Anticipating DX10?

Trying to decide whether to spend 400-500 on a xt 1950 xtx 512mb or go with a middle range one ilke xt 1900 pro 256 mb ($200) and wait to upgrade to a dx10 card. Opinions?

if your gonna spend $400-$500 on a video card why dont you go with the DX10 8800GTS for $479 .. it beats the X1950 even

Wait a little bit.

I suggest waiting as well for DX10 stuff to be released.

good things come to those who wait

Right now it's best to either go low, if the card is enough for casual gaming great if not you don't lose much reselling it, or go high. Going for a $250ish card atm doesn't make a lot of sense to me unless the buyer is positive they'll keep it for 9-12 months.

My personal feeling (I realize this may not apply to anyone else) is that microsoft can take dx10 and go p*** up a rope if they refuse to make it available for win xp. I'll go buy a console at that point, and it probably won't be an x box. They're already messing it up enough with all the probable retardation in vista-no need to compound the errors by exclusively tying the vista albatross around the neck of dx10.

So yes, I'm anticipating dx10. I'm anticipating that it will cause me to give microsoft the finger.

What retardation? The re-activation issue has been addressed in a good manner.

If you mean DRM, well, tough titties, the gravy train was bound to end some time. It would be nice if there was a practical compromise for fair use but as soon as something can be ripped and encoded it's copyright can be violated it's tough to think of a compromise that works around that. Besides which it's not nearly as bad as many of the FUD-mongers make it out to be plus it's bound to be broken some time anyway.

Actually, what I had in mind was the fact that it's gonna take like 700 MB (from what I've read by people who have beta versions) just to get a desktop-not to actually DO anything, but just for a desktop. Oh, and it slowing stuff in general down somewhat, even if you DO put 3 gig of memory in it. For what? What's the purpose? Nah, they can keep that. XP does me just fine.

Like I said at the beginning of my last post, I realize this may not apply to everyone.

Someone here posted that while one of the RC does use a lot of Ram on the desktop it decreases to about 300MB if needed for other programs.

v8440 said:

My personal feeling (I realize this may not apply to anyone else) is that microsoft can take dx10 and go p*** up a rope if they refuse to make it available for win xp. I'll go buy a console at that point, and it probably won't be an x box. They're already messing it up enough with all the probable retardation in vista-no need to compound the errors by exclusively tying the vista albatross around the neck of dx10.

So yes, I'm anticipating dx10. I'm anticipating that it will cause me to give microsoft the finger.

Click to expand...

The DX10 cards will also support OGL 2.x better also.

Im waiting for directx10. Watch in about a year, dx10 cards are going to be available for $150.

Here's a perfect example of the kind of retardation I was talking about:

http://xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/vista-performance-preview_11.html


If you want to jump up and down about vista that's fine, but don't expect me to. It would also be good to not immediately assume that anyone not delirious with joy at vista is worried about DRM. There are other quite legal and worthwhile reasons to not be thrilled.

It's hard to tell if it's Vista Beta 2 that sucks that much, or if it's ATI's beta drivers... either way, the review was of the beta (both OS and drivers). While there will probably be some performance hit for DX9 games, I doubt it will be anywhere near that sever of a hit once all the kinks are worked out.

Just my $0.02

v8440 said:

Here's a perfect example of the kind of retardation I was talking about:

http://xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/vista-performance-preview_11.html


If you want to jump up and down about vista that's fine, but don't expect me to. It would also be good to not immediately assume that anyone not delirious with joy at vista is worried about DRM. There are other quite legal and worthwhile reasons to not be thrilled.

Click to expand...

Even the testers that wrote that review said in the conclusion that you can't judge Vista gaming performance based on the tests they ran. I can see where those results would leave a bad taste in your mouth, but every bit of software run in those tests, with the exception of the games themselves, was in beta at the time. We don't even know whether the DX version used was final or beta as well. I'ld say wait for some real benchmarks run after final release of Vista, DX, and the video drivers before we worry too much about the kind of performace hit that all the bloat may cause. I'm sure there will be plenty of other reasons to not jump to buy Vista until they release the first service pack, and gaming performance will be the least of our worries for a while.

As for the DRM issue, I don't think it will be a problem for most users. The biggest issue I have with Vista's "security measures" is the calling home thing. I'm not real crazy about the idea of having to allow them to connect to my pc for something so vague, or the fact there's a need for continuous validation. Once should be plenty.

v8440 said:

Here's a perfect example of the kind of retardation I was talking about:

http://xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/vista-performance-preview_11.html


If you want to jump up and down about vista that's fine, but don't expect me to. It would also be good to not immediately assume that anyone not delirious with joy at vista is worried about DRM. There are other quite legal and worthwhile reasons to not be thrilled.

Click to expand...

If you want to continue computing with the latest and greatest software, you will conform sooner or later. You can go console all you want, but when it comes down to it, you know you're missing out on the most revolutionary technology to date. PS3 and the 360 can suck it. PC hardware and software is going to be COMPLETELY INSANE by this time next year. The consoles will beg for mercy just as they always have in the past.

Static hardware sucks. It will always suck.

