video card advice needed

[Schnitzel von Krumm]

Hi:

I'm sitting here eagerly awaiting the delivery of OFF. In the meantime, I thought I'd look into giving it as nice a home as possible.

Currently, I've got a Q6600 quad core CPU overclocked nice and stable at 3.0 Ghz with four gigs of good memory. My video card is a 9800GT (the slightly overclocked BFG version).

What I'm wondering is if it's worth upgrading the videocard to, say, a GTX 260. A GTX 280 is probably more than I want to spend right now, unless it will make a major difference to the eye candy and playability. I use a nice old CRT monitor that I run at 1600x1200, so the resolution is moderately high. I like to have some anti-aliasing and AF on as well, but I don't insist on them being maxed.

I have a friend who has offered to trade me his barely used Radeon 4870 (512 Mb version) for my 9800 GT in an even swap. The 4870 is generally considered a much faster card than a 9800gt, but from what I've read on this forum, ATI cards don't do so well in this game.

So, would you guys say I should make that trade, buy something else entirely, or just stick with what I've got? There do seem to be quite a few guys on here with 8800/9800 cards that are happy with them.

Also, if I may, what is the biggest factor for performance in this game? Is it the graphics card, or the CPU and memory?

Thanks in advance for any light you're able to shed on these issues.

[Siggi]

Hi:

I'm sitting here eagerly awaiting the delivery of OFF. In the meantime, I thought I'd look into giving it as nice a home as possible.

Currently, I've got a Q6600 quad core CPU overclocked nice and stable at 3.0 Ghz with four gigs of good memory. My video card is a 9800GT (the slightly overclocked BFG version).

What I'm wondering is if it's worth upgrading the videocard to, say, a GTX 260. A GTX 280 is probably more than I want to spend right now, unless it will make a major difference to the eye candy and playability. I use a nice old CRT monitor that I run at 1600x1200, so the resolution is moderately high. I like to have some anti-aliasing and AF on as well, but I don't insist on them being maxed.

I have a friend who has offered to trade me his barely used Radeon 4870 (512 Mb version) for my 9800 GT in an even swap. The 4870 is generally considered a much faster card than a 9800gt, but from what I've read on this forum, ATI cards don't do so well in this game.

So, would you guys say I should make that trade, buy something else entirely, or just stick with what I've got? There do seem to be quite a few guys on here with 8800/9800 cards that are happy with them.

Also, if I may, what is the biggest factor for performance in this game? Is it the graphics card, or the CPU and memory?

Thanks in advance for any light you're able to shed on these issues.

I had the same CPU as you, also clocked to 3ghz, and an 8800GTX. The CPU was the bottleneck for me, soon as I went to an E8400 clocked to 4ghz I saw a major increase in FPS.

[cliff527]

My advice is wait until you get OFF P3. Your 9800 will probably do fine - but, if not, you can always go to a faster card later. Save your money 'til you see how well what you have does.

As for the ATI swap....well, for me? Maybe not But that's a very individual choice, honestly. Some prefer Nvidia, some ATI. I have heard of issues with both, of course, and I've heard a lot of good about both. Again, I'd say stick with what you have for now until you find out how it does...besides, did your friend say the offer expires at some point?

As for the biggest factor...well, that's naturally going to depend on what you already *have*. As Siggi points out, in his case, the CPU was a bottleneck. If you were short on graphics power, I'd say maybe the card, but then, with the 9800 you shouldn't be short. The 8400 CPUs can easily approach 4.0G when properly overclocked, and since OFF doesn't care about cores, it's pretty much about speed. Not long ago, I was considering a C2De8400 v. a Q6600 - I'm glad I went with the 8400.

HTH

[shunkan]

I agree that you should save your money.....not just because of the economy.....:faint:

most problems with OFF seem to have more to do with cpu ability than gpu, and with that quad monster you should be fine. Unless your planning on other intensive games, that you want to crank to max, than I think you have a great card.

this coming from a guy who has a 280, wait a little longer and the prices will fall anyway.

:Banane40:

[Over50]

Hi:

I'm sitting here eagerly awaiting the delivery of OFF. In the meantime, I thought I'd look into giving it as nice a home as possible.

