currently have an nVidia 8800GT

[robphelan]

bought bad company 2 and can barely play multiplayer on low settings on my 24" WS monitor.

any suggestions for a new vid card where my budget for a new card is about 200 (used about 130-150) that will help me out?

 

[toyota]

what does the rest of your system look like? a video card upgrade might not not be enough for this game. you have been here long enough that you should know to list your specs when asking about upgrading.

 

[gen3d]

I've played the game on a Radeon 5770 and a Geforce 285 GTX. The 5770 does a pretty good job on medium settings, and the 285 plays well on high. I would imagine a Geforce 260 would play the game well also, and can be had just like the Radeon 5770 for between $160-200 new.

 

[happy medium]

My 5750 plays it on high settings(except medium shadows) at 1600x1200 just fine. I finished the game yesterday.

The best deal out there right now is the "HIS" 5770 for 143$ shipped on new egg.
I can see why that wouldn't play @ 1900x1080 at a resonable framerate.

A good used deal? I seen a couple 4890's for 150/160 shipped in the for sale forums.

 

[nenforcer]

Do you have an SLI-capable motherboard? Cheapest upgrade path is another 8800GT. I wouldn't purchase a new video card until after March 26 when nVidia's Fermi is finally released.

 

[robphelan]

what does the rest of your system look like? a video card upgrade might not not be enough for this game. you have been here long enough that you should know to list your specs when asking about upgrading.

you are absolutely 100% correct. I was being lazy

running Win7 64bit
AMD Dual Core 5000+
6 GB RAM
MSI K9N Platinum Non-SLI board :-(
8800GT

 

[v8envy]

Don't expect too much improvement from a 5770 or 260, then. A CPU that slow and ancient isn't going to cut the mustard in 2010 gaming.

Keep saving up, your entire rig is due for a serious overhaul.

 

[robphelan]

crap.
crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap.

 

[ScorcherDarkly]

Yeah, BFBC2 is pretty CPU intensive, and a dual core that old is really going to feel that old. Upgrading the GPU will get rid of one bottleneck, but not the other.

 

[Chappie]

just a quick word on the system upgrade idea. I recently upgraded everything in my rig except my video card--a 7950gt.

I bought: A phenom II X3---unlocked 4th core
Gibabyte motherboard--unlocked the 4th core
two gigs of Crucial ram
BFG 550 power supply
SATA hardrive
Using my old DVD drive.

I'm able to play Bad company 2 at 1440 x 900 with some settings on medium at very playable framerates..is it ideal? No, but I'll update that video card once the new nVidia card is out.

Your 8800gt will definitely play the game for you as long as you get a newer triple or quad core cpu.

Chappie

 

[EarthwormJim]

Have you tried overclocking your 8800gt?

I went from the stock 600/1566/900 to 730/1800/975 core/shader/memory respectively on my 8800gt. It made a rather huge difference in Crysis ( I don't have bad company to test out). I went from having minimum frame rates in the teens on the Crysis benchmark to having minimum frame rates above 25fps (40% improvement at some points). Average went from 30fps to nearly 40fps.

 

[Termie]

As a point of reference, here's what a new CPU and an old 8800gt can do in BC2: Dx9, 1680x1050, all High, no AA, I'm averaging about 50fps. That's with my 8800gt at 700/950.

I agree that your system likely needs an overhaul, and for new games, CPU power is key. Your 8800gt probably isn't going to be the bottleneck for you in BC2.

That being said, I'm waiting to see what develops at the end of the month, as I'm interested in running BC2 in Dx11, 1920x1200, Highest settings, and some AA.

 

[Childs]

I'm in the same boat. Bought BFBC2 last night and while my 8800GT held up OK at 1680x1050 on medium settings, it did slow down a bit every now and then. Microcenter has a gtx 260 on sale for like $150 till Sunday, so I may just get that and wait till Nv comes out with the equiv class card on the new architecture. I dont see a lot of benchmarks on the retail BFBC2 code so it makes me hesitant to pull the trigger. THe rest of my rig Q6600@3Ghz 4GB RAM should be fine.

 

[robphelan]

thanks for the input.. as you can tell, i haven't plopped down any money on hardware lately... i'm going to look for a new quad core/mobo/RAM combo, keep my vid card for now.

thanks alot!

 

[robphelan]

how about this:
Gigabyte GA-770TA-UD3 AM3 AMD 770 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128419
paried with
AMD Phenom II X4 955
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103674

or, i could save $70 and get a combo deal with this mobo and
AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition Heka 2.8GHz Socket AM3

 

[Termie]

or, i could save $70 and get a combo deal with this mobo and
AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition Heka 2.8GHz Socket AM3

Rob - the Newegg combo deal applies to the 955 too. It's only $55 more than the X3. At that price, I'd take it for the extra core and the extra 400 Mhz.

To save a bit more, you could go with the combo with a Biostar 790GX motherboard - $205 with the X4 955 or $150 with the X3 720.

 

[robphelan]

hmmm, didn't see that... that's not much more for an extra core - thanks!

 

[Chappie]

Rob,

with this game the more cores the better. I've run it with a Phenom X3 and I've unlocked my x3 to a quad and it does seem better with the fourth core unlocked.

Also, check out Microcenter too...sometimes they have good deals. Especially if you have one around your location that you can walk into. That's what I did and got a great deal on the system I posted earlier.

good luck,
Chappie

 

[Capt Caveman]

I'm playing BFBC2 w/ a 8800GT(EVGA SSC) and a Q9550 at 1920x1200 and medium setting without any issues.

You may want to go and adjust the DXVerision=9 from Auto, Bloom=false and lower other settings in the settings.ini file to improve performance.

 

[alkemyst]

thanks for the input.. as you can tell, i haven't plopped down any money on hardware lately... i'm going to look for a new quad core/mobo/RAM combo, keep my vid card for now.

thanks alot!

Smart way to go. I went from an older dual core Opteron 165 at 2.7GHz to my Phenom 720 @3.6Ghz and it made a huge difference (I couldn't unlock my 4th core).

My 8800GTX to 4890 was great as well with the added benefit that I sold my old card for almost 2x the new one's price.

I don't know the market now, but at the time my ddr2 ram, motherboard, cpu all fetched great pricing. I was able to sell my ram for more than the new which made my motherboard a wash.

On the CPU side I actually made a profit too.

When I upgraded my net was about $100 in my pocket.