The increased power it will take to run Vista is already implemented. Core 2 Duo/Quadro and AMD's 4x4 will cut through Vista like a hot knife through butter. Years ago people were whining about how XP needed 256mb of RAM to run half fast, but now 256mb is a complete joke anyway. You're whining about 1-2GB requirements now, but in 3-4 years everyone will have that much RAM and us hardcore gamers will probably have upwards of 4GB on average. It's called progression, dude.

First off, I'm not whining. I'm stating a simple fact that it's getting ridiculous, and that I'm not going to keep mindlessly buying into it. Yes, I'd prefer to use a pc to play games on, but there's a limit to how much trouble and money I'm gonna spend to do it.

You can keep endlessly throwing money at it if you want to-it's your money. But, don't try to make me look ignorant if I choose not to. I mean really, your view on it is EXACTLY what microsoft and the hardware manufacturers like. "YA GOTTA STAY ON TOP MAN, YOU GOTTA!!! ANYTHING LESS IS LAME!!"

Ok, that's nice. Guess I'll be lame-it'll be alright.

Ed just stated EXACTLY the way I feel about vista, dx10, and all its requirements in an article today. Here's the salient part:

"And like cocaine, there's this sense of being out of control, not accepting limitations, not accepting reality, like "The PC box is starting to limit us. Well, get a separate box!!! So what if it takes kilowatts? So what if people have to put in another power line? You want to be like the pros, don't you? DO YOU WANT TO PLAY OR NOT???!!!!!

It's like starting off playing marbles, and the marbles grow until they're the size of bowling balls, and the top players start using steroids just to be able to flick the new marbles around."

Regarding Vista. I was skeptic when I had my Athlon MP and I was using them since RC1 for testing purposes. What I saw is what V8440 said above. When XP came out 256MB ram looked too much now if someone buy less than 1GB is stupid. A lot of people (companies mainly) still have XP on 128MB systems running on classic mode. After all that's all that eat the memory on XP. On Vista, Aero & gadgets etc will suck even your 2GB RAM. If you need perfomance just turn them off and you will see that even 1G is more than enough to play games on the nearly the same speed as on XP. After all Vista are for the DX10 and MS will not make DX10 version for XP. They don't have anything to gain by publishing DX10 on XP but they will lose the money from the Vista upgrades.

Regarding the DRM side, multiple checks for validation etc I don't care. It should be tougher long time ago.

All those decades people illegaly used Microsoft Products. They prefer that insteed of switching to Linux. They even laugh saying "nah I don't pay for XP, Office, why move to linux". Those people support Microsoft. Not the 8% who bought their products the other 92% who illegaly use Microsoft products form/create the market and MS.

Now MS is doing what every company should do. Make more profits for it's shareholders. If you all insteed of Windows had switch to Linux/OpenGL more companies would create their products for Linux and Windows should be still in the stone age.

I use *nix (FreeBSD, Linux) since 1992 and it's still my main use OS. I run 3 servers with it too (NetBSD) and OpenOffice is what I use everywhere. I use XP and I will use Vista/DX10 for my gaming computer/needs only. I think about it as a console and I'm ok with it.


PS All the benchmarks tests are based on DX9c/DX9L up to now. We haven't see any DX10 test yet. As developers saying DX10 will be faster than DX9, will use a lot less CPU/RAM and more GPU and the perfomance will be great. That's why 8800 (or the top R600 cards if you wait until February-March) is the way forward. The medium DX10 cards will straggle under Vista no matter how fast the rest of the system is because they will be slow GPUs. If you want to run DX9 games use XP. If you want to run DX10 games go Vista with high end cards.

So if I understood you right, you're saying vista won't be a resource hog with a bunch of the eye candy turned off. I certainly can't argue with that-I've never so much as seen a vista desktop, let alone used it. I guess there are probably as many definitions of resource hog as there are people concerned about it. I can accept it taking a fair amount more resources than xp, WITHIN REASON. If we end up with a situation where you must invest a small fortune in hardware to get something not-much-improved over xp to run reasonably well, that'll be a flop in my book.

My definition of improved is that it makes a meaningful difference in my day-to-day computing experience. If it does not do that but still chews memory/cpu cycles like it's going out of style, then it's a failure to me.

I won't fund a failure-I'll stick with xp if that's the case. Missing out on DX10 will hardly ruin my life. I can put up with not playing DX10 games, buy a console of some sort, or I can go outside and turn wrenches on the various project vehicles I have waiting for some attention. Or, if vista is not a flop, I will probably eventually buy it and be able to play the DX10 games.

Like I suspect many other people feel, it's not a matter of me not being able to come up with the money, it's a matter of me being WILLING to. The capabilities of xp are great enough that it does everything I need it to do, with hardware I'm willing to purchase to do it. For me the situation is much different than it was when I was considering upgrading from win 98 to xp. Win 98 WASN'T doing everything I needed it to-it crashed a lot, for one thing. That's part of it, the other part of the change is me. The rate at which I'm trying new things with my computer has dropped off greatly between win 98 and now, so I'm much less likely to NEED anything newer than xp on any given day. Thus, vista will have to really step up with something unexpected for me personally to feel I need it enough to pay much money for it.