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New video card wanted - low budget to play STALKER SoC, rFactor, iRacing etc

PsychomIKE

PsychomIKE

PsychomIKE

Associate
Joined
20 Oct 2005
Posts
112
Hi, looking for some recommendations on a video card to play the above mentioned games. Would ideally like to play STALKER maxed out on my 22" WS panel. I'm using a AMD64 x2 4200 with 2GB RAM and Win XP sp3, currently on a Radeon x800 GTO, and don't really want to part with more than £50. Recommendations or is it best to wait it out for a bit?
 
Fast responses, thanks :)

Was just looking at the card in the last link. One thing that worries me is that I think my PS is only about 420W, I will check it out.

What differences can i expect over say a 8800 GTS with one of these?
 
Its slower, especially with AA by about 20%-25% i think.

On the other hand, the GTS is more expensive so it balances out in the end. We are talking about the G92 512MB GTS right? and not the older G80 core?
 
No idea on the core size but it does seem the 8800's are a bit too much to warrant me buying one. I'm hoping a 3850 will quite happily play most modern games (unreal 3.0 based engines) ? STALKER with dynamic lighting etc?
 
At native res on a 22", with all graphical settings on max? You'll need something fairly potent. I'd say 8800GTS 512mb minimum. It's quite a high resolution.
 
Well the benchmarks at http://www.legitreviews.com/article/591/5/ seems to suggest it would be more than playable and seems a good compromise filling the area between an 8600 GT and the 8800's... I'm slightly worried by the low FPS in the Bioshock benchmark though, certainly a game i would consider getting now that there's fan made patches transforming it into the game it was supposed to be.

Is there any future technologies that the 3850 doesn't support? I had my fingers previously burnt with my x800 not supporting shader model 3.0 games :(
 
PsychomIKE said:
Is there any future technologies that the 3850 doesn't support? I had my fingers previously burnt with my x800 not supporting shader model 3.0 games :(
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No its the other way around now, ATi cards are ahead of Nvidia in tech terms, they can do Dx10.1 and they already have the tesselation for Dx11, Nvidia cards don't have either, 3850 is better tech than the GTX 280, Nvidia's top card. :D

Even the £50 3650 is better tech than it. :p
 
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LoadsaMoney said:
No its the other way around now, ATi cards are ahead of Nvidia in tech terms, they can do Dx10.1 and they already have the tesselation for Dx11, Nvidia cards don't have either, 3850 is better tech than the GTX 280, Nvidia's top card. :D

Even the £50 3650 is better tech than it. :p
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Wasn't a similar thing said about the R600 vs. G80?

About how the R600 was "better on paper" and better in benchmarks?

That was so successful. Just...wow. The success.
 
He said it was better tech not faster. The 4870 is basically the same tech as the r600 r670 just beefed up in a lot of areas and optimised. 3 series all have dx10.1 also which the 2 series did not. r600 looked good on paper but never performed well the 4 series cards show what the technology on the 2 series can really do.
 
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He asked about tech, and the fact is ATi cards are better tech than Nvidia's, also speeds a moot point, as not only do ATi have the better tech, they also have the fastest card out. :p
 
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ATI's 38xx cards are an interesting budget option.

Anyone know if they are ever likely to release drivers that sort out the 38xx series troubles with AA, or is that never going to happen because the architecture isn't up to it no matter how good the drivers?
 
PsychomIKE said:
Hi, looking for some recommendations on a video card to play the above mentioned games. Would ideally like to play STALKER maxed out on my 22" WS panel. I'm using a AMD64 x2 4200 with 2GB RAM and Win XP sp3, currently on a Radeon x800 GTO, and don't really want to part with more than £50. Recommendations or is it best to wait it out for a bit?
Click to expand...
Hey, someone mentioned iRacing on here :) I've been in for about 5 weeks now and loving it. FWIW iRacing had a flickering texture problem on my 8800 GT which isn't there on my new 4850. It seems a lot of people with nvidia cards get it, so ATI would be a good choice.

Sure you can't find enough for a 4850? They're stonking good cards. A 3850 you'll be dropping some settings at 1680*1050.
 
fish99 said:
Hey, someone mentioned iRacing on here :) I've been in for about 5 weeks now and loving it. FWIW iRacing had a flickering texture problem on my 8800 GT which isn't there on my new 4850. It seems a lot of people with nvidia cards get it, so ATI would be a good choice.

Sure you can't find enough for a 4850? They're stonking good cards. A 3850 you'll be dropping some settings at 1680*1050.
Click to expand...

Iracing RULES.
But it's crippling my 8800GTX @ 1920x1200 with only 8x AA....can manage 16x at 1680x1050.
So I just bought a GTX280, that should sort that out, 16Q @ 1920 and maybe even some of the SS modes will work, I HATE aliasing in racing games. I too get some flickering textures.....on the bridge at LimeRock mainly.
For the other games the OP mentioned, a much lesser card would suffice.


Amused to death by the "better tech" posts.
a year or so ago, when NV had DX10 and ATI didn't, the ATI cultists were posting lots of "who needs DX10, there are no games". Well, there's still the same number of DX10 games, but now that ATI have the minor update of DX10.1 (presumably simillar to the update from DX9 to DX9a), it's "oooooh there's LOADS of DX10.1 games coming REALLY soon, and it'll make a HUGE difference over 10." (not necessarily on this thread, but elsewhere).
TBH though, with the exception of Iracing a 4850 would do the trick no problem, as long as you don't want lots of AA (while ATI will give you 2x 4x or 8x with minimal degradation of performance, it nosedives thereafter, at least on the 4850 I tested......16x was bad and 24 was a slideshow, yet I run GTL on my 8800GTX at 32SSAA, and most others at 4xs (2x2SS+4xMS). It took a LOT of posts to get to the truth of that, in fact I was almost committed to a 4870x2 until I found that....
a. There are NO driving games (mention Grid on this thread, in the presence of SimRacers, at your peril) which are supported by Xfire.
And.
b. ATI's 24x is nowhere near as nice as NV's 32SS (or even, subjectively, according to some people, it's 16Q setting).

The lack of automatic profiles could be a pain too, as you will need to set lower AA for Iracing, and can get away with much higher in other games.



Oh........
A 3850 better and faster than a 280? Keep taking the pills, I'm sure you'll feel better soon.
 
A second hand 8800GT for 50quid if you can find it would be much better than a 3850. 3850 is slower than a 2900XT and the GTS640 was faster than that with AA, the 8800GT is even faster.
 
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