Anyone sick of graphics card upgrades ?

[vapor matt]

Yep but the games are still cheaper when you add in the price of hardware to run new games. Xbox games are around £10-£20 dearer depending on where you buy. But then as I said my gfx card updates have swallowed up the cost of buying 10-20 games in the price difference. And frankly there aren't 20 pc games worth buying that need a top end card. Then the 2 gig of ram to play battlefield 2 smoothly, and a decent cpu.

plus your forgeting a few things, firstly there are not 20 games anyone would want on the pc to save say £10 or £15 per game, then who would want to install 20 games on there pc? at least with the 360 its just change the disk and your playing within 3 minites. secondly the year it takes to get the £250 saveing on games to pay for my upgraded GFX card its already out of date by perhaps 2 generations! so what anyone saved they just gave away in its second hand value. thats without the cost of the next gen CPU to get the best out of the new gen GFX cards. keeping a pc uptodate for the latest gen reqires more than a GFX update, CPU, RAM, maybe even board with the all new chipset! PC gameing will either have to get more affordable or as the consoles get better pc gameing will become elitist which in turn will slow down development for the PC as GFX manufactures will no dout look into there own consoles or develope for there console partners. the PC will take a back seat in the future.

How many people with a PC at home? millions, how many people play games on it? not that many let alone spend a fortune on GFX upgrades. the 360 will have game developers falling over to code for it. it will play on your TV or HDTV, and here we will get the price of HDTV come in to try and spoil the party!

one 24" wide screen display = £700 inc lets say the dell 24"

I just bought a 24" akai HDTV for the xbox which is also a PC display and guess what it was cheaper! so not only do i have a HDTV i also have one hell of a monitor.

now add that all up and the xbox360 is not only cheaper it sells itself! plus we will soon have the 2nd hand game market for the 360 which will also reduce prices.

This console will change a few things in the PC perspective! and what people buy for there gameing needs. its sales have even exceeded microsofts expectations with millions sold in the first month of launch. and the games industry which is bigger than the movie industry will support it with massive release's as the games world elite code for it with massive revenue in return.

what the odds on Ati makeing more $ from the 360 than the x1800 or x1900

who said Ati was going skint ha ha

 

[Kainz]

Basically I'm leaving the gaming side of things to the 360 now. I'll leave internet and general purpose use obviously to the PC, and I'll upgrade to a PCI-E rig just before or after bloated Vista arrives.

I've already stated why I gave up on pc gaming in my article linked in my first post. Only time will tell how well the 360 will do when it come's to gaming but it has colossal potential and I'm hoping MS take full advantage of the machine they have. By all means the 360 won't be cheap to run and just as expensive in the long run, but you're getting good gaming from it plus a brilliant online experience thats hard to match.

If PC developers can actually release something worth playing on the PC that actually doesn't require me to splash out on some obscene amount of money for bits of hardware then I'll start paying attention. All I see now with this new HDR era is even sloppier coded games. This is the list of games on my machine:

1. Age of Empires II
2. Age of Empires III
3. Far Cry
4. Freelancer
5. GTA:San Andreas
6. GTA: Vice City
7. Jedi Knight Academy
8. Mafia
9. Max Payne
10. Max Payne 2
11. Need for Speed Underground
12. Need for Speed Underground 2
13. Need for Speed: Most Wanted
14. Pirates
15. STEAMing pos

I see only 3 2005 releases in that list of games that actually interested me and thats quite poor. Most Wanted was what gave me the whole "move to the dreaded console kainz!" thoughts. Ah well.

 

[geeza]

yes.

so thats why i have only gone voodoo2 - voodoo3 - Geforce 3 TI200 -9800pro which i still have.
The next card will come when i buy a pci-e setup and opteron

 

[chopchop]

im a "midranger", i simply cant afford to spend £400 on the latest gfx card, so like every year or so, i am forced to buy a new card, because mine is unsupported or just plain slow. when i do spend that 150-200 on a card, im left unimpressed by its small jump in speed.
i have been most displeased since upgrading from my gf4 ti to a 9800pro, it still couldnt run doom3 at a nice stable frame rate, it died and i got a 6800, which was much better, but a few months down the line, this card is struggling..
fear was awefull, COD2 was awefull, bf2 is ok with low detail, nfs:mw is awefull. so was the £150 i spent on this card worth it? NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST!!!!!!!!1

 

[Richdog]

im a "midranger", i simply cant afford to spend £400 on the latest gfx card, so like every year or so, i am forced to buy a new card, because mine is unsupported or just plain slow. when i do spend that 150-200 on a card, im left unimpressed by its small jump in speed.
i have been most displeased since upgrading from my gf4 ti to a 9800pro, it still couldnt run doom3 at a nice stable frame rate, it died and i got a 6800, which was much better, but a few months down the line, this card is struggling..
fear was awefull, COD2 was awefull, bf2 is ok with low detail, nfs:mw is awefull. so was the £150 i spent on this card worth it? NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST!!!!!!!!1

The jump from a Ti4200 to a 9800PRO was simply massive... in fact I know people that are now still gaming happily on a 9800PRO. Also remember the ATI series suffereed notably poor performance in OpenGL apps compared to nvidia, which is why your 9800PRO struggled. In contrast, it was miles better at DirextX apps.

