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Nvidia Launches New Affordable GPU
mikemuch writes "Today Nvidia unveiled a new low-cost, high-power graphics processor SKU. ExtremeTech's Jason Cross has done all the benchmarking, and concludes ' This makes for an impressive bargain and a huge step up from the generic GeForce 6800. The big question: How will this fare against ATI's similarly priced X1000 series card, the Radeon X1600 XT?'"
Pretty decent review here I read earlier:
nVidia 6800GS
The real sweet spot for graphics is in the $250 to $300 price range.
We have no idea what the heck is going on here.
The big question: How will this fare against ATI's similarly priced X1000 series card, the Radeon X1600 XT? In short, we don't know.
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
http://theinquirer.net/?article=27493
Nice of them to cut the price. I would like them to keep the SKU so I didn't have to keep up with anotherone: Although I suppose if they hadn't rebadged it, everyone who bought the 6800 would be pissed at the price cut.
We are often asked "Which video card should I buy?" We always answer with "well how much do you want to spend?" The inevitable reply is that everyone wants to run all the latest graphics-heavy games at high resolutions with all the features enabled, but they only want to spend $100 to $150 to do so. Sorry to say, but that's just not going to happen. The real sweet spot for graphics is in the $250 to $300 price range.
I cannot express how frustrating this is. People, please do not spend more than $150 on video card. This is just insane. I guess we do need people like this to keep the graphics market hot by paying $300 for a card. I just hope game manufactures don't think that their games should require $300 cards.
Unless closed drivers bother you, nVidia is the only sane choice. Just pick up the cheapest one you can find.
The nvidia linux driver is pritty good, and I have had great luck with it on several cards. Downside is the driver is closed source. For ATI I have had good and bad results depending alot on the driver used. Generaly I stick to nvidia, with linux as I have found that it leads to the least issues.
If it's dead, you killed it.
Granted this is a rough approximation, but it seems that GPUs are destined to waste all the power [watts] modern CPUs are saving.
I wish video card makers would be more CLEAR when they decide on names for their cards.
We are one step away from having "Nvidia Model 8912347892389110".
For lay men like myself who buy a new video card every few years, it is hard knowing what is what in the video card market since the names are very confusing i.e. 6800 GS vs. X800XL vs. 6800 GT.
Discuss.
If you "get" pointers add me as a friend (116)!
Nvidia is really the only way to go for 3D in linux. If you really only need 2D, I've heard good things about the old Matrox cards, but good luck finding one.
TODO: Something witty here...
If they're only offering binary drivers and locking up the specs, I'll be sticking with my aging, but still quite capable, Radeon.
i have never paid more than 150 for a video card and have gone long periods of time with out upgrading. $150 USED to be the sweet spot for price/performance now its 250-300$ like they point out. lame. anyways don't be fooled by the hype. you don't need a $300 card.
You can probably get that previously $400 GeForce 4 card now for around $80. Probably would be more than enough for most people.
$250 makes for "a new low-cost, high-power graphics processor"?
Review of GeForce 6800 GS and ATI Radeon X1600 XT
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODgy
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2593
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODgy
Looks like the 6800 GT and the Ultra are going to be abandoned...
The newest version of X has ati-drivers built in for the 7500 and up. Very painless install. Thank to the guys at Xorg.
Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
I don't think your graphicscard is the problem. My testmachine has an ATI Rage Pro 4MB PCI graphicscard and it runs perfectly with the latest X. So I doubt that an ATI Rage 128 isn't good enough.
Your CPU or the amount of RAM is the most probable cause of the slow performance.
"Stock code unit"? Or is it some type of geekware?
...because no other standard-model human being would consider a $250 video card to be "affordable". Hint: for non-powergamers (including most geeks) "low cost" GPUs stop in the vicinity of $100.
I'm running a blank GNOME desktop (just put on the default install; haven't customized anything) on an Athlon T-bird 750 with half a gig of memory. It's not grinding disk or anything. It really looks to me like a lack of 2D acceleration.
Also, while being impressed by the Xscreensaver demos, I noticed that some of them displayed artifacts (triangles with one vertex stuck to the left side of the screen). I figured this was due to bad OpenGL support on the card, which also led me to blame it.
(Incidentally, does anyone know where to send screenshots of buggy OpenGL drivers? I assume I can just screenshot them as I would anything else. I'm using the "r128" driver; does this go to the X.org people?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I have a Geforce 4 at home and a Geforce 6800 GT at work. Both work very well under linux. No its not open source but the installation program compiles a custom interface if it can't find a standard one that will just work.
-everphilski-
I think EA Games is under the impression that most gamers own $300 video cards -- their latest installement of the Battlefield series is both processor and video card intensive. I've got a pretty decent system that I built for myself and am using a $200 Nvidia card and STILL have to run BF2 at 800x600 (60 hertz) with all the options at LOW if I want optimal performance. I am under the impression that game manufacturers don't build for what the average gamer may own, but rather continually attempts to push the whole technology envelope. When will it ever be enough?
