Do games REALLY need more power atm?

[bfar]

Since the early days of the first 3d accelarators, I've normally been really interested in new gfx hardware when it comes out, from generation to generation. For gamers it's always the biggest & bestest upgrade.

But on reflection, looking at this year with a new gen on the horizon, I'd have to admit there's not a single game that doesn't run really well on my current setup, and it doesn't look like anything hardcore is coming any time soon.

It's a Farcry from the old days when there were certain games that no hardware could cope with!

Am I wrong or am I missing something?

 

[drunkenmaster]

Since the early days of the first 3d accelarators, I've normally been really interested in new gfx hardware when it comes out, from generation to generation. For gamers it's always the biggest & bestest upgrade.

But on reflection, looking at this year with a new gen on the horizon, I'd have to admit there's not a single game that doesn't run really well on my current setup, and it doesn't look like anything hardcore is coming any time soon.

It's a Farcry from the old days when there were certain games that no hardware could cope with!

Am I wrong or am I missing something?

I can't remember a time when I didn't have a gfx card that could run most/all the games out fine. Hell, far cry 1 ran fine when I got it.

People seem to forget the get older and spend more. People might have a 4870 now, but 2 years ago they might have had a x1809xl rather than the xt, 2 years before that they had a x800 pro rather than the xt, couple years before that they had a 9500 instead of a 9800pro, before that a gf4mx rather than a gf4ti 420.

FOr me, since the GF3 i've always had the top end card(or two) and never had any issues in any games.

Also remember to a certain degree where as 10 years ago we all loved 100fps and loverly 100hz refresh crt's, the massive majority of us are now on LCD's where honestly anything above 60fps is rather worthless, which can also effect your view.

But we still have Crysis which doesn't run great on a 4870 at top res/settings, there are a good few other games that don't run hugely smoothly on top end kit.

In other words, its the same situation its always been. As for the market, honestly, if DX10 hadn't been murdered by Nvidia, then we'd have a stronger presense of harder to run dx10 titles with prettier things going on. DX11 is what dx10 should have been, it will bring the top end graphics (not just resolution) squarely back to the PC market over the console market which will increase the amount of work on pc games right now.


What we've had for around a decade is a console being released, dev's focusing on that market for the first couple years, then as pc's get far more powerful, the biggest/best games switch to pc and the focus moves back. This time around, Nvidia screwing up DX10 so massively really did halt progress, so that switch back to PC focus was largely delayed, we should have tesselation, better performance and more gfx power available for the past 2 years, which would also bring the best dev's back to the PC.

End of the day the best developers make money no matter the platform, they are drawn to the newest bleeding edge tech(that makes a difference) and want to make the most advanced games, if DX10 was what it was originally the main game dev's would have been focusing on pretty new PC game tech.

 

[AMG]

well I never have been able to afford top end stuff till the past 2 years, before that my parents brought every inc the PC stuff.

so i had to make do

farcry 1 ran well for me on a 64bit athlone 2.2Ghz single with a radeon 9550, before that I had a FX5700LE, that came with farcry2 that sucked couldn't even play it.

but yeah i now can afford fast stuff, but atm I see no point in having nothjing faster than my current (see sig) only one game challnages it and that is crysis/merc 2 it actruly RUNS SMOOTH for a change :O

 

[Final8y]

@ drunkenmaster You have more typos in that than me even on a bad day.

That's not like you drunkenmaster

Edit: alright! maybe not as bad as me.

Beside that you have saved me a post as your spot on.

 

[AMG]

so we gotta thank Nvida for DX11 than becasue they screw up DX10 sounds a bit like vista than

 

[bfar]

I can't remember a time when I didn't have a gfx card that could run most/all the games out fine. Hell, far cry 1 ran fine when I got it.

People seem to forget the get older and spend more. People might have a 4870 now, but 2 years ago they might have had a x1809xl rather than the xt, 2 years before that they had a x800 pro rather than the xt, couple years before that they had a 9500 instead of a 9800pro, before that a gf4mx rather than a gf4ti 420.

FOr me, since the GF3 i've always had the top end card(or two) and never had any issues in any games.

Also remember to a certain degree where as 10 years ago we all loved 100fps and loverly 100hz refresh crt's, the massive majority of us are now on LCD's where honestly anything above 60fps is rather worthless, which can also effect your view.

But we still have Crysis which doesn't run great on a 4870 at top res/settings, there are a good few other games that don't run hugely smoothly on top end kit.

