7800GT or x1800XL all you need at 1280?

Wakinglimb · 6 Mar 2006 at 11:58

Last week I swapped my x1800xt 256mb for a 7800GT and £70... not a bad swap imo.

I play at 1280 x1024, with everything on, including AA and AF. Mainly BF2, DoW, CoV and Quake 4. I notice no difference between these two cards. The friend who I swapped with plays at 1920 x 1200 and is loving the difference this swap has made to him.

I just thought I'd make this point as I see lots of people paying big money for cards that they probably don't need. Anything below 12 x 10 doesn't need an T or a GTX imo.

What do you think?

ACESHIGH · 6 Mar 2006 at 12:11

I think you are right for the here & now, but many buy their graphics cards to last a predetermined time without the need for an upgrade, & with the increasingly complex games just arround the corner, you may not be able to say the same thing in say 6 months time. If Unreal 2007 is released Q4 2006 it would be interesting to see how the 7800GT copes, with full AA/ AF. Same goes for the X1800XT.

Dutch Guy · 6 Mar 2006 at 12:13

For most of the games it's true, but perhaps when running a new game like FEAR you can notice a difference at 1280x1024 with high detail and AA/AF settings.

With future games the difference between will become greater between the cards.

paradigm · 6 Mar 2006 at 12:33

Quake 4 is the Doom3 engine yes? I pretty much exclusively play COD2 (doom3 engine) and TM:Sunrise/extreme/nations. In call of duty 2, I CANNOT run dx9 mode in 1280x1024 with full AA and AF with just one video card. Now im running SLI there is no slowdown at all, but in regards to your original question, no I don't feel a single 7800GT quite cuts it with full EVERYTHING.

(2x Gainward 512MB GLH 7800GT's)

teggs · 6 Mar 2006 at 12:52

still £70 and a 7800 gt for a x1800 256mb is a great swap presuming you bought the x1800 for about £240?

testa12 · 6 Mar 2006 at 13:02

dont be silly, but x1800 is great if you like playing 30fps.

paradigm · 6 Mar 2006 at 13:13

In regards to testa12, WTF?

Wakinglimb · 6 Mar 2006 at 13:14

teggs said:
still £70 and a 7800 gt for a x1800 256mb is a great swap presuming you bought the x1800 for about £240?

Indeed I did!

paradigm, I run COD2 fine on one card with everything on full. What sort of frames did you get?

ACESHIGH, I agree, but the people who are buying x1900xtx cards now were buying a GTX a couple of months before and an x850 xt pe before that... all at 1280... so they could easily upgrade to the card just below the bleeding edge when needed.

paradigm · 6 Mar 2006 at 13:21

My machine was dropping below 60FPS (unplayable online really) when on highly foliage intensive maps (brecourt, allied spawn on carentan, cemetery on dawnville, etc etc).

Doesn't drop below 125fps (I run with /com_maxfps 125 as a cvar) that often now I have two cards.

Wakinglimb · 6 Mar 2006 at 13:26

Mine drops down to about 50... which I'm happy with.... maybe I'm just more tolerant of lower frame rates?

paradigm · 6 Mar 2006 at 13:30

Possibly, but the game starts to visually "tear" when dropping below 60FPS (or whatever your refresh rate is set to).

geeza · 6 Mar 2006 at 13:37

strange when i play bf2 in 1280x1024 4Xaa on my [email protected], 2gb ram and 1800XT 256mb i get a few strange slowdowns to about 25-30fps.

Ive changed the jumpers on my dfi ultra D board to the bottom ones and put the graphics card on the bottom pci-e slot. do i need to change anything in bios? All my 3dmarks are right on though :confused:

Wakinglimb · 6 Mar 2006 at 13:45

geeza said:
strange when i play bf2 in 1280x1024 4Xaa on my [email protected], 2gb ram and 1800XT 256mb i get a few strange slowdowns to about 25-30fps.

Ive changed the jumpers on my dfi ultra D board to the bottom ones and put the graphics card on the bottom pci-e slot. do i need to change anything in bios? All my 3dmarks are right on though

Is this online or offline?

What patch are you running BF2 at?

Also, is your graphics card on it's own power connection?

loltim · 6 Mar 2006 at 14:25

paradigm said:
Quake 4 is the Doom3 engine yes? I pretty much exclusively play COD2 (doom3 engine) and TM:Sunrise/extreme/nations. In call of duty 2, I CANNOT run dx9 mode in 1280x1024 with full AA and AF with just one video card. Now im running SLI there is no slowdown at all, but in regards to your original question, no I don't feel a single 7800GT quite cuts it with full EVERYTHING.

(2x Gainward 512MB GLH 7800GT's)

I fully agree with this, I have a single Leadtek 7800GT and CoD2 is unplayable in DX9 mode, I also get slowdowns down to 30FPS when smoke grenades are thrown, its really annoying.

I was looking at getting a 7900GT next week but maybe an SLI motherboard and another 7800GT is the better option.

paradigm said:
My machine was dropping below 60FPS (unplayable online really) when on highly foliage intensive maps (brecourt, allied spawn on carentan, cemetery on dawnville, etc etc).
.

With me having a TFT I use 60hz so I never see one frame over 60FPS, so i have to disagree about anything below 60FPS being unplayable, as thats what 100% of my frames are

Do you use a CRT Paradigm?

paradigm · 6 Mar 2006 at 14:35

Nope im on a 19" Hyundai TFT, set to 75Hz.

loltim · 6 Mar 2006 at 14:45

So you obviously don't use Vsync, whats frustrating is I have the hardware to run well over 125FPS but I get tearing without Vsync enabled!!!

OK, just tested it with com_maxfps 125 and yep, constant 125 FPS. The tearing isn't noticeable on brecourt but on maps with indoors/walls the tearing is obvious. Can't win.

paradigm · 6 Mar 2006 at 14:48

Yeah its annoying, but I prefer the higher framerate and the minor tearing (gets worse if i drop to 60Hz).

LoadsaMoney · 6 Mar 2006 at 14:50

Well if you don't like lots of AA/AF and maxed settings at 1280x1024 then the GT should suit you fine, but the x1800 XT would have had no probs.

geeza · 6 Mar 2006 at 14:52

Wakinglimb said:
Is this online or offline?

What patch are you running BF2 at?

Also, is your graphics card on it's own power connection?

this in online, patched to 1.2 with the 1.12 incremental (will be trying straight to 1.2 tonight i think)

Its connected directly to the 580watt Hiper type R supply im running. Motherboard and floppy type connection on the board are also in

Just to let people know. I play cod2 in dx9 in 1280x1024 in 4xaa and either 4 or 8xaf and no such slowdowns. In 6xaa 1600x1200 it doesnt like it at all though

loltim · 6 Mar 2006 at 15:04

paradigm said:
Yeah its annoying, but I prefer the higher framerate and the minor tearing (gets worse if i drop to 60Hz).

I've already noticed that the gameplay is much faster without Vsync, i'll be testing it over the next few hours to see if I can get used to the tearing.

Do you play CoD2 often? If so I'll get you our server IP, full of friendly people, we have some damn good players too

We mainly play S&D but we do have a rifle only server now which has all game types on.