401 - Attention span not found
I don't think those have 3D support, though. It's the closed-source fglrx drivers that have that, and those drivers suck.
I've upped my standards, so up yours.
Is there a technolgical reason why multiple GPUs can't be put on a card? I freely admit I know very little about graphics cards but it seems like it might be a cheap way to make a very powerful card. I seem to remember there was a card with two processors on that failed dismally because basically twice the price. What about a card with 4 or 8 cheap processors? Ok the power consumption would be silly but as long as it could be throttled so that when not playing a game only 1 GPU was used it might work. Just thought I'd share that with you all :o)
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
$250 is a new breakthrough in affordability?
I was naively waiting to read about a $100 gpu that performed well enough to play today's games at lcd resolutions.
When you can build a very fast system with everything sans gpu for $400-$500 spending more than half the system cost on a single component sounds fucking stupid.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Why do this I wondered? The problem was in government contracts. After you'd paid back the design costs addition computers could be pumped out at a cheaper price while still both making a profit and remaining competitive. The fly in this ointment is that the government, who often bought quantities of the earlier models where cost was not the first concern (when has cost ever been a concern to governments spending tax money?). I was told that the government contracts stipulated that if you ever lower the price on something you've sold them you have to rebate them the entire difference on every system delivered. Of course that would bankrupt any company, so they resorted to this rather transparent subterfuge.
Perhaps some form of that's what's happening here as well.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I clearly should have discovered x11perf before writing this post, so I could at least have some numbers to complain about. I can't even tell if the problem is GNOME or X in general. I suppose I can run some x11perf benchmarks and compare them to... something.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
They do have 3d acceleration. I game on it, and get better framerates than I do in windows on the games I do play. Definate 3d acceleration there.
Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
I would highly suggest getting a card from the NVIDIA FX series. The linux desktop of tomorrow will require more and more 3D acceleration. IMO, you are simply wasting money if you buy anything cheaper. I would recommend the FX-5200 (which is what I have btw). You should be able to pick one of these up for around $50 (or less) + shipping.
Moving to PCI E is definitely a pain... Lacking in an option in motherboard that had both AGP and PCI E, I bought a dead-end stop-gap, which is a 6600GT AGP card. I love it so far, but I knew I'd have to take the big gulp of getting a new mobo and a new card at once down the line. :(
But finally, at least nowadays we have options like this one with both kinds of interfaces on them, so I can buy the mobo now and the graphics card later.
I, too, have a FX5200 under linux and it has treated me quite well for the price. I'm not running Doom3, but 2D is a flash, and I can play quake3-series and its mods, NFSU, GTA series with (almost) all the goodies turned on.
The FX-5200( which I also use in my primary machine) does an admirable job on almost everything. Including Doom 3 at a reasonable resolution and framerate. I haven't had a chance to try it against HL2 or Q4, so I can't comment there
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
I can't even afford to spend $250 on a new computer :/
While I've been enjoying my 6800GT and 7800GT cards, I'm worried by the fact that ATI can't seem to keep up. Ever since they lost the dominance they had aquired with their 9700/9800 series, They've been behind in performance, street dates, availability AND prices. It's already been 2 generations now. Any gamer knows that, today, nVidia reigns supreme.
I hope that ATi regains the upper hand in the next round because things are looking grim for them. nVidia is a bigger company with bigger coffers and better marketing skills so they can withstand bad times more easily than ATi. They handled the whole 5700/5800/5900 debacle very well considering ATi's offerings ate them alive back then. God forbid ATi should go bankrupt and we end up with a defacto nVidia monopoly!
Disclaimer: I make extensive use of both nvidia and ati hardware under GNU/Linux.
Nvidia is really the only way to go for 3D in linux. If you really only need 2D, I've heard good things about the old Matrox cards, but good luck finding one.
Not true. The proprietary ATI drivers (currently version 8.18.8) work as well as the nvidia drivers on both my amd64 and x86 boxes. Nvidia works fine (except for incessent flickering at 1920x1200 on one machine), as does ATI (but no flicker on that one machine). ATI works better ati 1920x1200@60Hz, but nvidia draws specular hilights on a celestia-rendered hi-res Earth better that ATI. In short, its a wash, with each manufacturer/driver having strengths and weaknesses the other does not.
The choice these days is one of personal preference. Your comment is at least a year behind the current state of the art, at least in the GNU/Linux world.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I'll make sure to try that out when I get home. So I just apt-get install xdm, and change... some config file to point to xdm instead of gdm? I'm sure it's something in /etc/X11 that I don't know off the top of my head. (I'm not looking to install the whole KDE megillah.)
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
It's nice that they're trying to target gamers on a budget, But how about finally targeting people on a power budget? I want to upgrade my graphics card, but my options are limited without having to upgrade my 300 watt power supply. And since it's a small form factor case, my options are even further limited.
