I am not impressed with the graphics card industry.

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: Soviet
Short version of rant: Why do graphics cards go out of date and get brought to their knees so soon? It sucks! No other component becomes obsolete as fast as a graphics card. By obsolete i mean not useful for its original intended purpose anymore.

It's a vicious cycle:
1) Card introduced that can play all new games VERY well
2) Games support new features to take advantage of said card
3) Gamers enable said features deeming such card a necessity
4) new baseline exists


The reality is that games without ALL the eye candy still look damn good. Gamers could be happy with lower res/quality, but they aren't.

CPUs aren't obsolete because the fastest CPU is what, about 50% faster than the slowest modern CPU? The fastest video card is about 700% faster than the slowest modern video card... 7800GTX is 24 pipes and ~450 MHz, but a 6200 is 4 pipes and 350 MHz.

A video card is only as slow as the settings you use. I don't blame game designers for implementing features that modern video cards can barely handle, not if they want the possibility that their game might have a usable life beyond the current gen of cards. Many modern games scale performance quite well, but gamers often refuse to entertain anything other than 'max settings' even though there are usually a few settings where you can gain considerable performance at minimal quality loss.

If a game manufacturer doesn't include features that the best graphics cards can take advantage of, then they will be chided by gamers for not including them. They are pretty much forced to include the features and add scalability for lower performing cards.

 

[CraigRT]

I am not impressed with the graphics card industry.

I am getting sick of the video game industry. I don't think FEAR is that good looking, and I really can't see why it is so hard on video cards... The 7800GTX is an awesome card, and it runs every other game just fine at virtually any res. I think the programming of FEAR just sucks.

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

A CPU would never be brought to its knees by any game in such a short amount of time.

Give that statement a little bit. You may be surprised how unplayable games are at their max settings if your rely solely on the CPU for running all game related code.

Besides that- high end SLI setups seem to be handling FEAR with extremely solid performance. Devs are going to target the highest end parts if they want to stun people with visuals, and that is what Monolith was trying to do.

It's not Nvidia or Ati, it's the game developers. Source pretty much proved that with its incredible framerates.

Proved what? That you can make an engines that looks five years old run fast on three year old hardware? Source was dated when it came out, FarCry and D3 are from a different generation technology wise.

Source doesn't look 5 years old at all. It has some of the best graphics out there, especially when it begins to push itself like in DOD-S, I don't know how you could make that claim.

Also, FEAR may try to push graphics cards, but they forgot the good graphics part of the equation, it looks generally like crap IMO

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: CraigRT

I am not impressed with the graphics card industry.

I am getting sick of the video game industry. I don't think FEAR is that good looking, and I really can't see why it is so hard on video cards... The 7800GTX is an awesome card, and it runs every other game just fine at virtually any res. I think the programming of FEAR just sucks.

Agreed. and the parralex (sp) mapping doesn't make up for the crappy monochromatic textures on the walls, floors etc.

It's a good idea and needs to be implemented, but the end result is really what matters, its not that impressive to slap together a bunch of effects.

 

[PingSpike]

Fear's poor performance is not a failing on the part of graphics card makers, its a failing on the part of fears developers. You said it yourself, all the other top engines perform well with similar or better IQ. Thus the only logical conclusion is that the fear game is not as optimized as it could be. This is pretty much the same old story in all software development recently. Rather than focusing on properly optimizing something, they just rely on new hardware to make up for its deficenies with more raw speed.

Don't get me wrong, I think its a great game...but a masterpiece of optimization it is not.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: hooflung

Originally posted by: kaishaku72
The thing about Q3 though, you can lower settings for great performance.

If you make FEAR look much worse than Q3, it doesn't run nearly as well.

This is a bad thing imho, in more than just the simple inconvenience of it.

This is the one sane argument of this whole thread. Whether or not you think FEAR uses the prowess of the hardware effectively or not... good code is judged realistically by scalability. In that department FEAR is probably the worst coded 3d engine out. Its nice when you can afford it... and its terrible when you cannot. That said, it all comes down to content that will see if FEAR can capture the FPS market like Quake did. I don't think FEAR will have any derivatives like Half-Life or Counter-Strike. I am quite sure it will fall into Monolith's karma... good timing to generate revenue and a decent single player capaign; but, poor support and ultimately just being a game of the year for some magazine noone reads.

Like most of today's hollywood trailers, they have shown the best parts on their trailers and there is not much reason to pay to play. I will wait for bargain bin. Monolith and Ubi will always be second string to Valve and id.

it's a logical argument, but the facts are flawed.

at 1024, if i turn gfx down to min and run dx8 shaders, i average[ 198 FPS:

max fps: 333
avg fps: 190
min fps: 110

contrary to your statements, you can obviously gain performance by lowering settings.

as for how good a game it is, that's quite subjective.

personally i found it enjoyable at first, but after the initial interest, what drove me to finish was to find out what the explanantion of the "mystery" was. the game itself became repetitive (fighting same models, looking at the same textures, etc).

while a decent game, i am pretty confident it will not have the same longevity (or community mod support) as doom/quake, ut, hl....