I think maybe you are expecting too much from a card... do you expect to be running with all the latest bells and whistles in the latest games like COD2 with a mid-range card? I suggest maybe Lowering the settings and detail if you want to play the latest games on that budget.

Your CPU and motherboard also make a big difference... if they are weak no graphics card will shine.

 

[Klo]

I have a 9800pro and everything is running quite smoothly. Sure, I'm not playing at max settings, but I've never tried them so won't know the difference.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

don't get me wrong im not gonna run away completely from the pc. only thing i will upgrade is the cpu. more cpu power always comes in handy since the pc can be used for more than just gaming. however i will stick to my current gfx card for another few years. and use the consoles for gaming.

only worry i have about a new xbox 360 is the overheating issue. i know not all consoles are suffering from this issue, my cousins rans perfectly fine we did a gaming session for over 6 hours and the console gave no problems at all. but i will wait, maby they will pull out a new revision or something.

 

[Richdog]

Yeah the overheating issue would worry me too, I wouldnt risk buying one until I knew they were fixed.

 

[chopchop]

The jump from a Ti4200 to a 9800PRO was simply massive... in fact I know people that are now still gaming happily on a 9800PRO. Also remember the ATI series suffereed notably poor performance in OpenGL apps compared to nvidia, which is why your 9800PRO struggled. In contrast, it was miles better at DirextX apps.

I think maybe you are expecting too much from a card... do you expect to be running with all the latest bells and whistles in the latest games like COD2 with a mid-range card? I suggest maybe Lowering the settings and detail if you want to play the latest games on that budget.

Your CPU and motherboard also make a big difference... if they are weak no graphics card will shine.

i dont think i expect too much from it at all, since i played doom3 at 800x600 on both the gf4 and the 9800, the card cost ~150 and it lasted about 3months before dieing (with lots of monitor going into suspend while using it), yes it was poor even playing counterstrike. i was glad the crappy thing died tbh!
playing games at 800x600 or 1024x768 should be fine on a midrange card dont you think? its certainly not expecting too much... i never use high detail settings or AA, mostly medium/low.
£150 for 20-30fps in cod2 @800x600 is not on. my cpu may not be brilliant, but its a 2400mhz axp(just abit quicker than std 3200+) which isnt bottom of the line and is well above the sys requirements of the games and benchmarks are spot on too.

 

[Richdog]

Hmm, I get what you mean choppie but I think with an A64 system you would see a huge improvement in performance. Your 2400mhz AXP may be above reccommended specs, but in modern games it just doesn't cut the mustard any more when you pair it with even a mid-range modern graphics card.

If you sold your AXP and mobo and got a cheap A64 rig you would see massive gains in fps and playability in your games. Trust me.

 

[jklc]

I like my bang for buck cards. Makes that purchase feel much more worth it! My unlocked 6800le is doing good, won't be changing for a while yet. Nobody's forcing you to upgrade.. although the AGP/PCI-E situation does seem like it. I'll be clinging on to my AGP for a while yet.

 

[chopchop]

Hmm, I get what you mean choppie but I think with an A64 system you would see a huge improvement in performance. Your 2400mhz AXP may be above reccommended specs, but in modern games it just doesn't cut the mustard any more when you pair it with even a mid-range modern graphics card.

If you sold your AXP and mobo and got a cheap A64 rig you would see massive gains in fps and playability in your games. Trust me.

its not a slow cpu? it does that super pi thing everyone else does in 41seconds as well.
yea already done that, since the mobile2500 and extra 1gb made my pc unstable, i ordered an opteron 146 for £115inc and one of those asrock agp/pcie boards this morning. even then its not going to boost me upto 60fps in COD2... should increase minimum framerate in bf2 tho.

 

[chopchop]

I've still got a 9800pro, and am perfectly happy with it. Sure, there is slow down in UT2k4 when you put setting on full and play at a stupidly high res, but that has never bothered me.

Infact, I've sort have got used to playing at 20fps, and still find my self quite high up on the score chart. I don't get headaches either.

LOL

but you cant bounce about, spin around and do instant mid air railgun shots. infact your gonna struggle to aim at a lot of people because of your "mouse lag" (low fps).

 

[vapor matt]

I think the over heating issue is no worse than an over heating GFX card issue. you will always get the odd console which will be faulty or have its cooler not fitted properly. I know a few people who had faulty PS2's and i know someone who run a game shop for 5 years who also had many other brand consoles retured for faulty power supplys ( just like faulty pc power supplys ) and other faults including not reading disks, how many sufferd with the PS1 not reading the game disk untill you turned it upside down? like pc how many have had a new GFX card only to find 3 months down the road it shows artifacts or the memory die's, cd roms that give up, ram that goes faulty, we have all experinced something at some time.

Getting back on topic

i have been most displeased since upgrading from my gf4 ti to a 9800pro, it still couldnt run doom3 at a nice stable frame rate, it died and i got a 6800, which was much better, but a few months down the line, this card is struggling..

a 6800 card 12 months ago was not regarded as just mid range, overclocked these cards were reaching ultra speeds yet here we are with a card that cant handle the latest games! at the time my X800pro was inferior to the 6800 in open GL games, doom3 was loveing the 6800 series!