If they really want to do something good, how about they manufacture a power efficient GPU that doesn't excessively sacrifice performance? I know I can't be alone - Heck most of the time my GPU runs hotter than my CPU!
Its insane on how much one would spend on a card. I picked up F.E.A.R. recently and stupid me doesn't bother reading the video requirements on the package, so naturally my decent video card was no longer adequate (been meaning to upgrade anyhow). But it is pretty rediculous that ever year a new graphics intensive game is released which would constitute you to have to upgrade video, RAM and soon CPU to run. They should start running bargains like Get this > and get your choice of > for free. greedy bastards :D Wait maybe not free but maybe like a 15% discount. A 50 dollar game could end yo costing you like 300 bucks just to be able to play it after you upgrade something.
I do love my new card though :D
Dewser - all around techy "In the immortal words of Socrates - 'I drank what?'"
The AC is correct. The fastest, last AGP card from ATI was the X850 XT PE. If you want anything faster or new, it's only offered in PCI-E. To be frank, this pisses me off. There is a whole market with people running fast CPUs and DDR 3200 memory that do NOT want to swap out their motherboard. I cannot imagine why in the hell the current crop of video chipset cannot handle the bandwidth provided by AGP 8x. I mean, clearly there is a market for AGP cards.
I'm sorry, but I will not swap out my CPU and motherboard just so I can install faster cards only available in PCI-E.
Life is not for the lazy.
I'm still real happy with my FX 5900, and I'm not planning on upgrading it anytime soon. If you can find one of these they are much better than the other 5xxx series. I've always used Nvidia cards myself, and they work nicely in Linux.
Clickety Click
If it's just for Xwindows, I'd suggest an nVidia 5200FX card, because right now, they are very cheap/budget friendly. I use it currently at home and it runs UT2004 and other OpenGL apps/games/screensavers beautifully. I'd not rec'd it for windows games anymore, though, but for linux, it's been a beauty of a card.
When I last heard they had 3D acceleration for R1xx and R2xx Radeons (from Radeon 7500 up to Radeon 9250).
The built-in Xorg drivers make a huge difference for ATI cards. Supposedly ATI's fglrx drivers are a little better, but the only things I have seen with the ATI binary drivers is that they tend to goof up my touchpad and prevent my laptop from suspending. It's not like I play UT2004 or anything on my laptop, so the DRI drivers are good enough for me. Even considering that, my next laptop will have an nVidia GPU in it for sure.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
I bought a 6600 PCI-E for 179$. Why did I buy a 6600 PCI-E for 179$?
... But if that's what it takes to make the game "fun" we're obviously not playing the same games.
... you need a few moments of education :-)
It was the cheapest "non-crap" PCI-E from nvidia I could find. And you know what? It plays Far Cry, Thief3, Battlefield2 and the others JUST fine.
This bullshit article about "needing a 6800GT to enjoy the games" is just that. Bullshit. Sure the game may look shinier at 1600x1200 with 200fps and a billion texels/sec or whatever
Point is this article is all about selling the latest bullshit cards you don't need. A 6600 will do you just fine if you're an average gamer [e.g. you have REAL work to do the rest of the day], it can play games at 1024 and 1280 reasonable well [very well at the former].
If you're on a budget and you think you need to spend 250$ USD [keep in mind 179$ I'm talking about is Canadian not USD] to enjoy games
This is just a press release disguised on a 30 page article [chalk full of ads no less] to sell the latest and greatest...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Shit at this rate ... my Old Voodoo 5 is still useable ... so il just use it till i cant anymore .. Meh ..... hell most games still run on it .. so there isnt a point ... ON top of the world for GPU's unless your doing Serious Hard Core Games or Software development like i am .... there's absolutely no point meh .. waste of money ...
.. if your doing graphics its for you if your doing ... Top of the line its still a waste of money
GFX Dev Box
Dual Core Dual Proc AMD Opteron 270
8GB PC3200 DDR
2x Quadro FX 4500's in SLI>
Meh
CEO/Founder
Phoenix Edge Network L.L.C
Indianapolis, Indiana
Game Development/Software Development
Mod me troll if you like, but I'll get an ATi card when thay provide decent drivers for Linux (I even had to change my Radeon 9200 for a Geforce4 440mx to be able to fully use 3D in Linux). Most distros (Ubuntu, Suse etc) have Nvidia drivers in one form or another; ATi was a pain in the ass for me. .NET Framework installer (if the user hasn't got .NET installed) should be shot straight in the head without trial or investigation. C'mon, it's a freaking driver with a control center, not a graphics app with samples, brushes, textures etc. Only Samsung is worse, providing a monitor control panel app consuming something like 110 to 180 megabytes. No, it isn't complex and is much simpler than both NVidia and Ati control panels.
Oh, and anyone who publishes a driver that has a 33Mb installer and needs a 24 Mb
However, ATI have excellent cards priced very reasonably: I got a Radeon 9200 and it cost me 3$ cheaper than a Geforce4 MX440 (I bought them on the same day), and yet it seems to run games like Doom3 and Half-life2 about twice faster than the Geforce on the same PC. It also supports more stuff than GF like water bump maps in HL2 etc.
