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256MB Graphics Memory - Enough?

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19 May 2004
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942
Location
Horsham, West Sussex
I've just ordered a Connect3D X1800XT 256MB graphics card from OcUK.

I'm happy with the price although I had to push my budget to get there - so overall looking foward to the upgrade.

My only uncertainty is that it has 256MB whereas other versions have 512MB - what I can't comprehend is what this will mean to mean in reality.

What limitations/restrictions will I see?
Is 256MB enough?

I've already pushed my budget so I can't justify a 512MB GPU now. I would like an upgrade now, but if I will find myself limited it may be better to cancel and wait a few months for prices to drop.

I'd appreciate some advice/guidance about where the 256MB limitations will start to kick in.

I have 1GB of main board memory if that has any impact.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
The difference between the 256 and 512 versions wouldnt be much at all, but of course that depends on the games you play, Oblivion could make a liar out of me. ;)

But, if i were you, i'd get another gig of ram.
 
Upgrade to 2GB is for another day as I don't have the budget at the moment. It's also more expensive than you think because I have all the memory slots filled with pretty good but small sticks.

At the moment I have a Radeon 9700 Pro (128MB) and play a variety of games including FPS, RTS, RPG and Flight Sims.

I usually only play at 1024 res, but maybe would like to try 1280 or even 1600.

My monitor is only 17" so resolution is rather limited - the main aim is to removing the jerking and turn on the toys for the latest games.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
If your only going to play <1280 x 1024 or below then get the 256 and save money.

512mb is only going to see you with an improvement in performance if you play games at 1600 x 1200 or above.
 
Theres not current improvement between 256/512 (if there is it maybe an extra 3fps at 2560*whatever number it is res, but there will be in the future.
 
The 3D intensive games i mainly play are Q4, FEAR and COD2 and there is no difference when playing with a 512 card that i can see (even ultra HQ mode in Q4 looks no different) and i play at 1600x1200.
 
Vegeta said:
Theres not current improvement between 256/512 (if there is it maybe an extra 3fps at 2560*whatever number it is res, but there will be in the future.

Sorry but there is a significant mate, sometimes over 20%, and this has been tested and benchmarked numerous times. At higher resolutions (1280+) with max details the minimum FPS on a 512MB card can be significantly higher, enough to make the difference between smooth and not smooth... especially with AA/AF enabled. COD2 is a prime example of this, as is oblivion. HL2 Lost Coast, Quake 4 on Ulra settings... basically any newer game with large, high-resolution textures will see a tangible boost. :)
 
Richdog said:
Sorry but there is a significant mate, sometimes over 20%, and this has been tested and benchmarked numerous times. At higher resolutions (1280+) with max details the minimum FPS on a 512MB card can be significantly higher, enough to make the difference between smooth and not smooth... especially with AA/AF enabled. COD2 is a prime example of this, as is oblivion. HL2 Lost Coast, Quake 4 on Ulra settings... basically any newer game with large, high-resolution textures will see a tangible boost. :)
Link to benchmark for proof please :D, not disagreeing with you wouldnt mind evidence though if your going to mould my views :D.
 
Richdog said:
At higher resolutions (1280+) with max details the minimum FPS on a 512MB card can be significantly higher, enough to make the difference between smooth and not smooth...

Do you mean 1280x1024 will see a better performance? Or do you mean anything above 1280x1024.

Here are some benchmarks of 256mb vs 512mb:
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=33&page=1

The difference between 256mb and 512mb is minimal (unless your on Quake 4 which gives you an extra 30fps just for having an NVidia card :p).

The time 512mb really comes into use from those benchies is if you run 1600 x 1200 on full settings - and I dont think your 17" monitor will be able to run at that resolution anyway.

So in your case, go 256 imo.

Edit: I just forgot, it does all depend on how long you want to keep your graphics card for? However, saying this, considering DX10 is coming out soon I doubt any of us will be upgrading this time next year purely because I think the graphic cards will cost £400+ :(.
 
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Thanks for the advice guys - now I'm happy to stick with the 256MB - looking foward to it and hoping to see a massive improvement from my Radeon 9700 Pro.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
UKTopGun said:
Do you mean 1280x1024 will see a better performance? Or do you mean anything above 1280x1024.