6 month upgrades! to be king willy waver! look at my 3dmark 05 score!

wow i want to play games at good frame rates! i want to play games that are coded properly. the games market for PC's are limited to a few specialists but consoles rule the gameing industry not PC's!

think of this when Direx 10 comes along all our cards even the new £500 GTX7800 512m cards will be like a GF4 Ti4600 redundent! old hat and the willy wavers will be spending a fortune to say hey 3Dmark 06 looks cool, but of course you can only see it if you have DX10 cards.

all the new DX10 cards will give scores of 5000, chug along as normal with predictions of what the next gen will do, a never ending GFX life line from your pockets

the 360 plays games and its good at it, its a media center, its a dvd player, its an online experince that has never been before. PC's will have to get back to there roots or make upgrades cheaper to compete.

and of course while all this is going on ATi or nvidia is trying to get there hardware into the next xbox 480 as the next console boom is already under way!

 

[Moeks]

Bahh consoles, some of you miss the point of OcUK entirely, the point isn't the games it's the hardware. Personally at least, I am a computer hardware enthusiast, I don't play any games that require an especially powerful computer, infact I only really play Eve Online and Civilisation 4 ...but I still like to have a fast computer, I like all the kit, I've always been a 'kit' freak I guess, I get pleasure from upgrades in themselves. How many people are left around here who still feel the same? ...I know there used to be a lot.

Incidentally I don't always buy the latest things myself, I usually skip a generation and a half with graphics cards ...but I still love the hardware.

 

[locutus12]

Incidentally I don't always buy the latest things myself, I usually skip a generation and a half with graphics cards ...but I still love the hardware.

its also the same for me i will be honest and say im poor! i cant afford the latest and greatest things, there just too expensive and not only that but there bloody terrible value for money, the only thing thats worse for holding its value are shares in railtrack...

i had a 9800pro for 18 months and it was the first powerful card i had, before this was a GF4ti4400 i picked up for £30, and before that an MX. I got a 6800NU from the MM after the 9800pro in july 05, this was because BF2 ws struggling for me in high settings with no aa/af and i do like to get my textures up to high at least.

But again i was having problems with textures in BF2, so i posted on here asking for information about what card to get, someone told me about the gto2 which was perfect as i had just enough to be able to afford it providing i sold the NU, anyway, i put a post up asking questions about the GTO2 and felt as if i was literally being bullied into buying a £205 7800GT by a certain 3 letter named person who shal remane nameless... but it wasnt just him,

the sheer scorning people were dishing out over the whole issue was insane, it was simply about what i could afford and the GTO2 was pushing the limits for me but i managed it.

now the one thing i have noticed is that everytime a new card comes on, flame wars start, and a whole new upper price limit is reached for the latest gen cards, usually an increase of £30 to £50 and of course all the rich mad buggers run out and buy them as money is no object.

in effect what is being created is a kind of "hardware class system" a friend of mine predicted it years ago, but i didnt think it would actually happen, yet here we are, the more people pay, the more the top price will increase, the more those that cant afford to keep up will be left behind to buy "old tech" and ridiculed for doing so.


p.s., vapor matt, king willy waver... well said

 

[Arcane]

I have to agree, I'm addicted to buying components....my gf reckons I never got over Lego and now it's resurfacing in an expensive adult mutation. Anyway, it's only money, if I didn't invest it in hardware it'd only get wasted on other rubbish...like clothes for the kids and food.

 

[daviec]

Yes I agree. I like to spend my money on something for myself every now and then. If I was being absolutely honest I didn't need to go and buy a 7800GT the other day, but I did and I can't wait to get it set up and turn the res and settings up in my favourite games.

I've had consoles in the past and they are great for a quick game, but I like my PC being where I do everything. Internet, home office, watch TV through my DVB card, so I like it to play games as well. Everything done so well by one machine.

 

[BubbySoup]

I never thought upgrading hardware so you could play the latest games at the best eye-candy/res mattered to a lot of people here. They do it mainly because they are enthusiasts and because they can.

 

[tmileson]

I want the PS3 for one reason. It is what is stopping me buying an Xbox360 right now - Final Fantasy XIII (or so it should be that number, seeing as 11 and 12 are already out). Oh, not forgetting Gran Turismo. Hurry up Sony!!! Bluetooth control pads - it's gonna be so cool. Anyone want to convince me to buy an Xbox ahead of the PS3?

I'm a bit fed up of PC gaming now - getting tiresome - I blame Valve entirely for this. They couldn't code a decent game if their manhoods depended on it.

Compared to the price of a top of the line next gen Video card upgrade for the PC why not buy a XBox 360 now and a PS3 in 6-month/1 year when it comes out. It'll cost about the same as a high end video card on rlease (and cheaper than SLi configs) and you'd have the best of both worlds

All you do is skip a generation of video card upgrade, keep your PC as is to play current games, internet etc and you've massively widened your gaming choice.