Best card ever! Ran many a game on this card. Runs Linux/KDE just fine too.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
GeForce 6800 GT - $266, according to PriceGrabber.
The cheaper model has 12 instead of 16 pixel shaders, and 5 instead of 6 vertex shaders. They probably use the same chip. The benchmarks are close. $17 cheaper. Big deal.
In terms of price/performance, Via is probably the leader. They've just introduced some new S3 Chrome boards that are roughly comparable to the GEForce 6800 line, but are priced around $150. That technology will probably be in Via's motherboard chipsets soon, at an even lower price.
The r128 driver is listed in the X config file that was generated on install. Also, I'm pretty sure it's using hardware acceleration for the 3D effects, at least, since some of the OpenGL-based xscreensaver hacks suffer from severe artifacting--software acceleration would be slow, but correct.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Notice that it has less pixel pipes. There are 4 blocks of 4 on a 6800 series chip, and one of those is disabled. However, the chip is clocked faster. My guess is they have found that they are still having a number of chips that one of the four blocks will fail on, espically at higher speeds. Ok so just make a new line of cards that only has three active at a higher speed and sell it. Gamers are happy, and you get to use more of your production capacity.
Once again, I need to upgrade my video card (ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AIW; 128 MB) just to play the newest and upcoming games even at 1152x864 resolution with all graphic options to the maximum. I have to do this upgrade every one to two years ever since 3D cards were born (Diamond Monster 3D/Voodoo1 card as my first one)! At the same time, I am stuck with AGP slot on my motherboard since I am not upgrading it any time soon.
It looks like I am aiming for a GeForce 6800 (128 MB; AGP) to buy in a few weeks. I am not going to spend so much money for a video card.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Okay, I'm not a gamer.. So, this pretty much eliminates me from the target market of any of the new video cards. But, I am willing to pay quite a lot, for a video card that does things I am interested in. Such as:
- Video acceleration. Full MPEG decoding (not just iDCT+MC offload) for MPEG2, like the Unichrome video chips do. Full H.264 decoding is even more important, given its growing popularity and huge CPU requirements.
- Open Source drivers, with full functionality. Good Linux support, enabling all the important hardware functions of the card would be a great start (basically noone does this today).
- Silent operation. Loud cooling fans are a no-go for me.
- HDTV output - Good support for standard HDTV (1080i/720p) resolution & synch rates. Support for DVI / VGA / and Component outputs.
- Decent 3D support - enough to handle the 3D acceleration being used in GUIs, and basic gaming.
Now don't believe the hype, games work fine on older cards. I have a 9800 Pro at home, and I haven't yet encountered a game that's a problem. No, you can't crank the resolution and details and such but it plays all games, even new ones, fine.
Heh, I have a box full of Matrox Milleniums and Mystiques just for Linux servers. And my precious G400Max still works. Oh how I paid for that.
I've been tracking video card reviews for years. Typically the performance of a GPU doesn't change much subsequent to its introduction. What would be the value in doing a subsequent review?
Most of the top review sites keep a generation or two of older chips in their comparisons. Some even compile regular guides on value and midstream priced parts. If you can't find information on cheaper video cards then you aren't looking hard enough.
Yeah, you're partially correct. The thing is, most games I've seen don't *require* these hugely expensive video cards to play them. They only need them to run in "high detail", with all the "eye candy" options turned on. If you turn all that stuff down, the game will be quite playable on a much less expensive setup.
But so many gamers can't stand the fact that a game can possibly overwhelm their computer, so they fork over the money to upgrade - and then complain about it.
Personally, I think the alternative of releasing games that don't "scale back" to older hardware at all would be much worse.
If you invest in a balanced computer you don't need to waste money on constant small upgrades. On the flip side you might be able to hack that card into a 6800 (when its so old that you dare it)
I'm sorry, but I will not swap out my CPU and motherboard just so I can install faster cards only available in PCI-E.
You will eventually. ATI just decided to stop supporting our shrinking market segment.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
chances are that it will retail for less than that once the supply chain sorts itself out. I'm hedging my bets for the $200-$220 range, which sounds about right given the benchmarks. If it stays on the market, it'll probably go even lower than that over the next 3-6months, which could make it a good solution for builders into the new year.
So far as the chips go, the GS is more akin to the 7800's - different manufacturing process, which is how they've got the core clocked that much higher without it pumping out more heat.
My laptop have a mobile FX5600 chipset in it and runs great. My desktop ran very happily on an FX5200... good enough to run games like Half Life 2 and Quake 4 with ease (main limitation being system RAM).
The FX5200 is a sub-$100 card now... starting to get a bit dated for new games but still good for current offerings as well as desktop.
The only game I've seen that eats a baseline card is F.E.A.R. From what I can tell, this has a *lot* to do with possible bad programming, as the graphics compared to many other games I've played (just fine thank you on an FX5200) really do suck even on the higher-end cards.
