I guess I don't understand...

[Xr400r]

Sorry, but I have another n00b question...

If a card will run a game, any game, at the resolutions and graphics set to my preferences, at or above 70 fps; and not drop lower than around 50, do I really need to be able to push 120fps or above? I mean, I understand that it's nice to be at the top of the heap in benchmarks, but outside of that, is it really necessary? Since I have never owned a card that will average over 50-70fps I honestly don't know the answer to this...

[Nebulous]

Once you've tasted the forbidden fruit, you will understand young grasshoppa :D

[Yuriman]

Its not that you realy want 120fps, but to be able to turn up anti-alaising and aniso filtering and still keep 70fps. People get a 9700 over a ti4200 because of that. Look at 3dmark01, many people with ti's pull 15k, and I get that with my 9700. But thats with all the eye candy turned off. If you turned it on, I bet I would have 3x the score.

[termin@tor]

No, you don't need to.

FPS is basically the number of game frames that you see every second. The faster the computer, the higher the FPS. The more items on the screen you have can and will cause this number to drop.
A preferred number for FPS is above sixty, or a steady 50-55, anything lower than thirty and the game quality becomes poor. You may be thinking, well, I will just set my max fps to one hundred, and play like that. This may work for you, but it is not preferred. There is another factor in determining what FPS you should use, and that is your monitor.
Your monitor also has a number for displaying "FPS", it is called the vertical refresh rate, or the number of times in a second that the picture is drawn on the monitor. Refresh rates are based on the resolution you are using; the higher the resolution, the lower the refresh rate. For example, your monitor, at 1024x768, can handle a refresh rate of 65 hertz(pretty low for today's standard), you tweaked your game to run at 95 FPS. This causes a problem; more game screens are trying to be shown, but the monitor can only show so many. This will, most likely, create a "tearing" effect while you are playing a game. This happens because your FPS and your monitor are not in synchronization. Lo and behold, there is a solution! You enable vertical-sync, which locks your game's FPS to your monitor's refresh rate; even though your FPS is set at 95, you will only get a max FPS of 65. This will lower your FPS but fix that "tearing" problem you may experience. The game will usually look and play more smoothly with v-sync turned on. Your mouse "feel" may become different also.
Then again, you say, well, my monitor is ****, and I want 95 FPS! You turn off v-sync and don't mind the graphical tearing. But, think again, the game engine is processing 95 FPS, but can only show you 65 of those 95 frames. Thirty frames are gone. Now think, you just lost 30 frames, and those may have been frames where the enemy turned the corner and you missed that frame so he saw you first. But, also, you, processing 95 FPS, may have a chance to see him first if the correct frame is displayed. This isn't really an advantage and is more of a technicality, because each frame goes by so quickly it is almost impossible to tell the difference. I believe that turning on v-sync is a wise choice and with today's monitors that have 80 hertz+ vertical refreshrrate at high resolutions, you will not lose much due to the difference between your FPS and your vertical refresh rate.


So, you see, you don't need to get more fps than your monitor can display. If your monitor can only do 70 vertical refresh rate, you don't need the game to run at 120+
If your monitor can display 100 refresh rate at a certain resolution you like, then running a game at 100fps would be pretty cool.

[Xr400r]

Mega thanks guys! I am still just figuring this stuff out :)

[Xr400r]

Once you've tasted the forbidden fruit, you will understand young grasshoppa :D

LoL, all I need to do is play freakin Farcry at a reasonable pace. Right now all I have is a 9200, that for what it is, does fine. Everything on low and a really decent fps average, but I know I am missing out on a bunch of stuff. Problem is my monitor is old....a 17" generic compusa. I could probably afford a a new one, but then I could not afford a card or vice versa.

[Xr400r]

Its not that you realy want 120fps, but to be able to turn up anti-alaising and aniso filtering and still keep 70fps. People get a 9700 over a ti4200 because of that. Look at 3dmark01, many people with ti's pull 15k, and I get that with my 9700. But thats with all the eye candy turned off. If you turned it on, I bet I would have 3x the score.

I kinda thought that was the case, but if I followed that logic, the only card that would be worth having would be one of the "x" series, because by reading benchmarks, they are the definate cream of the crop. Then at the bottom, you have my card :) I guess I am trying to find a happy medium on the card..or forgeting the vid card for now and trying to get a new monitor. I said in a different post that my mon. is a generic 17" that my honey bought me about 4 years ago. I have no idea if it is good bad or what... should I replace it now and wait another 4 or 5 months to get a card? 'cause that's how long it will be before I could swing it.
This all started so simple, now I have more freakin' questions than when I started :(

[Yuriman]

I think your monitor is fine. I have a 17" crt and im fairly happy with it. Grab yourself a 9800pro for about $200, they are very good price/performance wise. You still could get a 19" flatscreen crt if you had another $200.

[Xr400r]

Are they really getting that cheap? I guess I need to get out a little more :)

[Albuquerque]

He's saying flat screen, not flat panel. :)