In other words, its the same situation its always been. As for the market, honestly, if DX10 hadn't been murdered by Nvidia, then we'd have a stronger presense of harder to run dx10 titles with prettier things going on. DX11 is what dx10 should have been, it will bring the top end graphics (not just resolution) squarely back to the PC market over the console market which will increase the amount of work on pc games right now.


What we've had for around a decade is a console being released, dev's focusing on that market for the first couple years, then as pc's get far more powerful, the biggest/best games switch to pc and the focus moves back. This time around, Nvidia screwing up DX10 so massively really did halt progress, so that switch back to PC focus was largely delayed, we should have tesselation, better performance and more gfx power available for the past 2 years, which would also bring the best dev's back to the PC.

End of the day the best developers make money no matter the platform, they are drawn to the newest bleeding edge tech(that makes a difference) and want to make the most advanced games, if DX10 was what it was originally the main game dev's would have been focusing on pretty new PC game tech.

Good post man

I'd disagree with the Farcry1 comment - I had an animal rig when that came out, and it struggled with the eye candy turned up. There were always a few games that were a cut above the current hardware, but the software seems to have eased off lately.

Reason I posted is that I have a solid budget ready for upgrades, but I'm not convinced by the current hardware/prices.

I worry that socket 1366 is going down the socket 423 road (Intel have done it before), and the x58 motherboards are still pretty steep imo. We all know Lynnfield and dx11 prices will probably settle down soon after xmas - will that be a sweet time to buy?

I wonder if my sig rig will still own until then? I think it probably will - but I'd appreciate opinions. Not bad for a 3 year old mobo!

 

[Final8y]

so we gotta thank Nvida for DX11 then because they screwed up DX10 sounds a bit like vista then

Not really as we would be on the equivalent of DX11! features with Vista from the get go which would have shown worth while gains & would be on a more advanced DX feature wise than what we are going to get with the introduction of DX11.

 

[kylew]

@ drunkenmaster You have more typos in that then me even on a bad day.

That's not like you drunkenmaster

Edit: alright! maybe not as bad as me.

Beside that you have saved me a post as your spot on.

THAN!

YOU'RE!

Unforgivable!

 

[kylew]

Good post man

I'd disagree with the Farcry1 comment - I had an animal rig when that came out, and it struggled with the eye candy turned up. There were always a few games that were a cut above the current hardware, but the software seems to have eased off lately.

Reason I posted is that I have a solid budget ready for upgrades, but I'm not convinced by the current hardware/prices.

I worry that socket 1366 is going down the socket 423 road (Intel have done it before), and the x58 motherboards are still pretty steep imo. We all know Lynnfield and dx11 prices will probably settle down soon after xmas - will that be a sweet time to buy?

I wonder if my sig rig will still own until then? I think it probably will - but I'd appreciate opinions. Not bad for a 3 year old mobo!

To be honest, I think Socket775 has done extremely well. While I want an I7 set up, there's nothing I really 'need' it for. I have a Q6700 (at stock at the moment, I'm gonna swap it with my higher clocking Q6600 that's in my server currently) and 8GB of RAM.

My Q6600 would clock to 3.9Ghz stable on air and it was plenty fast at that speed.

The only reason I can really see for I7 for my self is the new motherboards with more features and the 6 RAM slots for more RAM.

For gaming though? I think you won't need anything more than a decently overclocked Q600 or equivalent for a while now.

As for graphics? I think they've stagnated for quite some time really, the only thing they can do to get better is to become cheaper, I think it'll be completely different by the time DX11 is out (well out officially) with software and hardware ready. I hope and think we'll see a bit of a boom in PC gaming then.

 

[Final8y]

THAN!

YOU'RE!

Unforgivable!

LOL

I think i should start using Vista's speech to text recognition.

People's typos don't bother me as long as i can work it out but it is amusing sometimes when its done by some members who's writing is very good.
I think its down to the late hours.

 

[Rezident]

By many accounts ARMA 2 sounds very intensive, it's putting me off buying it until I upgrade. Anyone know what sort of spec you need to run it maxed out high res?

 

[kitch9]

By many accounts ARMA 2 sounds very intensive, it's putting me off buying it until I upgrade. Anyone know what sort of spec you need to run it maxed out high res?

Its just buggy. I can't make head nor tail of whats happening at times due to the weird sat nav voice tones of the AI, and the AI moves really slowly......

 

[arc@css]

LOL

I think i should start using Vista's speech to text recognition.

