I laugh at all the people saying don't get 256meg videocards.

[PrinceXizor]

Originally posted by: AMCRambler
I think video cards have reached the point where their rate of improvement has far exceeded that of the games we play. Just like processors for pcs but it took longer. I remember when a game would require a Pentium 266 and with the top of the line Pentium 500 we thought man, games will never catch up. The gap has grown so that the min required is like 800mhz, and the top of the line is what, 3.2ghz? Same thing is happening with vid cards. Upgrades on cards are gonna start becoming fewer and farther between due to the same effect.
I've got a Geforce 4 4600 that's can run everything I throw at it right now on the highest settings. The card came out 2 years ago and it's still more than enough to run the latest stuff. Now I don't run it at 1400x1600 because that would be ridiculous on a 17inch monitor but even with all details on at 1024x768 it runs UT2k fine. It'll probably be at least a year before I'll need a new card just because I don't need to have the highest settings enabled with 30X anti-aliasing or whatever. It seems to me though that the trend seems to be going more towards greater amounts of time between component upgrades when it comes to vid cards and cpu's because they have outpaced the demands of the software that runs on them.

Make a note...you ready? UT2K is NOT current games.

Ok...make another note....you ready? Please read Anand's latest article on video cards.

Ok...make another note....you ready? Notice that the LATEST and GREATEST are getting sub 30 FPS in some games.

Ok...make another note...you ready? To claim that your video card can handle "anything" and then to disclaim running high resolutions and anti-aliasing is pure and simple B.S.

Ok...make another note...you ready? Please see a doctor because its obvious that someone has secretly removed your brain without you knowing it.

P-X

 

[GoHAnSoN]

Originally posted by: CarpeDiem99

Originally posted by: forcesho
i bought a 256mb card to watch porn in higher details..

:beer:

:beer::beer:

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: grant2

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Bill Gates once said, "Noone will ever need more than 640K." Keep that in mind.

heh, when you start a message with something so bogus, there's no need to read on

I think it was a PC Magazine interview quote. I can't find a link to it online however. (Twas something I researched for extra credit in Senior year in college once).

Evidentially, I should have simply laughed in your general direction, rather than directly at. Turned into a relatively nice debate thread however.

I can tell you one game that I've proven (well, a friend has) that 256meg of vram makes a difference on. That would be Planetside. However, 2 gig of system ram also make a difference. I can easily write a 3D application that can use 256meg of video ram effectively, using simple real-world scenarios. The debate on whether it's useful or not it moot. It is useful, for many reasons, many of which are debated here already.

My original question should basically have read: Why are the general bulk of the forum population berating anyone questioning whether they should purchase a 256meg card? I suppose it was early, and in my haste I turned it into a debate rather than a question. In that case, my apologies. But I got my answers, which is, aside from cost, there really is no good reason not to get 256meg.

 

[Bovinicus]

The reason people on these forums do not recommend 256MB cards is because they upgrade often. If you are just going to upgrade your video card in a year or 18 months, then 256MB will not be necessary by that time. So, you just wasted your money. If you plan on keeping your video card for 2+ years, it might just be worth it to "future-proof" your video card.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

The fastest card I own is a gf2 mx 200 :Q

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: Bovinicus
The reason people on these forums do not recommend 256MB cards is because they upgrade often. If you are just going to upgrade your video card in a year or 18 months, then 256MB will not be necessary by that time. So, you just wasted your money. If you plan on keeping your video card for 2+ years, it might just be worth it to "future-proof" your video card.

This has already been shown to be a waste. If you buy a card with 256 MB hoping that it will still be fast a year or two from now, even though the 256 MB might be fully used the GPU speed will be the bottle neck rather than the RAM. You have to have parts which work together. A system is only as fast as its weakest component. Think of it like running a Pentium 2 450 with 1 GB of RAM. Sure you've got a lot of RAM, but it still isn't going to run new games very quickly.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

But I got my answers, which is, aside from cost, there really is no good reason not to get 256meg.

Yes but the same arguement can go on and on forever. If cost didn't matter why not 512 MB? Why not 512 GB? Or how about terrabytes? Fact is cost does matter and for the vast majority of users, the extra price isn't worth the miniscule performance boost.

 

[DaveSimmons]

> But I got my answers, which is, aside from cost, there really is no good reason not to get 256meg.

Or 4 GB of PC4500 RAM, or a diamond-encrusted platinum case (bling bling!). If money means nothing to you then of course you should buy the most expensive version of everything, just because you can.

But even though I can afford all of the above if I really wanted it, I object to the waseful near-uselessness of paying ridiculous premiums for extremely small or non-existent performance gains.

> The reason people on these forums do not recommend 256MB cards is because they upgrade often

Some people. But I still can't recommend a 256 MB card even if you'll be holding it for 2+ years. It's very unlikely that any future games will be playable on current cards at the high resolutions needed to show any difference between 128 and 256 MB.

 

[modedepe]

I laugh at those who pay $500 for a card that has 256mb of ram, just so it'll perform 1% better than a card that costs $300.