 

[BenSkywalker]

Source doesn't look 5 years old at all.

Slightly overboard with that statement, I should have said three and a half year old graphics.

It has some of the best graphics out there

Explain exactly how that is. Feel free to get as technical as you would like and use exacting specifics. There is extremely little that HL2 manages that wasn't done as well or better using the LS3D engine back in 2002.

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
Fear's poor performance is not a failing on the part of graphics card makers, its a failing on the part of fears developers. You said it yourself, all the other top engines perform well with similar or better IQ. Thus the only logical conclusion is that the fear game is not as optimized as it could be. This is pretty much the same old story in all software development recently. Rather than focusing on properly optimizing something, they just rely on new hardware to make up for its deficenies with more raw speed.

Don't get me wrong, I think its a great game...but a masterpiece of optimization it is not.

Absolutely!
I just installed HL2 and played it last night... That is a masterpiece of optimization. It runs silky butter smooth at 1680x1050 on my 7800GT, and IMO it looks better than FEAR too. HL2 is such a fantastic engine and game...

 

[Nirach]

To be honest. It's n endless cycle.

Cards will get better, as will games, there will be times when the requirements for games don't coincide with specs of cards.

Just the way it is, as soon as you buy something it's obsolete. I'm almost willing to be that as soon as it's released for sale that it's obsolete in comparison to what they're testing/building/preparing for.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: CraigRT
Absolutely!
I just installed HL2 and played it last night... That is a masterpiece of optimization. It runs silky butter smooth at 1680x1050 on my 7800GT,

again, that doesn't say anything regarding the quality of optimization compared to FEAR. HL2 does ALOT less rendering; of course it's going to run well on a 7800GT...

and IMO it looks better than FEAR too. HL2 is such a fantastic engine and game...

can't argue that as everyone has their own preferences. FEAR however renders ALOT more effects, such as a greater number of light sources.. heck, the muzzle flash from firing guns creates shadows...

imo tho hl2 has much better variety in colors and textures; it's prettier, tho not to say it's higher quality -- just more visually pleasing. high textures of an ugly environment doesn't necessarily make it pretty

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: Soviet
"This game alone gives players without high end monitors a real reason to justify saving up for a 7800 GTX. Those who want to play FEAR at the highest resolution and settings with AA enabled (without soft shadows) will basically have to use the 7800 GTX, as no other card available gets playable framerates at those settings, and the 7800 GTX does just barely (if uncomfortably)."

I took that from the F.E.A.R performance review on the front page. I think it sucks that a 7800GTX, the absolute best card out there is brought to its knees at 1600x1200 with aa/af on. This card is what.. 4 months old? 3? Many have been saying that none of todays games will even trouble this card at any setting. Well that view was correct for all of three months. A CPU would never be brought to its knees by any game in such a short amount of time. Buy an athlon 64 FX57/X2 4800 today, and three years from now you will still be playing games on it!. Hell my pentium 4 1.7ghz lasted me that long, all i needed to upgrade was the graphics card. With the healthy competition between nvidia and ati why cant they release somthing that will stay future proof for at least a little longer? I can accept that any card might start to stumble at some ridiculous resolutions/settings like 2048x2048x32 with 8xaa and 16xaf, but the settings fear were run at.... it dosent impress me one bit.

Sure, game programmers should utilise the graphics cards most up to date features, its just whenever they seem to do this it brings the thing to its knees and it takes a whole new generation to do what the older one couldnt at an acceptable framerate. Why is this? nvidia and ati suck? graphics cards are far more complex than cpus to design andmake future proof? games are becoming too graphically impressive too fast? newer game engines are incredibly inefficient at delivering a marginal increase in image quality? what am i missing here?

Short version of rant: Why do graphics cards go out of date and get brought to their knees so soon? It sucks! No other component becomes obsolete as fast as a graphics card. By obsolete i mean not useful for its original intended purpose anymore.

Yes, absolutely true. I really have no idea what all those people who keep saying that our video hardware is so advanced and games cannot really yet take advantage of them and what not. I've even heard some comment that video card manufacturers are focusing too much on graphics performance that is uneeded and that they should try to improve video abilities (which I actually agree with to some degree) and devote some processing power to physics etc. Video cards already have enough on their plate just running games decently.

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: munky
One more reson to get consoles. My ps2 is what - like 5 years old, and the games just keep getting better, but the hardware requirements stay the same. It may not match the visual quality of today's PC games, but it still looks decent, and soon the consoles will have the upper hand in gfx again when the 360 and ps3 come out.

