Anyone have any idea if nvidia or ati is planning to release a sm3 card that can perform well on games like cod2 and fear that isn't £300? I am thinking that the 6600gt probably isn't going to keep up a good fps with most of the lovely sm3 effects on, so is there a card planned that will give me good shading performance and fps for under £200?
Shader Model 3 Graphics....
- Thread starter PotGuy
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will it run battlefield 2, fear, call of duty 2 etc with mostly high graphics and good fps @ 1280x1024, or are my expectation too high for a £200 card 
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I should know this as i do loads of online gaming, but my gfx card is crud and i don't have a clue about the geforce 6 series
?I should know this as i do loads of online gaming, but my gfx card is crud and i don't have a clue about the geforce 6 series
Reefsmoka
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PotGuy said:will it run battlefield 2, fear, call of duty 2 etc with mostly high graphics and good fps @ 1280x1024, or are my expectation too high for a £200 card
To do that i would expect you have an FX-57 and 4 gig of ram?
If the rest of your rig is cack, then it will just bottleneck the graphics card and your £200 investment will be a waste.
Battlefield 2 is a game that rips computers apart for a living, it has no mercy what so ever. I think i have a few settings on high, but not all and it handles well. And looks better than virtually all the games out there. So i shouldnt worry about having the games on high
.There seems to be a stream of games coming out at the moment that put huge emphasis tons of demanding effects for your graphics card to pull off, instead of being inherently artistic in themselves, like Half Life 2 was. Developers should really make the software do most of the work, rather than assume you have a £1500 PC.
For example, whereas I get 50fps in Doom3 at 1280x1024 with 4XAA and everything up, F.E.A.R is pretty much unplayable in those settings - despite only looking AS good.
Anyway, going off the subject. Shader 3.0: Geforce 6 series, Geforce 7 series, or Radeon x1800 - although the latter is about £400 so thats a big no no.
Finding a second hand 6800gt is the only way you'll play F.E.A.R properly for under £200.
For example, whereas I get 50fps in Doom3 at 1280x1024 with 4XAA and everything up, F.E.A.R is pretty much unplayable in those settings - despite only looking AS good.
Anyway, going off the subject. Shader 3.0: Geforce 6 series, Geforce 7 series, or Radeon x1800 - although the latter is about £400 so thats a big no no.
Finding a second hand 6800gt is the only way you'll play F.E.A.R properly for under £200.
bum....
ok thanks guys. wish the developers would bleeding optimize their engines though before they release them
btw the rest of my system is
AMD Athlon 4000+
2x Hitatchi t7k250 sata II Hard Drives
ThermalTake Tsunami black window case
ThermalTake butterfly 480w psu
Asus A8N-SLIi Premium
1gb Crucial Ballistix (pc3200)
LG DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Drive
Sony 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive
ViewSonic VP171B-2 17" monitor
and by the looks of things a 6800gt
ok thanks guys. wish the developers would bleeding optimize their engines though before they release them
btw the rest of my system is
AMD Athlon 4000+
2x Hitatchi t7k250 sata II Hard Drives
ThermalTake Tsunami black window case
ThermalTake butterfly 480w psu
Asus A8N-SLIi Premium
1gb Crucial Ballistix (pc3200)
LG DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Drive
Sony 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive
ViewSonic VP171B-2 17" monitor
and by the looks of things a 6800gt
SM3 is very much becoming the standard. Its an effect the latest generation of consoles will all support, too - so we should be seeing even more of it in the future. However, few games will really NEED it, its just that particular games -- like Doom 3 and Splinter Cell chaos theory - are pretty much designed around it. Splinter Cell in particular had support for SM1 and SM3, but NOT SM2 on its release, so it really wouldn't have looked great on a x800.
That being said, the x800's are the most powerful cards for the money - they would leave the 6800gt way behind in non-sm3 titles like Half Life 2. But still, HL2 is the only game out of the last five I have purchased that doesn't feature and benefit a great deal from SM3...
If you play racing games and sports sims, you'll get away with it. Otherwise, if you like 1st person shooters and moody adventure games you should really get a 6800gt. The 'darkness' is becoming too much of a gaming feature -many of these sorts of games utilise sm3 for tactical/stealth purposes as much as visuals.
That being said, the x800's are the most powerful cards for the money - they would leave the 6800gt way behind in non-sm3 titles like Half Life 2. But still, HL2 is the only game out of the last five I have purchased that doesn't feature and benefit a great deal from SM3...
If you play racing games and sports sims, you'll get away with it. Otherwise, if you like 1st person shooters and moody adventure games you should really get a 6800gt. The 'darkness' is becoming too much of a gaming feature -many of these sorts of games utilise sm3 for tactical/stealth purposes as much as visuals.
Alf said:
Oh indeed, but he doesn't...
They're definately neck n' neck rivals, its just that the 6800gt is a little better purely because of SM3. The real question is whether or not SM3 is worth £50 more. I would have thaught for the time being NVidia cards are a better option, because most big games are sponsered and designed with NVidia cards in mind - possibly as a result of the SM3 feature itself.
ATI were the sponsers of Half life 2, and consequentially it was much happier with Radeon users as it was optimised for the hardware ATI provided Valve. However, apart from HL2, you will see far more games with the NVidia badge next to the system requirements... and generally that means it IS happier with a GeForce card.
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cheers tomsega
the only non fps game i own is c&c generals, which eats resources just as much
from what you said, and what i've read, looks like sm3 is the future, but i am hoping the 7800gt prices will go down £50 now the 7800 gtx 512Mb is out. of course they won't, but you can only hope...
the only non fps game i own is c&c generals, which eats resources just as much
from what you said, and what i've read, looks like sm3 is the future, but i am hoping the 7800gt prices will go down £50 now the 7800 gtx 512Mb is out. of course they won't, but you can only hope...