Currently, I've got a Q6600 quad core CPU overclocked nice and stable at 3.0 Ghz with four gigs of good memory. My video card is a 9800GT (the slightly overclocked BFG version).

What I'm wondering is if it's worth upgrading the videocard to, say, a GTX 260. A GTX 280 is probably more than I want to spend right now, unless it will make a major difference to the eye candy and playability. I use a nice old CRT monitor that I run at 1600x1200, so the resolution is moderately high. I like to have some anti-aliasing and AF on as well, but I don't insist on them being maxed.

I have a friend who has offered to trade me his barely used Radeon 4870 (512 Mb version) for my 9800 GT in an even swap. The 4870 is generally considered a much faster card than a 9800gt, but from what I've read on this forum, ATI cards don't do so well in this game.

So, would you guys say I should make that trade, buy something else entirely, or just stick with what I've got? There do seem to be quite a few guys on here with 8800/9800 cards that are happy with them.

Also, if I may, what is the biggest factor for performance in this game? Is it the graphics card, or the CPU and memory?

Thanks in advance for any light you're able to shed on these issues.

If you do decide to upgrade your 9800, the GTX 260-216 core SC (super clocked) edition is a heck of a card for the money - with near GTX 280 performance. As luck would have it Evga had them on sale earlier this week for $218 with mail in rebate....but I just checked and it's now $236 with the coupon. Still a great price though.

As for your Q6600, very few current games are written to take advantage of quad core processors and as such it would bottleneck the GTX 260 (whichever flavor) somewhat.

As others have mentioned the E8400 is a great price to performance chip because it's easily OC'd up to 4 GHz with air cooling (but not the stock fan that comes in the box). I've chosen to conservatively run my processor OC'd at 3.6 GHz and it's very stable. Just for comparison my 3DMark06 score is just under 16,000 with my GTX 260-216 SC edition card in tandem with the 3.6 GHz OC of my E8400. And like you, I'm gaming on a 20" monitor (but LCD) at a native resolution of 1600x1200 and I can achieve over +100 fps at elevation in OFF 3 depending on the degree of what else is going on. The secret is running with Vsync forced off.

[Schnitzel von Krumm]

Thanks for the replies.

I think I'll follow the prevailing wind of the advice here and stick with what I have, for now at least. There doesn't seem to be anything out there that's going to make enough of an improvement to justify it's cost.

My personal preference is nVidia cards. I've helped my friend sort out more than one issue with that 4870 (maybe that's why he's so willing to trade) and I've never been that impressed with ATI's drivers.

The fact that CPU seems to be the most important factor in OFF performance is good to know. I've seen that in other sims, including First Eagles, which I bought to play while I wait for OFF to arrive.

I agree that you should save your money.....not just because of the economy....

But isn't it our job, nay our duty, to stimulate the economy by spending every available cent on computer games and hardware? Won't someone please think of the children?

[shunkan]

Thanks for the replies.

I think I'll follow the prevailing wind of the advice here and stick with what I have, for now at least. There doesn't seem to be anything out there that's going to make enough of an improvement to justify it's cost.

My personal preference is nVidia cards. I've helped my friend sort out more than one issue with that 4870 (maybe that's why he's so willing to trade) and I've never been that impressed with ATI's drivers.

The fact that CPU seems to be the most important factor in OFF performance is good to know. I've seen that in other sims, including First Eagles, which I bought to play while I wait for OFF to arrive.

But isn't it our job, nay our duty, to stimulate the economy by spending every available cent on computer games and hardware? Won't someone please think of the children?

hehe.....very true.......but I like to wait till the prices get where I deem them personally reasonable.....like around 1 dollar.....oh wait how about the government pays for it......

just kidding, was just reading the news a few minutes ago....:bs:

[catch22]

The 9800 works fine. I've got the gtx 512 and no complaints running P3 with cores set at 3ghz.

[Schnitzel von Krumm]

The 9800 works fine. I've got the gtx 512 and no complaints running P3 with cores set at 3ghz.

That's good to know. It sounds like my current rig will run things reasonably well.

Problem is, I've already gotten myself geared up for new hardware. Now what am I going to do?