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Disappointing GPU upgrade.

Will82

Will82

Will82

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Joined
14 Jan 2013
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33
I recently upgraded a PowerColor HD 4850 to a Sapphire HD 7850 but I'm not really seeing much improvement visually. There is a huge increase in terms of frame rate and smoothness, which I expected, but graphically almost every game looks exactly the same. Anti aliasing is the most disappointing thing. It works a bit better in some games, such as the new Tomb Raider, but in others, like Far Cry 3, it barely works at all and is visually indistinguishable from my old cards performance, despite maxing most of the settings. What I really wanted in my upgrade was to eliminate jaggies as much as possible, but there are just as many with my new card.

I'm using an old Dell monitor at a measly resolution of 1280 x 1024 and my main question would be, if I were to get a 1080P (minimum) screen, would that help to eliminate jaggies?
 
At higher resolution the jagged edges become harder to notice, it be a huge difference in image quality going from that res to 1920x1080 do it asap as you have the card to handle that res more than fine on many games.

At 2560x1440/1600 res you do not even need to use anti aliasing as it looks sharp enough as it is.:p

Nice monitor for all round use for your card too: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-052-DE&groupid=17&catid=510
 
I'd also recommend a higher resolution monitor. In the meantime, you could try using some third party programs to force better AA if the CCC / game AA quality isn't up to your requirements.
 
That's a decent upgrade, I think higher res monitor will definitely clear up those jagged edges. The one Sycho specced is pretty good... in fact... it's got me looking at my debit card and I can hear it whispering... buy me...
 
Try out RadeonPro and setup game Profiles to use Ultra SMAA, it has the IQ of 4xMSAA at the performance cost of 2x MSAA
You could also use FXAA but this one blurs the image abit around the edges.
 
Well it's not the graphics card, it's that lolmonitor.

Plus for instance a 5xxx range card is going to look just as visually appealing on Crysis 3 as a 7970...the main difference is frame rate lol. You will see slightly better color, shadow detail and better AF but really...it's the frame rate you are after. The graphics are mainly down to the game and it's engine.
 
As others have suggested a 1920x1080 monitor with that card is a must to truly appreciate your new card..i'd imagine your old card would cope with most games at that res.
 
Cheers for the advice everyone. I was planning to upgrade the monitor at some point anyway. My current one is VGA only so I have to use the cards adapter, which is giving me horizontal lines in some games. I may try fiddling with forcing AA through CCC to see if I can get an improvement, particularly for Far Cry 3, which looks great at night but in daytime the trees are fuzzy and there's jaggies everywhere. I tried to take a screenshot to show what I mean but they all come out blurred for some reason.
 
I upgraded from a 1920x1080 res 21.5" BenQ 2222HDL to my current 1920x1080 Samsung SA700 23"120Hz 3D, and even THAT has given me very noticeable visual improvement.

If you are still stuck on a 17" 1280x1024 monitor, you definitely should look into upgrading. Also not to mention 4:3 is really bad for gaming experience wise. I used to game on a Acer 17" 1280x1024 monitor many years ago...I didn't think much of it at the time...but ever since moving on to 16:9 ratio, I really cannot EVER go back to gaming on 4:3.
 
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Yeah, I've fully upgraded my system to a budget gaming one and just didn't think about the monitor, which is now the thing holding me back. Fortunately I should be able to afford one next month. I've had to put of with bad jaggies for way too long.
 
running the same card on a 1920x1080 monitor just fine,farcry3 plays fine

you should be able to run 1050 core/1375mhz memory on that gpu without touching the voltages
 
The card is great so far. I've maxed out the CCC sliders (1050/1450) and it idles at 25c. It's also quiet as a whisper even when gaming. I'm not even using any kind of special cooling either. Stock Intel cooler and two case fans. In fact, just using this card has dropped overall temps a few degrees centigrade.

It's really just my monitor that's the issue now. Has anyone else experienced these horizontal flickering lines in some games using the cards VGA adapter? Google tells me it's a common issue and can solved by using HDMI or DVI instead, so hopefully that's the case. Weirdly, I own some of the games where the issue is mentioned but don't have the problem. Of the titles tested so far, it's only Far Cry 3 and GTA: EFLB where they appear, making 'em both unplayable, but I struggle to play those particular games anyway because of the jaggies at 720p.
 
Will82 said:
It's really just my monitor that's the issue now. Has anyone else experienced these horizontal flickering lines in some games using the cards VGA adapter? Google tells me it's a common issue and can solved by using HDMI or DVI instead, so hopefully that's the case. Weirdly, I own some of the games where the issue is mentioned but don't have the problem. Of the titles tested so far, it's only Far Cry 3 and GTA: EFLB where they appear, making 'em both unplayable, but I struggle to play those particular games anyway because of the jaggies at 720p.
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I think using vsync should fix that, unless it is game problem. However vsync "could" bring input lag.
 
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