What graphics card is best for me? How to upgrade for X3?

[BugMeister]

..are you at the lowest resolution setting with the a/a and filtering off?

-I play F.E.A.R at 640x480 - and it runs like a dream ( - I know you can't go that low with X3)

- you just gotta fiddle with the settings 'til it looks good enough...

- I guess a bolt-on tuning interface would've helped solve a lot of these frame-rate queries and theories.

[BugMeister]

..buy the 6600GT, but resist to temptation to run it flat-out all the time - you need to coerce these fancy little bits of circuitry into providing good results.

..the nVidia range offers you the option of setting up a profile for any game, so tweak it 'til it works and then just save the settings - the card will do the rest.

[Ambis]

No way man. No upgrades needed.

I'm running (or trying to run...) the game with this comp:

2.8 GHz P4
1,5 GB DDR400
Radeon X850 XT
WinXP Pro


Altough the game runs with patch 1.2.01 a LITTLE better than with 1.2, it is still unplayable. Now with the new patch, my sounds are weird, see faces talking but rarely hear anything they say. In 1.2 the sounds worked all ok.

I'm losing faith with this game, and I think I'll make the harm go around and sell this to someone else and get a REAL game instead, which I can even play. But maybe i'll just wait for 1.3 and see if it makes any difference.

- performance has been drastically improved

Buhahahaha! What a joke guys.

Come on, my comp (above) runs eg. Battlefield 2 with everything set High and 2x AA at 50-60 FPS, and runs this game at best somewhere around 30 fps, mostly around 15 fps at lowest settings.

[BugMeister]

- performance has been drastically improved

..where's that quote from, then?

..don't worry, CocA - just keep fiddling with your settings - don't get obsessed with all the frame-rate jargon

- even a Maserati gets caught in a traffic jam once in a while, heh, heh!

Kick that system into shape - make it do what you want it to do!

[Aragosta]

Thanks for the info Chips, Bugmeister. I've still not found anything close to the 6600GT's price that's any better.

I've checked my PSU stability before as I had some crash issues that turned out to be down to a bad memory module - the PSU is good and solid.

[BugMeister]

..reports are that the 6600GT is good to go!

..and don't forget to check out other postings about the 81.89 drivers - have fun, Dude!

[Misinformed]

A new grahpics card to replace your x700SE would do more than anything else by a long shot with what youve got already.

[Ambis]

First of all, was my post moved or did I post it in the wrong place in the first place? Weird... Didn't originally belong here.

- performance has been drastically improved

..where's that quote from, then?

From here

[esd]

First of all, was my post moved or did I post it in the wrong place in the first place? Weird... Didn't originally belong here.

It was moved, because there's a place for "What upgrade for x3?" and this is it

[BugMeister]

..apologies, man - just trying to be clever, I guess - it won't happen again!

[Scarecrow23]

I know people hate this and I rarely (if I ever have) ask this... but I need to know before I sink money into it if it will run at playable framerates... Loved X2 and the only reason I stopped playing was b/c of the economy that was fubar, which seems to be fixed in X3; essentially X3 is what X2 should have been in my eye's from what I know and I want to play it badly .... and yes I also realize there is no way to say for sure so i'll just give comparisons etc. and you can hopefully give a rough yes no blah blah.

Oh, and by playable I mean ~30 fps, consistently less then 20 or 25 is... not so much unless thats only during large shoot outs.

