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Change of Topic: LCD release path for next few months

Starbuck1975

Starbuck1975

Lifer
My computer was in drastic need of an overhaul as of this time last year, and around June, I was finally able to put the funds together for a complete upgrade. At the time, I decided to go dual core, and chose a GPU that gave the best bang for the buck value.
At the time, Intel Core Duo was still a bit of a question mark, and AMD X2 was readily available and affordable.

I am a gamer...plain and simple...while I don't necessarily need all of the bells and whistles turned up all the way, nor am I seeking the best framerates on the block...I just want to be able to enjoy the games I purchase, with enough power under the hood to enjoy the latest and greatest game engines.


Well Direct X10 is almost upon us, as is Vista, and given the slate of games coming out in the next year, I am somewhat concerned about what my next upgrade path should be. The specs on my system are as follows:

I will probably wait for Vista to "settle in" a bit, so we are probably looking at a mid to late summer upgrade, if at all.

Abit AN8 32x
eVGA GEFORCE 7900 GT KO
2x1GB OCZ Dual Channel Platinum PC-3200
Athlon X2 3800+
WD Caviar SE16 250 GB SATA 2.0
2xMaxtor 40GB IDE
Soundblaster Audigy 2

Here are what I think my options are:

1. Stick with my current system as is, and then do a complete CPU/MOBO/RAM/GPU overhaul once Vista and DX10 become required for gaming, probably a year from now.

2. Upgrade my video card in the near future to an 8800 series. Only concern is that my CPU will become the bottleneck, or that an 8800 series will provide marginal performance over my current setup. Another option is to go with a faster AMD X2 processor & 8800 card given that prices are dropping on X2 processors.

3. I pulled the trigger too early, and should consider building a Core Duo machine around an 8800 series GPU by the summer
 
There is absolutely no reason to get DX10 hardware now.

Upgrade when you have something that makes you feel the need to upgrade.

I bet even Crysis runs fine on your current rig with high settings, maybe not 8xAA...
 
Your rig is fine, maybe get a Dx10 card in a year or so when the games start trickling in and Vista is more robust.
 
OC that x2 3800+ to 2.6ghz, grab a 8800gts if ya have the cash and go with it. I havnt heard of any games coming out that will push a FX-60, even Alana wake should run ok since its dual core. If you want to do a complete overhaul do so in a year or more and grab a quad core when both AMD and Intel have their next gen chips out. Upgrading to Core 2 Duo at this point, especially since u have a x2 already, would be a total waste of money since AMD's new proc is supposed to launch before summer and pwn some serious C2D @ss 😉

morgash
 
Just out of curiosity, some of you said my current rig is fine...but I am experiencing some pretty uneven performance with some games.

Neverwinter Nights 2, I had to turn down most of the eye candy to get playable framerates...I was actually pretty surprised by how poorly the game ran on my system.

Oblivion, same deal.

Now granted, I have heard and read that both of these games are system hogs. For instance, Company of Heroes runs incredibly on my system.

Another question...under the Advanced settings for my video card, I have it set such that the application controls the GPU settings, and have my slider set to the quality end of the spectrum for general performance. I then typically adjust my graphics settings from within the game controls window.

Are there certain settings I should be using from within Advanced video settings on my GPU that I may be overlooking?
 
Are you running high resolution and higher AA settings?

You should not be having frame rate issues in either oblivion or nwn2 if you arent running very high settings.
 
I typically run a resolution of 1280x1024 as my resolution...that is the recommended resolution for my Samsung SyncMaster 900NF monitor.

As for anti-aliasing, I typically turn it off, or run it at very low settings. Same for draw distances, texture details, lighting sources, etc.
 
Originally posted by: Starbuck1975
I typically run a resolution of 1280x1024 as my resolution...that is the recommended resolution for my Samsung SyncMaster 900NF monitor.

As for anti-aliasing, I typically turn it off, or run it at very low settings. Same for draw distances, texture details, lighting sources, etc.
Click to expand...

I would say something is wrong with your system then, since i run higher settings and have no issues with NWN2.
 
I would say something is wrong with your system then, since i run higher settings and have no issues with NWN2.
Click to expand...
What could be wrong with my system? I have run a few benchmarking tools like 3dMark, but it is hard for me to determine if my system is running comperable to other systems with similar configurations.

