Hold on before you drop $400+ on that GPU!!!

jonwessel · Jan 19, 2005

I think some major, and I mean MAJOR PC games are coming out this year that will seriosuly make a X850 PE come to it's knees even at 1024 * 768!!! IMO from November of 2004 until November of 2005 we could see the most selling of PC games ever. As you all know, the two big titles that have hit already have been Half-Life 2 and Doom 3. However, I would just hold off on buying a "next gen" video card cause think about this, possibly by November or atleast by Christmas of 2005, we could be seeing: The Unreal 3 engine, Quake 4, and not to mention Battlefield 2 is coming out and that thing is a resource HOG. Again, I don't know much, and alot of you are already aware of these titles upcoming releases, but this is for people who have been out of the loop for awhile. So all in all, i'm saying hold off on that $400+ "next gen" video card, cause I'll bet the Unreal 3 engine will make mince meat of it!

9mmCensor · Jan 19, 2005

Quake 4 will use the Doom3 Engine (modified).
The others will work on Geforce 4 (at the most) or better fine. Otherwise they cut off the market too much.

Buy away.

John G · Jan 19, 2005

It's a fact of life that games that don't play well on fairly old cards don't sell well. Most people don't have the latest and greatest. Because of that, you don't see very many games like that, especially not high profile ones.

A today's high end nVidia or ATI will play any games worth playing that come out in the next year very well. Probably the next two years, with useful life going even longer than that.

This is a pretty good generation of video cards to buy. Performance jump was huge and probably won't be nearly as big next time.

Sentential · Jan 19, 2005

9mmCensor said:
Quake 4 will use the Doom3 Engine (modified).
The others will work on Geforce 4 (at the most) or better fine. Otherwise they cut off the market too much.

Buy away.

I agree with ya bro. They wouldnt dare doing that when the 9800PRO / Geforce4 MX are the top 2 cards used in modern PCs today <according to steam>

stryder2720 · Jan 19, 2005

Sentential said:
I agree with ya bro. They wouldnt dare doing that when the 9800PRO / Geforce4 MX are the top 2 cards used in modern PCs today <according to steam>

Geforce4 MX *shiver*
Had one....hated it.

Prodigious · Jan 19, 2005

You forgot AOE III

and I think the point he's trying to make is not that games won't run on older hardware, but that people will be tempted to buy and x800xt or 6800ultra in the coming months, thinking its the top dog, and will run everything flawlessly maxed. but once fall comes around, these cards will only give mediocre performance at the higher detail levels(we've all heard about 6800 ultras getting only 25-30fps with the unreal 3 engine).

If you're looking to the future, I'd seriously consider waiting for the 520 and nv47 cards to come out. And not just for performance reasons. Keep in mind that newer game engines will utilise new features such as ps 3.0, which currently is only supported in the 6800 line. And I might be wrong, but I think the next gen of ati cards will be dx10 compatible.

Sjaak · Jan 19, 2005

Prodigious said:
You forgot AOE III

are they developing that? Last time i checked (about half a yaear ago) it was unconfirmed and i havent heard anything about in the meantime.

Westwood is said to be busy in red alert 3 as well - but then, with RTS games its just a matter of 'building enough units' to bring ANY pc to its knees.

Leviathan41 · Jan 19, 2005

Sentential said:
I agree with ya bro. They wouldnt dare doing that when the 9800PRO / Geforce4 MX are the top 2 cards used in modern PCs today <according to steam>

I agree as well, they want to make money on their games. If they cut off a chunk of gamers that big, they wouldn't make much money.

jonwessel · Jan 19, 2005

well i'm talking about great resolutions with most, but not all of the eye candy turned on. I'm sure the top dawg cards now will run the Unreal 3 Engine fine, but at 1024*768 with very limited eye candy.

Stumpjumper5200 · Jan 19, 2005

Good thing there's SLI :attn:

Just like with cars, or anything else for that matter: Performance = $$$, how fast can you afford to go?

Prodigious · Jan 19, 2005

Sjaak said:
are they developing that? Last time i checked (about half a yaear ago) it was unconfirmed and i havent heard anything about in the meantime.

Westwood is said to be busy in red alert 3 as well - but then, with RTS games its just a matter of 'building enough units' to bring ANY pc to its knees.