Here ya go.
So what's the incantation to get the "lovely debian screen" configuration back up in case I want to toggle my X login manager again?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Same here, except I got a Shuttle XPC, last generation of AGP. I also got a 6600GT as a stop-gap, on the other hand I might not upgrade for a good while anyway but I wish I could be a little more future-proof.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Newegg seem to have them for under forty bucks after shipping. Do I have to fiddle around with binary-only kernel modules for those cards, though? I don't care about super-duper 3D performance--I won't be playing Doom or Half-Life or whatever with this card--but I would like my windows not to skip when I drag them, and the option to make use of spiffy vector-based everything when it comes along would be a definite plus.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I think I'd have to mostly agree with the parent. The problem with most games isn't the hardware. It's the developers. No, seriously. Developers can develop games for XBox, PS2 and Gamecube just fine. Fun games, that sell a *lot* of copies. The whole fricken console costs less than one of the video cards. Am I gonna spend close to $300 on just a video card? Hell no.
PC Game developers need to start designing the games down a little bit, to run great on most 3D video cards, instead of designing them for the latest and greatest. My computer is an Athlon 900 with a GeForce ti 4200 video card and 600 Megs of ram. It is technically a better 'game machine' than an XBox, but it seems it's getting long in the tooth because nobody is designing the games to run on it anymore.
Yes, I can still run most games, but even with detail turned way down I get pretty crappy frame rates at times - like with FFXI Online, or City of Heroes/Villains. I think, ultimately, my video card is less of a problem than the fact that I have a 900Mhz cpu, but it seems like what I have should be considered a pretty good base for a 'value' gaming system. (IIRC, Xbox only has a 600Mhz CPU - yet it runs the games designed for it just fine).
I bet if game developers tried to design more games that were fun and ran well on older hardware, they'd sell a lot more PC games. Sure, some people are gonna buy the $1600 'gaming' systems with $300 video cards, a Gig of RAM, and 3+ Ghz processors, but that can't possibly be the majority of the market.
Newegg has the GS for $209.
"At least some ATI models are fully supported by the DRI project."
No they aren't. Not even close. Stuff like S3TC texture compression (Required for nearly any game made in the past 3-4 years or so) and numerous other features are missing. This is why Unreal Tournament 2003 was only playable on NVidia boards for a while until ATI released updated binary drivers - The open-source drivers just didn't support the features needed for even remotely modern applications. This is sadly the case with ALL 3D video cards. ATI is no better than NVidia in this respect, and in fact is worse because their closed-source drivers are bug-ridden shit. (Heck, they are under Windows too... It's scary how many people have to switch driver versions because Game A will only work with driver versions X and below, while Game B will only work with driver versions Y and above.)
Hasn't ATI ever heard of regression testing???
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
$250 to enable my machine for gaming doesn't sound like much. If I can spend $250 and get cutting edge graphics at a decent resolution and thereby avoid the need for a PS3 or an Xbox which would cost at least twice as much, then I'll do it.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
I feel the same way as I have a P4 system with 2GB of PC3200 memory and have an AGP slot on my Asus mobo. I got an XFX GeForce 6600GT card w/256MB of memory and I couldn't be happier. I installed SuSE 9.3 and downloaded the nVIDIA accelerated drivers for it. I then downloaded Doom 3 demo for Linux. The demo ran great and so I downloaded the Linux version of Doom 3 and bought the Doom 3 Windows CD set and loaded the data files from the CDs to my Linux system. I have been enjoying some great Doom 3 game play with this video card.
2 E16814150086
Last time I checked the price for the video card I got at newegg.com it was $119.00.
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N8
At least for now it's possible to get a relatively inexpensive AGP video card but I'm worried that eventually I will have to get a mobo with PCI-E. For now I'm happy to be able to at least have a system and video card that lets me play Doom 3 under Linux.
Agreed. Last time I was shopping for a video card (May 2004, when I built my current PC) I read through lots of reviews and came to the conclusion that it didn't really matter. I've been a PC gamer for 8+ years, and while I've gotten progressively less hardcore, at some point you realize that "the emperor has no clothes." So the GeForce 6800 GT was out for $350. The rest of my entire PC was something like $800, and that was with mid-upper level components. I said fuck it, limited myself to $150-$175 for a video card, found an Asus or Abit GeForce 5700 GX 256 for like $160 and it was fine. I played Doom3 on a high enough setting to scare myself, lots of Everquest, WoW, and currently Battlefield 2. At times I get the itch to upgrade, as playing at 800x600 without FSAA isn't optimal, but I'll be waiting until the cards that were high end at the time I bought my current card are at the price I bought my current card. I'm okay being a generation behind the curve if it means I can save $200+. I just with that pricing applied to laptops, I'd love a 1.5 ghz Laptop for $300.
rooooar
The 6600 isn't a bad card, and if you're on a budget I'd totally recommend it. On the other hand, you can get significantly better performance for more money.