 

[Lonyo]

I laugh at you.

 

[Nebor]

I just laugh all the time, at anything. That's why I'm in here...

 

[Blackroot]

nice thread going, thought i'd add in my two cents.

I am going on a limb, but i am guessing it would be correct to assume most members have a 17 inch, maybe 19 inch monitor, and are only running one monitor of thier video card.

sure 256mb has 2x the ram amount as a 128, but it's USELESSText compared to the 128 when running 1080 or so on a 17 inch monitor, no difference will be seen, even if someone has alot of money, they would probably agree that 100 could be better spent on almost anything, instead of doubling u'r video card ram, why not double the other all ram with that, a 512 stick of ddr can easily be had for 100.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: Nebor
I just laugh all the time, at anything. That's why I'm in here...

You get the Post Of The Day award.

 

[Abhi]

Originally posted by: forcesho
i bought a 256mb card to watch porn in higher details..

 

[EeyoreX]

Bill Gates once said, "Noone will ever need more than 640K."

Linky

I find many of the arguments pretty good. So, I need not repeat them here. However, unless I missed it, I saw no mention of PCI-X or PCI Express (to be frankly honest, I can't keep track of which is which) will render current cards mostly useless. So, the point of "future-proofing" seems moot to me. I am also, by no means even approching "hardcore gamer" status, but it is my understanding current games barely take advantage of the current video cards, so it's hardly necessary to spend a premium on 256MB cards (a la my "future-proofing stance). I presonally, laugh at all the people who feel they need to buy a 256MB card.

\Dan

 

[FearoftheNight]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
The fastest card I own is a gf2 mx 200 :Q

*chokes*

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

You have to consider the demand from games. Upcoming games in the DX9 area, which is what we will begin to see for the next 2 or 3 years at least, is starting to show little difference between the two large memory sizes. In most situations, you won't notice the difference unless you're running at a very high resolution. Even then, the price premium for the slight gain in performance isn't really worth it.

Also, why dump so much money into a video card for those who don't replace more often than every two years, knowing that it probably won't help because by then there will be another bottleneck for the games. If you take a Ti4600 for example, it won't play HL2 or Doom 3 smoothly at high resolutions where the extra 128mb can actually help out.

 

[Slogun]

Originally posted by: EeyoreX

Bill Gates once said, "Noone will ever need more than 640K."

Linky

I find many of the arguments pretty good. So, I need not repeat them here. However, unless I missed it, I saw no mention of PCI-X or PCI Express (to be frankly honest, I can't keep track of which is which) will render current cards mostly useless. So, the point of "future-proofing" seems moot to me. I am also, by no means even approching "hardcore gamer" status, but it is my understanding current games barely take advantage of the current video cards, so it's hardly necessary to spend a premium on 256MB cards (a la my "future-proofing stance). I presonally, laugh at all the people who feel they need to buy a 256MB card.

\Dan

"I'm not paying $500 right now($350, yes) when next year I will likely buy a new high-end card when AGP becomes obsolete "

 

[spanner]

umm, its about being smart with money not saying 256megs of ram will never be useful. i.e $500 now for a vid card that supputs todays games and future games or $100 now for current games then another $100 later for future games.

 

[SilentZero]

Its all a matter of cost. 256megs is not needed today and probably won't be needed for a while to come, so why pay all the extra cash for one? My 128meg does the job perfectly and at a huge cost savings.
If moneys not a issue...go for the 256megs, but if your like me...just stick with what works.

 

[slightlyhuman]

Originally posted by: GoHAnSoN

Originally posted by: CarpeDiem99

Originally posted by: forcesho
i bought a 256mb card to watch porn in higher details..

:beer:

:beer::beer:

:beer::beer::beer:

 

[nick1985]

lol @ your stupidity

 

[BFG10K]

Technology is relentless and therefore it follows the fantasy -> reality -> standard -> obsolete timeline.

 

[ahmedaf]

By the time games really require 256mb, your current graphic cards features and speed would be too limited for it to be any use.


Nowadays videocards usually become obsolete in 1.5 years for anyone but the most hardcore of gamers, who probably upgrade every 6 months to a year to a faster card.

If ATI was to come out with a 1GB card today, it would still be obsolete aa year and a half down the road even though by then the developers would only have caught up o 256mb, because it would be much slower and outdated feature wise.

 

[Blackroot]

Right now the biggest minimum is 32mb card, i've got a 32 mb geforce 2 mx, sd ram, so basically it blows, if the card ever is the minimum, in most cases it will suck, and going as how things are, maybe by this time next year there is a slight chance that there will be 64mb minimum. There is only so much good grafics that can be had, if you look at half-life 2, the grafics are insane, do you really think, that if they get it a minimum of 256mb, which would be 8x that of half-life 2, that grafics could really be that good, saying they increase 32mb minimum every 18 months or so, i really have no idea how it works tho. But say it does that, think about how long it'll take to get to a 256mb version, like 12 years or so, do you really think that any card is gonna last anywhere near that long? Also take to note, that virtual realility will probably what most games are going to be like in the next decade.