Mmmm, first off my comp's stats (just copying and pasting various things from dx diag)
------------------
System Information
------------------
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: NVIDIA
System Model: AWRDACPI
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2100+, MMX, 3DNow, ~1.7GHz
Memory: 512MB RAM
Page File: 311MB used, 1658MB available
---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: RADEON 9800 PRO
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: RADEON 9800 PRO AGP (0x4E48)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4E48&SUBSYS_00021002&REV_00
Display Memory: 256.0 MB
-------------
Sound Devices
-------------
Description: NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio
Default Sound Playback: Yes
Default Voice Playback: Yes
Hardware ID: *NFORCE
Manufacturer ID: 1
Product ID: 100
Type: WDM


I know their rather lackluster... but it somehow out-performs a lot of better comps, presumably because it's optimized out the butt... anyway, now for what is really the only way to kinda tell is to make comparisons... I'll post my 3dMark05 score after I run it. For instance, I can run F.E.A.R. (one of the most graphic intensive games out atm..) at >30 fps most of the time with 800x640 res and almost all settings medium... shadows are at max (i'm pretty sure) and so is the decal limit (whatever the corpse thing for single player was)... Haven't played it in a while but I ran Doom 3 >30 fps with 1024x768 or 800x640 and the rest at medium - high.

Anyone else have a similiar system and can give me some things to compare? Or have anything else to compare period, regardless of the system?

[lukethegordie]

Impossible to say weather it will run good or not. your pc specs seem to be the min system requirements so its not looking too good. If you want to run x3 on ur current rig you might have to consider more ram but id wager it would be better spending money on a CPU for the same amount of cash as another 512mb stick. It might be worth buying the game and if it dont work, you can always shelf it for when u get a better rig.

sorry this wasnt much help

[crazygoldfish]

need to up that cpu spec to be honest, to something around a amd3200xp ( those are pretty cheap these days ).
another gig of ram
and spend around 200quid on a gfx card, something like a X800xl or pro, or a 6800gt.

if you a good card without upping the rest, it will just bottleneck at the cpu.

[alevel17]

Help me!!
I've just built a new machine from scratch that is pretty kick arse but I've plumped for PCI-Ex and I'm looking at the Nvidia GTX 7800 BUT

Do I crown the system with a GTX 7800 512 for £500 when I'm only going to be playing games with it, pretty heavy games yes but I'm no GFX Editor.

Should I go with the GTX 7800 256 for half the price (then I've got to decide which of the 100 variations of the 256 model to go for though!) or plump for the 512 which will do the do for probably longer than the machine it's in will last?

[kahnindustries]

the 512 has higher clock speeds awell and averages about 15-20% better performance in all games as a result.

The memory difference would be more for future proofing

The 512 is the highest performing graphics card available

The 256 is arguably equal second with the ati 1800

You lucky git

[ste105]

theres a full review here

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2607

the 512 is the best card out there

[Apocholypse]

Well I know it's a hell of a lot of money, but 512 memory is the key to runnings everything to perfection. You cannot have to much memory. Pixilation and skips is all to do with lack of memory. 256 will just about do for now, but 512 will be there just around the corner. If your getting such an exspensive and beefy card anyway, you don't want to find that it's outdated all because you ran out of memory. If you don't get 512m, I would go for a lower spec card as it's a bit of a waste.

[kahnindustries]

or here

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/nvi ... gtx_512mb/

and a bit more here

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphi ... index.html

[alevel17]

Argh lol I was half hoping someone would bring me down and tell me that the 256 was just as good as the 512 in reality and like most "top end chasers" the difference would be negligable and only applicable to the highest of high end users.

Reading the reviews I started to get that sinking feeling that this was not the case and there really is a significant difference across the board for all users and that for future proofing its a must, and trust me this system is built around future proofing to the best of my ability
(this means I'm going to be silly and spend more money than I planned for)

*sigh* looks like I'll order the 512 then but i'm going to cry when in a few months its already been superceded by all the companies out there trying to best Nvidia's challenge.

[LanceCorp]

What was I saying again?

My PC has a piddling 512MB and I really feel the need to upgrade to 1GB for X3 (and a couple of other games, but they're not relevant).

Having spent a day turning the house upside down trying to find the original spec sheet for my PC and failing miserably, I'm in need of help.

What do I need to know about my PC and what's the best way to upgrade the memory?

You really dont need to download anything. you can find out by right clicking on my computer, then click proprities, then hardware, click on device manager. theres your whole computer layout right their with out having to worrie about spyware.