Now, I'm not saying that these games aren't fun at 1024x768 with dynamic lighting turned off, blob shadows, and "medium" resolution textures, but it's still like the difference between watching a movie on an old television versus seeing it in a theater.
If you have the money, you can make your games look significantly better for the price of two games. Why *wouldn't* you do it?
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
1. highlight text
2. move mouse to firefox's google search box
3. middle mouse click (pastes things that are highlighted)
4. enter
don't even need to click anything on the search results. the title has the answer.
Speaking of that video card...if you live in Austin, someone is selling theirs for $50. Damn! http://austin.craigslist.org/sys/109416344.html
Life is not for the lazy.
Ah, but enjoyment is relative, isn't it? I average about 30 minutes per day of Battlefield 2, and occasionally will play through another game (I'm on interval 2 of FEAR right now). My previous system was an Athlon XP 2500+ w/ a gig of RAM and a 6600GT AGP. While it ran the game at 1280 (my LCD's native resolution), when involved in firefights my minimum framerate typically dropped to below 10 frames per second. It just got too frustrating for me to be continually killed, not because I lacked the skills (trust me, that happens often enough), but because my system couldn't handle it. Along with many other things (a flash website I'm forced to use maxing my CPU and causing winamp to skip, Eclipse taking 20+ seconds to start for my development work, etc.), I upgraded to a Athlon 64 X2 3800+, 2 gigs of fast RAM, and a X800XT All-in-Wonder AGP. Let's assume I'll use this computer for 3 years, and upgrade the video card once during that time:
Amount I spent on the computer: $1061 + $257, including shipping.
New video card in 1.5 years: $250
A total cost over 3 years of $1568.
That means, to increase my minimum framerates to 60fps now and 30fps over the entire duriation, I spending an average of $1.43 per day on my computer (this is assuming that the computer becomes completely worthless to me after 3 years, which is absurd, but let's go with it). Let's further assume that my developer time is worth $25 per hour (actually considerably more), and that I start Eclipse 5 times per day, 5 days per week (probably an underestimate). The new computer (it comes with a faster hard drive, too) starts Eclipse in about 4 seconds. I save an average of $0.55 per day from that enhancement alone. Assume that my total productivity is in Eclipse, and that's the only benefit I get from the new computer besides gaming (it's much quieter, it comes with far better warranties, it's less then a third of the weight of my previous computer, is smaller, and comes with a TV tuner allowing me to save desk space). I'm still paying only $0.88 per day on gaming (not including the price of games). You may have done this analysis on your own and determined that it wasn't worth $0.88 per day for your enjoyment. Personally, I find that an emminently resonable amount to spend on entertainment. It's less then I would spend on cable; less then I would spend on seeing a movie a week at the local cineplex.
Are you talking about Stock Keeping Units, or is there some other definition of SKU?
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Then stick with playing consoles then. Nothing wrong with that, considering the current gen consoles have excellent libraries, are cheap, and (most of) the hardware bugs have been worked out.
I dunno what everyone whines about in regards to graphics cards. I went bleeding edge when I built my current rig about 3-4 years ago. Back then, the fastest thing on the market was the Radeon 9800XT, so I got one of those. Cost an ungodly amount ($450 or so from newegg), but it ran everything extremely well right up until right now funny enough. I knew I needed an upgrade when Call of Duty 2 and F.E.A.R. wouldn't run at playable framerates at anything but 800x600 or 640x480 with the graphics turned down.
I dropped $270 on a BFG GeForce 6800GTOC (thank you rebates. I could've gotten another brand for cheaper, but BFG cards come pre-overclocked with a lifetime warranty. Can't beat that), and I'm right back up to speed again. I got my money's worth out of the 9800XT, and I'm going to continue to do so since I plan on building a new rig early on next year, and that 9800XT will do just fine in a LAN-Party/Server/backup box that will result from the leftover parts of my current rig.
The problem I find is this spreads the "talentless shits" all over the place.
The Nintendo DS for example sounds like a decently capable machine [provided they haven't crippled it internally I don't know as I don't develop for it] yet the games are lamer than what you could get with a 386/25 ten years ago. In fact most DS games are even direct ports of GBA games, retarded mini games, or mode7 style racing games. Where are the true 3D games we were promissed?
I want portable quake and the like!!!
Few new developers are acustomed to the ideals of developing for resource constrained systems. Tell a developer you have 64KB of ram and a 20Mhz ARM to work with and they can fathom how to make things dance.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
That would be good if that was an accurate assesment. $250 is not cutting edge, it's mid level - and barely entry level for a newly released card. Hence the anger from people who aren't willing to pay excessive prices - even if they have the money.
Too right. You're going to have to pry my G400 from my cold, dead fingers. I was sad when I had to retire it from my main box because it wouldn't run ePSXe and Quake III decently. But then I was overjoyed when I used it to build my MythTV box. The TV-out is so sweet, especially with my home-made SCART (component) adapter. If I wasn't so lazy, I'd get MPlayer working with its built-in MGA framebuffer driver instead of the standard xv-on-X-on-framebuffer setup and revel in the glory of tripple-buffering and hardware vsync.
Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
If 3D performance at 1280x1024 is what matters most, then the NVIDIA 6800GS looks like the obvious choice over the ATI X1600. Also, both models support Shader Model 3.0 (X800 doesn't).
However, some users might find more value in this new Avivo technology that ATI is hyping. The X1600's Avivo implementation seems to have (or will have when the drivers mature) two significant advantages over the 6800GS's PureVideo implementation: (1) hardware-assisted H.264 HD playback and (2) Avivo transcode, which was covered on Slashdot.
For users building a home theater PC with Blu-ray/HD-DVD drives, and willing to play 3D games at slightly lower resolution, the ATI X1600 just might be the better buy. Personally, I don't trust ATI's driver development (Windows and Linux), so I'd wait for NVIDIA's mid-range version of the 7000 series (7600?).
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
If you would posted this a month ago I would have told you to get an Nvidia 5200 FX- no question. But now it seems that the ATI 9250's are a better choice because for the next Ubuntu release they will have great EXA support. The better EXA support means they might be able to run a compositor in a more stable fashion than the Nvidia cards can.
Using a compositor is the best way to speed up the Linux desktop. Actually its about the only good way, but using them with Nvidia cards can be very unstable (as my guide warns). It seems that the ATI cards using EXA are much more stable. Just be sure to get a 256mb ANYTHING if you can because usually you only pay ten or so extra bucks at that level and you can be assured that you will get a 128 bit card instead of a 64 bit card (which would be crap). Plus xcompmgr LOVES VRAM.
Open Source Sushi
Hell, I'm still happy with breakout. Voodoo 3 all the way baby.
This is not an illusion, a rip-off, or a ninja technique!
..which is why i said "at a decent resolution". with a card like the 6800 GS for 249, I could turn up the settings to the point where I can appreciate the best of what a game has to offer in terms of graphics. Sure, I might only be able to use 4x AA instead of 8x, but that kind of setting does not make a big difference to the image on the screen.
I guess it's also about playing the game the way the game developers envisioned it - with enough of the effects on to give me a darn good indication of the best the game has to offer. For example, on an RTS game, I couldnt be bothered how detailed the shadows of each indivdual unit were, but the detail that went into their models would make a difference and so would the effects when say a building was destroyed or being constructed.
I can understand framerates from an FPS point of view, but as for the other types of games, as long as it plays smooth, i'm happy.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
Another IBM trick was when you wanted to expand the memory on your leased/rented IBM system and the engineer came out and enabled the additional memory bank you had all along, and increased your monthly payment. IBM's profit margin was so great on mainframes at the time that they were ahead of the game building in options that the customer might never actually use.
And then there was the COBOL compiler that had a timing loop whose sole purpose was to get you to either buy the more expensive improved compiler, or a faster mainframe. Either way IBM won.
Hard to believe that IBM could fall from such a position. But they did, and so someday will Microsoft.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
http://ostg.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/ma sterid=394941/search=playstation+2
Yes, Playstation 2 is $99, All games run very fast and it plays DVD too. With Progressive Scan and hardware decoding.
Sorry it is $199, I guess my 64mb Nvidia 5200 needs a change. :)
And to put it in perspective: for $1.43 a day, several people that are starving could have food and water. I'm not criticizing you, but we do need to think about these things.
Fuck them. There is more important issue to think of. What do you think those high end pcs run on? I'll tell you one thing, it likely isn't some form of high efficiency power. PC components are also not made of biodegradable material.
Where do you suppose all the resources and landfill space will come from in 20 years?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Here's the timeline, taken straight from http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/osx/history.html.
:)
"At the time of this writing, Mac OS X has seen four major releases: 10.0 ("Cheetah", March 24, 2001), 10.1 ("Puma", September 29, 2001), 10.2 ("Jaguar", August 13, 2002), and 10.3 ("Panther", October 24, 2003)." They left out this part though (old page I guess). "On April 29, 2005, Apple released Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" to the general public."
So the short answer to your question is 2001. I guess generally they're yearly releases after all, Slashdot's 'here's what's coming for OSX 10.x' stories tend to skew my memory.
If you got anything faster than the X850XT on AGP, wouldn't you be bottle-necking your system anyway with an old CPU? And the X850XT should be damn fast enough to handle anything you throw at it anyway. Sheeesh.
The ATI binary driver does not support dual-head. You get a corrupted image of the main head on the second screen (although the cursor renders ok).
Stretching the screen over both displays does work, but you can't then maximise a window within a physical screen.
The Nvidia driver supports both Xinerama and Twin View.
Help children born unable to swallow - www.tofs.org.uk
ATI's drivers which already barely compile on 32-bit Linux flat out don't work on 64-bit Linux.
