change =O

[Kasumi]

Originally Posted by Aztec

These "newest games" won't be played on his budget and cards with 256 mb can play these newest games fine.

On the contrary, the 'newest games' can be played on his budget rig with everything maxed out (including AA and AF) and still achieving a modest 60 FPS at WSXGA+ resolution. Playing at WUXGA and WQXGA and still achieving 100+ FPS is left for rigs that cost over $2,000.

You saying that his budget rig can't play the 'newest games' and video cards with 256 MB of RAM being able to play these games 'fine' is contradictory. His so called 'budget rig' has a video card with 512 MB of RAM. If what you mean by 'fine' is playing at sub-30 FPS at WSXGA+ on the newest games due to memory clamping, then your standards are low. No wonder you recommended only a Geforce 8600 GT with 256 MB GDDR3 to AIpha. That thing will be on its knees at WSXGA+ with everything turned up and with AA and AF turned on as well. The measly 128-bit memory bus can't provide enough bandwidth to enable AA and AF and the relatively small 256 MB VRAM will choke when rendering at a high resolutions along with buffering high resolution textures.

Quake 4's 'ultra setting' allows the use of very high resolution textures which requires a video card with at least 512 MB of VRAM (the game will warn you of this before enabling it). Try using the two video cards of the same model but with 256 MB and 512 MB of VRAM. You'll see the 256 MB model's performance getting slashed nearly in half.

@ AIpha

BTW, we're talking about VRAM here, not RAM. Aztec is right about looking at the other specs of the card besides its RAM, though in our situation, the RAM of the video card was significant since you'd potentially be upgrading to a higher resolution monitor. A Geforce 8600 GT with 512 MB of GDDR2 VRAM is noticably slower than an 8600 GT with 256 MB of GDDR3 VRAM. GDDR3 has higher clock speeds than GDDR2. But if both video cards were GDDR3, the 256 MB will be left in the dust at much higher resolutions.

Anyway, another tip regarding RAM, not VRAM (RAM of the video card). Windows can only address over 4 GB if you're using a 64-bit version of it. It's useless having 4 GB if you're not using a 64-bit Windows.

Oh yeah, Crysis still can't run at high resolutions with everything turned up. I run Crysis on very high (tweaked to run on DX9 mode since DX10 is just a performance killer) 1680x1050, no AA and AF, and I get around 35-40 FPS. I'm running two 8800 GTs in SLI mode BTW. Still kinda crap considering all my other games run at over 60 FPS. The DMC4 demo runs at over 100 FPS with everything maxed out including 4x AA and 8x AF. LOL.

Here's the link to tweak Crysis to ultra high without compromising too much performance: inCrysis Crysis Forums / Ultra High Quality Custom Config [Current version 1.3]

@ Kuztomize

The new cheapo ATI Radeon HD 4850 > Geforce 8800 GT SSC and 9800 GTX. LOL.

Kinda annoys me too. I would have gone for a single HD 4870 or if budget permits, a 9800 GX2, instead if I assembled my rig this month instead of last December. I'm still happy with my two 8800 GTs in SLI though.


BTW, I'm finally able to play ijji Gunz again! My name there is SteffiGraf and [--Kasumi--].

[AIpha]

Alright, I'm still on search for a good gfx card.

I found this one
Newegg.com - ZOTAC ZT-96TES3P-FSP GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards
OR
Newegg.com - EVGA 512-P3-N802-AR GeForce 8800GT Superclocked 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards
That one.

Which one do you recommend for the best price?