PS2 doesn't match the graphics of Dreamcast leave alone modern PC games.

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: akugami
The only reason I've been dissatisfied with nVidia and ATI lately is that I don't feel the 7800GTX and X1800XT are large enough boosts over the X800 to warrant the money they're charging. That's why I am passing on these. I will re-evaluate when solid information on the G72 and R580 GPU's are near release.

7800GTX is almost twice an x800.

 

[akugami]

Originally posted by: sxr7171

Originally posted by: akugami
The only reason I've been dissatisfied with nVidia and ATI lately is that I don't feel the 7800GTX and X1800XT are large enough boosts over the X800 to warrant the money they're charging. That's why I am passing on these. I will re-evaluate when solid information on the G72 and R580 GPU's are near release.

7800GTX is almost twice an x800.

Look at those benchmarks again, except for very high resolutions or in SLI mode, the 7800GTX's are not 2x as fast as the specific X800 I have. I just don't feel the performance is high enough for me to upgrade at this point. The other aspect I looked at is the fact that I do video editing at times (authoring DVD's) and while ATI promised full next generation video encoding/decoding they didn't deliver. Which gets me to thinking why my next video card, be it from nVidia or ATI shouldn't have full encoding/decoding support as well as much higher frame rates than what my current card supports.

Most of the games I play are at the native resolution of my Dell 2005FPW which is 1680x1050. Looking at those benchmarks, I don't see a large enough improvement in frame rates to justify spending that much on a video card. Not that I can't afford it, I just don't see it as a good value at this time. I get playable frame rates in current games. Sure, not all the bells and whistles are on when I play but if you're aiming to get every single graphical feature turned on and buying a new video card because of that you're falling into the trap of the hardware and software vendors of upgrading when you really don't need to.

I stick by my opinion that the 7800GTX and X1800XT at this price performance point doesn't justify me plunking down $450+. I can say that I'm very likely to upgrade when the G72/G73 and R580 GPU's start to hit the market.

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: Sunrise089
2 Points:

1) The market will tell whether or not F.E.A.R.'s developers made the right decision, if it sells well then obviously there were enough people who thought they could run it OK. Personally I hope its a financial disaster, and therefore it encourages other companies to better optimize their code.

2) I see a HUGE difference between today's video card market and the market when Quake 3 arrived - LCDs. As other have said, playing older games at 640x480 was always an option, that doesn't exist anymore for anyone buying a new display (or more realistically 1024x768 or even 1280x1024 for the 21? crowd). The simple fact is that falling display prices have had the side effect of raising the resolution of most users PCs much more rapidly than had previously been the case. As far as I know a situation where (for NEW displays) the midrange market (19") requires at least a mid-high range video card to play new games well (6800gt, x800xl), and the higher-end market (21"+) basically needs a GTX and more likely a SLI setup is crazy. Does everybody really think that everyone who purchased a 24" widescreen LCD planned on having to buy a new $500 GPU every year?

Only 15" LCDs run at 1024x768. 17" - 1280x1024 19" - 1280x1024 21" - 1600x1200

My 24" widescreen is at 1920x1200 and it cripples video cards.

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: jim1976
You do need to realize ppl that this is pc gaming not console...
We are paying the extra premium( pc gaming is an expensive sport ) in order to have the best from our hardware even if that means that our $$$ gpus are dated somehow in the end of the day.
You should be happy with gaming evolution, not acting like this. What do you want? A game that has nothing new to add to the inventory? What are we, console users?

For example many are bitching about FEAR performance.
Do you remember when FC came out how taxing it was on systems?
Chronnicles of Riddick with soft shadows was unplayable and still is for the majority.
HL2 might be a great scalable engine, but it adds nothing extraordinary to the gfx department.

I do realize that the vast majority of pc users are nowhere near high end pcs, but you should realize that pcs are just like that from day1 of 3d evolution.
Do you have the $$$? You can play at max resolutions with max filters and goodies on 90% of the time.
Do you have a mainstream card? You can play at medium resolutions with some sacrifices on the visual sector.
Do you find yourself incapable of catching up with pcs budget?(there's nothing wrong with that and I'm not being an a$$ just stating the truth). Then you should seriously consider the purchase of a console and keep your low budget pc for games that you can't play with a console...
That's the way it was that's the way it's gonna be.

But plz stop bitching. Make a decision. We should all be happy when we see games like FEAR reaching to pc gamer because this brings evolution.. We are not console, we are pc users.

I find myself bitching because game developers don't pay so much attention to pc users and don't produce many games like FEAR. Console gaming is where the money is for them, so they spend their whole time trying to optimize the games for consoles. As if we are not paying for our games to attract their attention? :disgust: We are paying for a GFX card as much a XBOX360 or PS3 will cost and much more. And we are not attracting their attention simply because the vast majority of the market is consople users!! Now that's a bummer!! And you're stating the opposite? Come on!!!