When 2.6.12 was current some months back, I wanted to run my computer in 64-bit mode. ATI's drivers, which WARN everywhere on 2.6.11 would not compile period on 2.6.12. Rolling back to 2.6.11 and such managed to get it to compile, but accelerated rendering just did not happen. Same configs that worked in 32-bit mode for X!
ATI doesn't seem to have the money for their driver developers to do real testing, so I don't have the money for their cards. I bought myself a nice GeForce 6800 as my upgrade for my old GeForce 2MX (which had earned its keep since 2001), and the Radeon 8500 was tossed into my parts pile.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I have been running a GeForce 5200 for about the last 2 years or so myself... I can't play Doom3 just fine (avg 25fps, all shaders on, 1024x768, no AA though) ;)
Far Cry is the only game that's ever given me trouble on it.
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
oops, can't should have been can... :P
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
I don't understand why you think the CPU will be an automatic bottleneck for AGP cards. Right now, I'm running an AGP system with an Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego overclocked to 2.5GHz. My previous system, an Athlon XP 2600+ Mobile overclocked to 2.5GHz (pure coincidence they ended in the same place) was actually able to play FEAR with my 6800nu with all pipes unlocked and the core overclocked to 375 with fairly tolerable settings. Actually, the CPU didn't hold me back, the 128MiB of video memory held me back on that particular game. Doom 3 was playable in maximum quality settings on that system. One thing that's hard for people to believe is that games are actually designed with the assumption that you have a real hunk of junk peice of crap which can barely manage 1+1 in less than an hour plugged into that CPU slot rather than the chips that a larger majority of people TRULY have. I mean, how many people out there have anything less than a mobile barton oced to be almost as good as an Athlon 64? No, the only real CPU limit is just a few FPS here and there and better benchmarks. In real life gaming, you don't really notice on a proper system. Or do you think that AGP exists only on Pentium 3 systems or something? Personally, my system is a nForce 3 ultra, which is a socket 939 with AGP. Would you say I'm CPU limited? Or wouldn't you rather consider the possibility that this san diego would perform just as well if I stuck it in a nForce 4 board -- especially in light of the fact that CPU differences outside of benchmarks aren't as noticable as people like to think? No, CPUs will never stick around long enough to become the limiting factor. NVidia's refusal to even RESPOND to the multitudes of people complaining about the freezing bug with their high end video cards on nForce 3 (and the rare nForce 2 even) and their admission that they have no plans whatsoever "at this time" (or any other) of releasing the 7800 series in AGP (despite spending who knows how much on that HSI bridge apparently just for four cards or so -- counting both high and low end models of the same series) and ATi's clear intentions of also dropping AGP support will be a limiting factor first. LONG before a good socket 939 processor is truely cpu limiting (and I don't mean 5% FPS difference at minimum video settings, I mean as in game not running smoothly regardless of how powerful the video card may or may not be) you will be video card limited. Frankly, I'm holding off on spending the extra cash for when the difference between the lower cost of PCI-E and the cost of having to buy a new motherboard (plus the extra pain I have to go to to change the hardware and reinstall the software) will be worth it. Right now, I can do better if I don't throw away the motherboard I spent so much on and instead spend the same amount of cash to get a better AGP card than the equivalent PCI-E + motherboard I'd have to buy with it. Later on I may have to get a board that supports both or even buy a new video card, but, a better AGP card right now has a long enough lifetime for this way to be more cost effective.
I've found it interesting at how fast PCIe is penetrating the market and driving AGP out. My initial expectation was that PCIe would take until mid-2006 to reach this point. However, just like you can still buy PCI boards you'll probably be able to buy AGP boards. But yeah, they probably won't be the latest and greatest anymore. ATI is taking a gamble by only making PCIe cards. If they're wrong, then those AGP sales will go to a competitor.
I have yet to buy a PCIe board. Probably my next game machine upgrade next year will be the first one. By then, my Opteron 148 system with a GeForce 6800 will be easily replaced with a dual-core and the prices on the dual-core chips will be low enough to pay for a $300 PCIe video card.
AGP had a good run. The impact of AGP was lessened because you could still put a PCI video card into an AGP system. But most video card manufacturers stopped making PCI video cards, focusing their efforts on AGP. So if you had a system without an AGP slot, you were stuck when it came time to upgrade. OTOH, if you had a fairly recent PCI card you could buy a new motherboard and still use your old video card.
This changover is painful because PCIe boards don't include an AGP slot. We've all been a bit spoiled by AGP letting us move a card from system to system as we upgraded. Unless, you bought a new motherboard that only supported 1.5V AGP cards... then you ended up in the same boat as the AGP/PCIe rift, but it wasn't as obvious.
As for your particular situation... bump your RAM up as high as it will go and you can probably use that system for another 2-3 years. I have 2GB and I'm starting to consider bumping it up to 3 or 4GB. (But only if I don't have to throw out a chip... I've forgotten whether I have 4x512 or 2x1024 in there.) The extra memory won't cost me that much, but it keeps the system from feeling slow because it's buried in the swap file.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?