*ahem*

http://www.ensemblestudios.com/

its been confirmed for quite some time now.

hawtrawkr · Jan 19, 2005

people should also remember though that being able to play a game on a geforce 4 or the like doesnt mean your doing the game, or yourself justice.

dont get me wrong i dont think we should all go buy a high end card but while they make games playable on older cards they make them scalable so you can really get alot more out of something @ 1600x1200 4xaa and all the bells and whistles on compared to 1024x768 no aa and ocasional noticeable drop in frames.

Stumpjumper5200 · Jan 19, 2005

hawtrawkr said:
people should also remember though that being able to play a game on a geforce 4 or the like doesnt mean your doing the game, or yourself justice.

Quoted for truth

If the system just meets the "Requirements" on the box, it's going to suck. Doubling the "Recommended" specs is a good starting point.

jamo · Jan 19, 2005

when are the 520 and nv47 cards going to come out? if its a year or more, some people can't wait that long.

TUK101 · Jan 19, 2005

We just had the biggest jump in performance for a next generation card with the X800 and 6800 series of cards since the jump from the GF2 to GF3. I doubt very much that there will be very many games that are going to totally crush the X800 or 6800 cards like you are trying to make us fear. Most of the games coming out are going to be built on the HL2 and Doom 3 engines and those cards absolutely ate those games up. Now any older generation of cards than those might see a pretty big hit in performance since like I said, there was a huge jump in the capabilities with the newest generation of cards than from the last. The added pipelines have really helped to remove the bottlenecks that we have been seeing with the last few generations of cards. Really with the cards since the GF2 days all that we have gotten is faster clock speeds and updated IQ to accept DX8 and DX9 and so on. The new cards have some serious capabilities.

Atari · Jan 19, 2005

I think that this year and next years PC games are going to require 1.5gb of memory to run well, not just the latest and greatest vid cards.

Anjow · Jan 20, 2005

This is a problem with buying hardware. If you wait a few months there will ALWAYS be something better for cheaper. It's just a case of biting the bullet and getting something. Thing is if you get the more expensive stuff it's likely to last longer before it becomes obsolete.

Sjaak · Jan 20, 2005

After reading in several reviews that the CPU, and not the GPU has become the bottleneck with modern rigs (even more with SLI), it seems not to be a VGA problem at all. They can bring out even faster GPU's, yeah, but what if there is no CPU that can provide it with enough data?

Maybe dual cores will but theyre still a good half year ahead, and if they will be affordable / even worth the money? I don't know.

Grov · Jan 20, 2005

Prodigious said:
You forgot AOE III

and I think the point he's trying to make is not that games won't run on older hardware, but that people will be tempted to buy and x800xt or 6800ultra in the coming months, thinking its the top dog, and will run everything flawlessly maxed. but once fall comes around, these cards will only give mediocre performance at the higher detail levels(we've all heard about 6800 ultras getting only 25-30fps with the unreal 3 engine).

If you're looking to the future, I'd seriously consider waiting for the 520 and nv47 cards to come out. And not just for performance reasons. Keep in mind that newer game engines will utilise new features such as ps 3.0, which currently is only supported in the 6800 line. And I might be wrong, but I think the next gen of ati cards will be dx10 compatible.

Please, please please people.

Get it out of your heads that Unreal 3 is only around the corner.

I seriously doubt we will see any new cards froim ATI/nvidia before the end of the year, im talking real new cards, not like x800 to x850 and 9800Pro to 9800XT.

People keep on going on about AOEIII, lol it's a RTS game.

Crap like this gets on my nerves.

theMonster · Jan 20, 2005

I don't see dual core being a major factor for gamers. For media coders, folders and other number crunchers it'll be a whole different ballgame. I always wait a bit for tech prices to drop before buying something. I can't justify $400+ for a vid card, so before all the PCI-e stuff came out, I had purchased a FX5600 after previously having a TNT2 32MB. I'm wanting a 9800 series ATI or 5900 series Nvidia card right now, but prices haven't dropped enough. I'm not paying $175 for those cards that'll be completely obsolete in a couple of years. If you a totally pc gamer hardcore and have the jack, then by all means buy your 2 6800GT cards nd SLI them, but if you're financially stapped, or just thrifty then hold off until something new comes out and prices drop on the previous gen.

Hold on before you drop $400+ on that GPU!!!

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