His point was that even if you drop $450+ on a 7800GTX you barely get 30fps at max settings. Maybe if you go up to $900+ for 2 7800GTXs in Sli you might but I'll bet even that combo isn't happy with 1920x1200 with 4xAA 16xAF.

 

[PingSpike]

The thing that really blows is that since everyone has LCDs...you can't even turn the resolution down to get better framerates with making the game look like ass.

 

[Vernor]

Shooters are more tech demos that anything else these days, often subsidized by hardware vendors.

Call me when a real game, like Oblivion, comes out.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
The thing that really blows is that since everyone has LCDs...you can't even turn the resolution down to get better framerates with making the game look like ass.

umm 1:1 with black border isn't possible?

I really don't know, I use a CRT for gaming. I have a computer with an LCD, but it's my wife's and doesn't get used for gaming at all.

 

[Raduque]

You LCD people are whiners. That's what you get for dropping the coin on it ^_^
/me pets his HP 21" professional CRT.

As for FEAR... I just finished it, literally, about an hour ago. It was extremely playable for me at 1024x768 noAA, 4xAF with everything at or near max except soft shadows. That REALLY drags my rig down. A-XP 2500+, 1gb ram, 6800OC. And I only bought this thing (the 6800OC) because my 9700Pro could no longer push the pixels in the latest games for me. It sucked running the FEAR demo on it =(

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
It's funny, back when the situation was reversed people complained that there were no games available to take advantage of the cards.

EXACTLY! That's the first thought that popped in my mind.

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: JackBurton

Originally posted by: BFG10K
It's funny, back when the situation was reversed people complained that there were no games available to take advantage of the cards.

EXACTLY! That's the first thought that popped in my mind.

Yea, except i dont see any useful features being taken advantage of. Somone else said paralax mapping? What the hell is that? Is it gonna make my gaming experiance any better? The ONLY feature ive found useful in a GPU is AA to get rid of the very obvious jaggies. Nothing else apart from AA is worth the performace hit in my opinion. Its good that the crap i dont need can be turned off though

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: Vernor
Shooters are more tech demos that anything else these days, often subsidized by hardware vendors.

Call me when a real game, like Oblivion, comes out.

Waiting for Unreal Tournament 2007. If it moves closer to the game play and style of the original UT 1999, it will be hot. I bought UT 1999 for $10 back in early 2001 and it's provided a huge amount of entertainment ever since. The key is--solid game play combined with good online multiplayer, the ability to mod it and to produce custom maps, and people who will form teams and organized competition and online communities. There must be at least 7000 custom maps for the game that people have made (I've released 4 CTF maps myself).

The online multiplayer FPS are the greatest FPS games. That's why I look at something like Fear skeptically and ask myself, "what's the online game play like?".

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

Originally posted by: Vernor
Shooters are more tech demos that anything else these days, often subsidized by hardware vendors.

Call me when a real game, like Oblivion, comes out.

Waiting for Unreal Tournament 2007. If it moves closer to the game play and style of the original UT 1999, it will be hot. I bought UT 1999 for $10 back in early 2001 and it's provided a huge amount of entertainment ever since. The key is--solid game play combined with good online multiplayer, the ability to mod it and to produce custom maps, and people who will form teams and organized competition and online communities. There must be at least 7000 custom maps for the game that people have made (I've released 4 CTF maps myself).

The online multiplayer FPS are the greatest FPS games. That's why I look at something like Fear skeptically and ask myself, "what's the online game play like?".

I agree with you to an extent - I'm most likely sitting on my current system and not upgrading until UT2007 is released. I also still play the original UT quite a bit (in terms of total hours, almost certainly a lot more than any other game), and gameplay is very solid. Graphics may not be the best (although they certainly are nice for the time if you're running it at high resolution with high resolution S3TC textures and stuff), but it's fun.

Not 100% in agreement with your second statement though. While I agree that online FPS games can provide more hours of total gameplay, I wouldn't want to see developers start to ignore the single player side of gameplay entirely. I've really enjoyed good singleplayer FPS games - Half-Life 2 being the most recent, and even as far back as Unreal in 1998 (and before that). I realize that a single game usually can't be everything to everyone, but I hope to see lots more great single player FPS games in the future; for an example I'd really like to see a "proper" sequel to Unreal on the new engine. I'd be first in line to buy that.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: sxr7171

Originally posted by: munky
One more reson to get consoles. My ps2 is what - like 5 years old, and the games just keep getting better, but the hardware requirements stay the same. It may not match the visual quality of today's PC games, but it still looks decent, and soon the consoles will have the upper hand in gfx again when the 360 and ps3 come out.

PS2 doesn't match the graphics of Dreamcast leave alone modern PC games.

QFT

if only sega had been a better marketing company...