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GT200 GTX280/260 "official specs"

^ that's what i realised when i started measuring FPS...

Like in Oblivion, i can hit 60FPS with Vsync, but the game still lags annoyingly every once in a while. and makes that 60FPS not so worthwhile... It's now become more about the minimum framerate for me now.
 
It would be great to measure frametime, but unfortunately this changes on a frame-by-frame basis. It's easier to publish raw average FPS values, as it gives a single number by which people can compare their hardware. Average frametimes would be no different to average FPS values (unless a nonlinear average was taken).

Personally, I think the best of both worlds would be something like a "99% frametime". Ie a statistical value: The frametime at which 99% of frames will be displayed at or faster than (when measured over a long benchmark). This would give us a good indication of a practical minimum framerate (without biasing the result too heavily from the odd frame where you might get some paging), and take into account the more detrimental aspects of multi-card solutions.

That said, any measurement quantity which requires a paragraph of explanation at the start of a review is not going to gain traction among the masses. Average FPS is the number that joe public is comfortable and familiar with, so it will stay (no matter how badly it can misrepresent the data). Kind of reminds me of the "32bit/64bit/128bit" marketing BS from the old school console days.



HangTime said:
The holy grail of gaming is acheiving a maximum frametime (for any frame, not just an average) which is lower than the monitor refresh period (around 13ms for a 75hz monitor).
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Agreed. In this 'holy grail' scenario, you can enable v-sync without the highly annoying framerate halving. I've taken to leaving vsync off - it's less distracting to have a consistently small amount of tearing than it is to get sudden drops to 30 fps.
 
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Minimum framerate is the most important stat. Benching Crysis with one GT minimum framerate was 21 fps max 40fps, with 2 GTs minimum was 13 fps, max 60fps. Sli was way more jerky, even though everyone was saying it benches higher. Terrible coding by nvidia. It's all about money with them, not innovation.
 
tdream said:
Minimum framerate is the most important stat. Benching Crysis with one GT minimum framerate was 21 fps max 40fps, with 2 GTs minimum was 13 fps, max 60fps. Sli was way more jerky, even though everyone was saying it benches higher. Terrible coding by nvidia. It's all about money with them, not innovation.
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It's more than just driver coding. There are fundamental hardware issues involved with having two separate cards drawing from the same system RAM, but drawing from separate video RAM, and outputting to the same screen.

Synchonisation becomes very difficult (the heart of the "non-uniform frame output" problem), as does practical bandwidth. These are, broadly, the same problems faced in using multiple cores for mainly single-threaded applications.

Ive never used ATIs crossfire, personally, but I don't doubt they face similar issues.
 
Hope the gtx 260 is a great performer like the GTS 640 and 7900 gt ( if id didn't break like mine)
How many of you would go NV if the cards were much more powerful than ATI 1's but more expensive. unlike now.
 
I like the good old days when the only difference between the top card and 2nd best was clock frequency, you could just o/c to get the higher speed and save £££ :)
 
straxusii said:
Surely not easy! I cant remember, was it really just shy of 500 quid???
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I paid £475inc for mine, from this site, on release day.

Apparently some people got their cards for closer to £450 on release, but from other places which had limited stock.

...There was probably some release-day-hype based price gouging going off though.
 
Looks like these new card will be one in the eye for those 'I've got a next gen console and it's nearly as good as your PC' guys! :D
 
well i would not mind paying 400£ if the card stays on top for 1 year you probably saved more then be buying it at 475£ then me .

As i bough 2900 1 gig ddr4 for 350£ then sold it for 150 £

bought 8800gts g92 512mb for 230£

bought two 3870xt for 240 £ sold it for 200£

using still 8800gts g92.

and if i would have bought 8800gtx i would still be using it and saved money even if it would be 400£
 
psychas said:
well i would not mind paying 400£ if the card stays on top for 1 year you probably saved more then be buying it at 475£ then me .

As i bough 2900 1 gig ddr4 for 350£ then sold it for 150 £

bought 8800gts g92 512mb for 230£

bought two 3870xt for 240 £ sold it for 200£

using still 8800gts g92.

and if i would have bought 8800gtx i would still be using it and saved money even if it would be 400£
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That's what i try to-do as it works out cheaper in the long run than lots of cheap midrange upgrades & would be still using 1900xtx + 1900xt Master even now if the slave did not die a few months ago.
 
next comming months should be good as both ATi & Nvidia have cards that on paper look brilliant, now it's down to pricing and performance, and if the companies can get the stock out
 
Im pretty much out of PC gaming scene now, my xbox caters for everything.

However with BF3 in the pipeline, i will be playing that on PC (sniping as usual).

I really hope i need a good card for good visuals and gameplay for it.

a GTX260 would be perfect!
 
psychas said:
well i would not mind paying 400£ if the card stays on top for 1 year you probably saved more then be buying it at 475£ then me .

As i bough 2900 1 gig ddr4 for 350£ then sold it for 150 £

bought 8800gts g92 512mb for 230£

bought two 3870xt for 240 £ sold it for 200£

using still 8800gts g92.

and if i would have bought 8800gtx i would still be using it and saved money even if it would be 400£
Click to expand...

£350 for a 2900 1GB! :eek: That sounds like you got bumped! My 2900 was £240, and I bought it basically on release.
 
I really want to see benches of these new cards - I find it hard to believe that there are still no credible early previews of them (ati caards included in that).
 
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