How do you think the new ATi card is gonna stack up??

[ceZium]

I think the new card is going to be faster than the 4600, ALOT faster? I don't know about that, I will wait until both ATI and NVIDIA both release their cards, then make a judgment. The drivers have been getting better for ATI but not much in my opinion.

 

[MournSanity]

Originally posted by: sxr7171
GTA3 crawls (7-11 fps) at 1024x1280 with 64 tap Anisotropic filtering on a GeForce 4 4400 overclocked to 305/650 and it will crawl on a GeForce 4600 as well. Playing on the Radeon 8500 looks absolutely terrible without enabling their "Smoothvision" with the Omega drivers (I didn't play with the Aniso settings since the drivers supposedly enable a higher quality level of Aniso than than possible using the ATI tool). The 8500 runs a pretty decent 30 fps without FSAA but suffers from annoying slow-downs when I enable 2x FSAA.

For some reason the GeForce 4 at 1280x1024 with no FSAA and only 16-tap aniso looks a lot better than the Radeon 8500 without FSAA and whatever maximum Aniso that Omega drivers enable.

The point of the above ramble is that we need faster cards.

GTA3 runs like crap because the game is programmed like a digital pile of crap. They didn't even change the game engine from PS2. The game runs differently on different systems. For example, on my Ti200 I can run it at a constant 60-80 FPS, sometimes going up to 100 and it only dips to the 30's and 20's when there are tons of explosions on screen. This was after I installed the latest drivers. Before that, I was running at 30 FPS max.

Check out the troubleshooting forum...

 

[sxr7171]

I can also get GTA3 to run at very high frame rates especially with a GeForce 4 4400 on a P4 1.7Ghz. It actually runs at a constant 30 fps with frame limiter on and Frame Sync (that is the maximum those settings will allow) with 2x FSAA and 16-tap Aniso. It does not drop even during explosions or high-speed car chases. Without frame limiter and frame sync it tends to hover around 40-50fps and drops to around 20fps during high action sequences. The game is very playable with a GeForce 4 4400 at 1024x1280 with 2xfsaa and 16-tap aniso provided you overclock the card.

But when you enable 64-tap aniso, it really shows down (but it looks beautiful). I really want to play it one day with 64-tap aniso and 4xs FSAA. I've tried that and it runs between 5-7fps, but it looks so good that to me it looks like a whole new dimension in realism. Everything looks so sharp and stable that it looks like you're driving around in a CG movie. I really want a card that will me just a constant 30fps at those settings and I will be very happy.

In reality, I wonder if this next generation can handle it, I might even need to wait until NV35 to see that happen.

I don't really play games on the PC very much so GTA3 is what I can speak about. But I have been able to enable 64-tap and 4xs FSAA on Half-Life, and I didn't really think it was all that impressive (though it was playable). The texture in GTA3 are a lot better than in Half-Life. I'm sure other cutting edge games offer a really good visual experience like Marrowind III. I hear that people are having problems just running that game with full settings on some of the cards out there today, and I as far as I know that game isn't poorly programmed for PC. I don't really know how Morrowind III performs with a GeForce 4 4400 or 4600, it may very well run fast with those cards, but I've heard some complaining about the resource intensiveness of that game. But I really doubt that you can enable 64-tap aniso even with 2x FSAA in that game on today's cards.

 

[BFG10K]

GTA3 runs like crap because the game is programmed like a digital pile of crap

That's true but it doesn't change the fact that other highly optimised games like JK2, RTCW, MOHAA and SOF2 are still very demanding on the system and need very fast video cards to run well at high detail levels. In fact SOF2 won't even run acceptably on a Ti4600 at 1600 x 1200 with no ansotropic filtering, often dipping to the low 30s in terms of framerates.

Not even thinking about future games like Unreal2 and Doom3, I have games right now waiting to take advantage of any extra power I can get above my Ti4600. I say bring on the R300 and NV30 and I'll be waiting with open arms for them.

 

[daywalker]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

GTA3 runs like crap because the game is programmed like a digital pile of crap

That's true but it doesn't change the fact that other highly optimised games like JK2, RTCW, MOHAA and SOF2 are still very demanding on the system and need very fast video cards to run well at high detail levels. In fact SOF2 won't even run acceptably on a Ti4600 at 1600 x 1200 with no ansotropic filtering, often dipping to the low 30s in terms of framerates.

Not even thinking about future games like Unreal2 and Doom3, I have games right now waiting to take advantage of any extra power I can get above my Ti4600. I say bring on the R300 and NV30 and I'll be waiting with open arms for them.

I dont think the games you mentioned are highly optimized. All these games run perfectly on my AMD Duron 1Ghz and my Geforce2 MX400, on their default settings of course.

If these games were highly demanding and optimized as you say, then they wouldnt run on my system at all. BTW, how can you say that JK2 is demanding??? The game has the lightest 3D engine ever made. It can run smoothly even in weaker systems that mine...

Its a mistake not to think about Unreal 2 and Doom3, as THESE are the games that ARE demanding. But they will be perfectly playable on your GF4 Ti4600 even with all the details turned on.

But still you plan to upgrade your video card, just because you want to play them on a 1600x1200 resolution with all the goodies turned on????

Something is definetely wrong with you... no offense.

 

[AnAndAustin]

I doubt these next gen DX9 AGP8x (if that is what they even end up being) will be worth the wait or the price tag. AGP8x is very unlikely to improve perf much, if at all (much like ATA133). DX9 will be almost useless for about 12 months for games to begin using DX9 in any real quantity, by then they'll be cheaper and better cards anyway. I don't expect much gain in AA perf (apart from ATI's crappy and ancient SS-AA) so it looks as though the main buying point will be Aniso and pure speed. How much fater would you expect the next gen cards to be, 50% faster than a GF4TI4600? Would that be worth paying so much cash for? Not for most of, we'll take a Rad9000 or GF4TI4200 any day.

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: daywalker

Originally posted by: BFG10K

GTA3 runs like crap because the game is programmed like a digital pile of crap

That's true but it doesn't change the fact that other highly optimised games like JK2, RTCW, MOHAA and SOF2 are still very demanding on the system and need very fast video cards to run well at high detail levels. In fact SOF2 won't even run acceptably on a Ti4600 at 1600 x 1200 with no ansotropic filtering, often dipping to the low 30s in terms of framerates.

Not even thinking about future games like Unreal2 and Doom3, I have games right now waiting to take advantage of any extra power I can get above my Ti4600. I say bring on the R300 and NV30 and I'll be waiting with open arms for them.

I dont think the games you mentioned are highly optimized. All these games run perfectly on my AMD Duron 1Ghz and my Geforce2 MX400, on their default settings of course.

If these games were highly demanding and optimized as you say, then they wouldnt run on my system at all. BTW, how can you say that JK2 is demanding??? The game has the lightest 3D engine ever made. It can run smoothly even in weaker systems that mine...

Its a mistake not to think about Unreal 2 and Doom3, as THESE are the games that ARE demanding. But they will be perfectly playable on your GF4 Ti4600 even with all the details turned on.

But still you plan to upgrade your video card, just because you want to play them on a 1600x1200 resolution with all the goodies turned on????

Something is definetely wrong with you... no offense.

Have you actually enabled 64-tap Aniso, and 4xs FSAA? Enough said.

 

[HowDoesItWork]

Well, the review is up and it looks like the card kicks arse (though I didn't like that they don't know what the core and memory will be clocked at yet.) Still $399 retail, ouchies. Think I will wait to see how the NV30 is priced.