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Need a card for Bioshock

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Joined
19 Dec 2002
Posts
178
I currently have:
2GB RAM
2.8GHz Dual Core-Pentium D 820
7600GT

I want to play Bioshock at 1680X1050 at a solid 30fps when it's released. Which card would you recommend upgrading to? I'm a bit out of the loop when it comes to PC hardware :p

I'm hoping to spend under £100 if possible, any more and I might as well buy a 360 core package :(
 
8800GTS 320MB should be fine, PC gamer was running it maxed very smooth with an 'entry-level' 8800, so I assume they meant a 8800GTS-320MB.

Edit: Oh well didn't read the last line.
 
Geezer said:
I'm hoping to spend under £100 if possible, any more and I might as well buy a 360 core package :(
X1950Pro/XT for you, but to be fair it shouldn't do too badly. Just won't be able to play it in DirectX 10 mode.
 
For a solid 30fps and £100 you'll probably need to reduce the quality settings as bio shock looks seriously sweet. That budget will get you a card like a 2nd hand x1950xt 512mb. With that you should be able enjoy bio shock quite nicely on mid to high setting without too much AA.

If you can track one down though i can't recommend the 7950GX2 highly enough. I had to go straight to an 8800GTX to make enough of a difference. They're awesome cards, offer near 8800GTS 640mb performance and can be had for close to your budget! ;)

gt
 
Thanks for the replies :)
What if I drop down to the 360's native resolution of 1280X720? That should give a nice boost as it's almost half the res of 1680X1050. Would a 256MB X1950 Pro give me good results?
You can tell, I'm really trying to keep the cost down :D

Geezer :)
 
Megahurtz400 said:
Running games at anything other than native res looks horrid IMHO.
I don't think that's true anymore, back in the days of CRT anything less than native res to me looked blurry but on a TFT it's still sharp, just lower res. :p
 
Jihad said:
I don't think that's true anymore, back in the days of CRT anything less than native res to me looked blurry but on a TFT it's still sharp, just lower res. :p

What? CRT's do not have a native res.
 
Geezer said:
Thanks for the replies :)
What if I drop down to the 360's native resolution of 1280X720? That should give a nice boost as it's almost half the res of 1680X1050. Would a 256MB X1950 Pro give me good results?
You can tell, I'm really trying to keep the cost down :D

Geezer :)
1280*800 would be the one to go for since your screen is 16:10 not 16:9 like a HDTV. I've run lots of games in 1280*800 on my Dell 2007WFP - it's not as sharp as native 1680*1050 of course, but for games it's honestly not that bad at all. The scalers in LCD monitors are better than a few years ago.
 
Jihad said:
I don't think that's true anymore, back in the days of CRT anything less than native res to me looked blurry but on a TFT it's still sharp, just lower res. :p
CRTs don't have a native res and a good one will look just as sharp in pretty much any res. Of course the pixels are still bigger in a lower res which is what you're seeing, but there's no loss of sharpness through upscaling like you get with an LCD. On a big CRT with a low res you can get gaps between the scan lines though, which looks quite nasty. Something like 1024*768 on a 19" CRT though will look quite a lot nicer than 1024*768 on a 19" TFT (native res 1280*1024) since the TFT has to upscale the image.
 
Jihad said:
I don't think that's true anymore, back in the days of CRT anything less than native res to me looked blurry but on a TFT it's still sharp, just lower res. :p

LMAO - We have our first crackhead of the day!!!! (even though it was yesterday:p) (joke).

:cool:
 
x1950pro should handle Bioshock in pretty high detail i would have thought, they only recommend a 7900 GT.

May run it maxed in Dx9 actually seen as they only recommend an 8600 for Dx10 mode, if an 8600 can run Dx10 fine in 1280x1024 high detail, then id say an x1950pro should run it well in Dx9, 8600's nigh on bottom of the range for Dx10, so the graphics can't be that taxing, whichever mode its ran in.
 
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