Here are some benchmarks of 256mb vs 512mb:
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=33&page=1

The difference between 256mb and 512mb is minimal (unless your on Quake 4 which gives you an extra 30fps just for having an NVidia card :p).

The time 512mb really comes into use from those benchies is if you run 1600 x 1200 on full settings - and I dont think your 17" monitor will be able to run at that resolution anyway.

So in your case, go 256 imo.:(.

Yeah I meant the higher resolutions, anyone with a 17" monitor probably won't see barely any difference until later on in the year. On vegetas request i'm trying to find two links to some comprehensive benchmarks that were done with a 256MB X1800XT and a 512MB 1800XT... I showed them to a mate about 5 months ago and can't for the life of me find them now. One was a german sitre that ran a large series of tests and the other was an english language site. I saw that Pureoverclock one but it wasn't as comprehensive. I'll do my best to find them to show i'm not talking out of my jacksie, but with higher resolutions and greater detail textures + AA/AF it is only logical that the 512MB cards provide decent performance increases... but as I said mainly in minimum FPS. :)

*Goes back to Google*. :)
 
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Though new games like GRAW only give the option of high res textures if you have a 512mb card and my TR7 stutters when entering a new scene as presumably it thrashes the textures around the place, maybe due to only 256mb ?.
 
juno_first said:
Though new games like GRAW only give the option of high res textures if you have a 512mb card and my TR7 stutters when entering a new scene as presumably it thrashes the textures around the place, maybe due to only 256mb ?.
I imagine that Tomb Raider: Legends (assuming TR7 means that) stutters simply due to poor coding. What resolution are you running it in?
 
I was wondering about TR:L. I will game with my new conroe system at 1280, but still can't decide whether to get the X1800XT or go for pure power with an X1900XT. There is about a £70-£80 price difference between them, so is it worth it?
 
GRAW is poorly coded and can stutter on even the most uber of machines.
If i was buying right now i would go for the 1900 as these are at fantastic prices for the power.
 
I play all games at 1280x1024 as I use a 19" LCD.
I renaimed the GRAW exe to doom3.exe and now it runs at 60fps rather than 40fps; must be using SLI now.
You can enable high res textures in GRAW if you edit the config file, but after doing this I got 12fps, oops, and it didn't look much different.
 
fenderbass86 said:
I was wondering about TR:L. I will game with my new conroe system at 1280, but still can't decide whether to get the X1800XT or go for pure power with an X1900XT. There is about a £70-£80 price difference between them, so is it worth it?
Without a doubt, go for the X1900XT since they're outrageous right now at only £260. I wish that I had waited and gotten one of those now instead of spending £190 on my X1800XT, but the X1900XT was hella' expensive back then and we know hind-sight is always 20/20.

juno_first said:
I play all games at 1280x1024 as I use a 19" LCD.
I renaimed the GRAW exe to doom3.exe and now it runs at 60fps rather than 40fps; must be using SLI now.
You can enable high res textures in GRAW if you edit the config file, but after doing this I got 12fps, oops, and it didn't look much different.
It's definitely poor coding then. No current game should stutter on 256MB video memory and 1GB+ RAM at that resolution, low FPS sure, but not stuttering because that's a sure sign of bashing the paging file.
 
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TombRaider7 is a prime example of stuttering:
With next-gen enabled then after entering a new room / scene the graphics stutter badley (freezing for 1 second sometimes) until you look at the whole scene, as if doing this loads the textures. There is no disk thrashing though and I have 2gig RAM. Anyone else have this problem with TomRaider7 ?. Maybe its just bad coding?
 
juno_first said:
TombRaider7 is a prime example of stuttering:
With next-gen enabled then after entering a new room / scene the graphics stutter badley (freezing for 1 second sometimes) until you look at the whole scene, as if doing this loads the textures. There is no disk thrashing though and I have 2gig RAM. Anyone else have this problem with TomRaider7 ?. Maybe its just bad coding?
I've not had a chance to play it yet, but I'll put it down to bad coding myself.
 
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