People's typos don't bother me as long as i can work it out but it is amusing sometimes when its done by some members who writing is very good.
I think its down to the late hours.

*I not i

 

[jigger]

To be honest, I think Socket775 has done extremely well. While I want an I7 set up, there's nothing I really 'need' it for. I have a Q6700 (at stock at the moment, I'm gonna swap it with my higher clocking Q6600 that's in my server currently) and 8GB of RAM.

My Q6600 would clock to 3.9Ghz stable on air and it was plenty fast at that speed.

The only reason I can really see for I7 for my self is the new motherboards with more features and the 6 RAM slots for more RAM.

For gaming though? I think you won't need anything more than a decently overclocked Q600 or equivalent for a while now.

As for graphics? I think they've stagnated for quite some time really, the only thing they can do to get better is to become cheaper, I think it'll be completely different by the time DX11 is out (well out officially) with software and hardware ready. I hope and think we'll see a bit of a boom in PC gaming then.

I agree. The prolonged milking of the g80, ATI's fumbling and the failure of DX10 - DX10.1 has ground development to a crawl. We need faster cards and higher resolution monitors as 2560 x 1600 and 60hz should have been surpassed by now.

 

[Final8y]

I agree. The prolonged milking of the g80, ATI's fumbling and the failure of DX10 - DX10.1 has ground development to a crawl. We need faster cards and higher resolution monitors as 2560 x 1600 and 60hz should have been surpassed by now.

Im happy with 2560x1600 but i would like it at 120Hz but that would take a quad link DVI port which there is not because 2560x1600 120Hz would exceed the bandwidth of dual link DVI which is 4 million pixels at 60hz & we're at 4096000 pixels as it is.

 

[CurlyWhirly]

In other words, its the same situation its always been. As for the market, honestly, if DX10 hadn't been murdered by Nvidia, then we'd have a stronger presense of harder to run dx10 titles with prettier things going on. DX11 is what dx10 should have been, it will bring the top end graphics (not just resolution) squarely back to the PC market over the console market which will increase the amount of work on pc games right now.


What we've had for around a decade is a console being released, dev's focusing on that market for the first couple years, then as pc's get far more powerful, the biggest/best games switch to pc and the focus moves back. This time around, Nvidia screwing up DX10 so massively really did halt progress, so that switch back to PC focus was largely delayed, we should have tesselation, better performance and more gfx power available for the past 2 years, which would also bring the best dev's back to the PC.

so we gotta thank Nvida for DX11 than becasue they screw up DX10 sounds a bit like vista than

How has Nvidia screwed up DirectX 10

I've only recently bought a DX10 graphics card (Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+) after my old PC rig (with an AGP graphics card) packed up.

 

[AbsenceJam]

I'd agree. I have a stock E8500 and GTX260 and I can play everything on high settings at 19x12, a better card would just let me add even more AA. CPU's have gone far beyond anybodies requirements and most definitely for gaming.

I think consoles may have caused some of this. Any good looking (aka expensive) game has to run on at least the PS3 and 360 although we of course get the extra options.

 

[Rroff]

I agree. The prolonged milking of the g80, ATI's fumbling and the failure of DX10 - DX10.1 has ground development to a crawl. We need faster cards and higher resolution monitors as 2560 x 1600 and 60hz should have been surpassed by now.

DX10 hasn't brought development to a halt... a lot of developers very literally struggle to put DX9 to proper usage...

As for DX10 - nVidia refused to spend a lot of time and money implementing and supporting features that the hardware at the time and for the foreseable future couldn't have had a hope of running at a decent framerate - I'm not sure why people dig at them for that as the end result was despite ATI's fumblings with DX10+ features and the rather awkwards 2x00-3x00 cards we get decently priced cards that are capable of powering this generation of games at decent performance, once ATI finally settled down to what they should have been doing all along - instead of paying over the odds for cards with tons of features we haven't got a hope in using outside of tech demos and benchmarks.

 

[Rroff]

As to the OP - id has some interesting looking IP coming out that might push GPU capabilities - although they also (probably for the sake of consoles) supporting a quality level that balances visuals and performance to maintain a good framerate on poorer hardware while still looking very close to the highest quality settings from a distance.

 

[arc@css]

Rroff, do you mean I.D.software's 'Rage' and 'Doom4'? Doom4 should certainly bring gpu's to their knees so to speak. Wolfenstein is out next month and afaik it uses a heavily modified Doom3 engine, I am hoping that we are given a new spectacular feast that might challenge our hardware a bit.