Also, I am thinking of getting a 24" LCD monitor...should I go ahead and plan on upgrading my 7900 GT KO as well? To run at native resolution, I suspect that I will have to turn off the eye candy on some games, which is fine with me...but I dont want to face a scenario where I am turning down settings and still having performance issues at native resolution.
 
Originally posted by: Starbuck1975
I would say something is wrong with your system then, since i run higher settings and have no issues with NWN2.
Click to expand...
What could be wrong with my system? I have run a few benchmarking tools like 3dMark, but it is hard for me to determine if my system is running comperable to other systems with similar configurations.

Also, I am thinking of getting a 24" LCD monitor...should I go ahead and plan on upgrading my 7900 GT KO as well? To run at native resolution, I suspect that I will have to turn off the eye candy on some games, which is fine with me...but I dont want to face a scenario where I am turning down settings and still having performance issues at native resolution.
Click to expand...

If you make the 24" plunge you'll need a system revamp. You can do it in phases though and still see improvements along the way. Going to a 24" is going to cost you some money though, $400-600 GPU at some point, $600-800 LCD, $400-$700 DDR2 C2D/AM2 platform.

In your case, the 24" is going to tie you to a faster GPU. Even if your CPU is bottlenecking the GTS/GTX, it'll be considerably better than a 7900GT at 1920. The platform upgrade can wait but it'll give you a nice boost overall as well.

In your case, I'd wait until mid-April and see how things look. 8600 (and maybe 8900) series parts April 17th and massive price drops on Intel parts April 22nd. If you got the itch to buy something today and you're not happy with your rigs performance, I'd upgrade GPU > Monitor > platform in that order.


 
The monitor upgrade is pretty much a done deal...I have seen what widescreen gaming looks like, and I do want to take the plunge.

I suppose I could go 20.1" on the widescreen LCD and my current system will probably last a bit longer.

I know with a 24" LCD, I run the risk of my GPU not having enough power to run even at native resolution.

I am waiting on 24" LCDs to come down a bit before taking the plunge...guess it makes sense to get the LCD first, see how my system runs with the games I typically play, and then consider a GPU upgrade.

Not sure I can afford a total system overhaul this year given that I just upgraded my system last summer. Pretty sad that an upgrade barely lasted me a year, considering my previous upgrade was three years prior.
 
Originally posted by: Starbuck1975
The monitor upgrade is pretty much a done deal...I have seen what widescreen gaming looks like, and I do want to take the plunge.

I suppose I could go 20.1" on the widescreen LCD and my current system will probably last a bit longer.

I know with a 24" LCD, I run the risk of my GPU not having enough power to run even at native resolution.

I am waiting on 24" LCDs to come down a bit before taking the plunge...guess it makes sense to get the LCD first, see how my system runs with the games I typically play, and then consider a GPU upgrade.

Not sure I can afford a total system overhaul this year given that I just upgraded my system last summer. Pretty sad that an upgrade barely lasted me a year, considering my previous upgrade was three years prior.
Click to expand...

I just bought a Gateway 24" so I'm in the same boat as you, Not sure which 24" you're going to be getting, but the Gateway supports 1:1, my X800 can't push any decent game in the native resolution, but there are other WS resolutions (1060x1050 or whatever the 22"'s are comes to mind) I ran HL2 at the resolution of a 22" and it looked great.

Dx10 games like Crysis, I fear will need an absolute beast of a system to run at native resolution on a 24. I plan to play Crysis, but NOT at 1920x1200, that'll take a rig I don't feel like dropping cash on. Hell one I couldn't afford to drop the cash on 🙂

anyone want to comment on how well 1:1 works, I know it's also depends on what video card. I'd like to run games decently in a resolution that will look nice on my 24" Right now I'm AGP - going to go PCI-E in a month or so - need a video card suggestion, not trying to break the bank, or do SLI/Crossfire right off the bat. But probably will before summer is over. So a card that does 1:1 well would be wonderful.

My new MB will be 939, x2 4000+ will be the CPU.



 
Originally posted by: QueBert
anyone want to comment on how well 1:1 works, I know it's also depends on what video card. I'd like to run games decently in a resolution that will look nice on my 24" Right now I'm AGP - going to go PCI-E in a month or so - need a video card suggestion, not trying to break the bank, or do SLI/Crossfire right off the bat. But probably will before summer is over. So a card that does 1:1 well would be wonderful.
Click to expand...

nVidia: Not working ATM, depending on card and drivers. For a G7x card in XP, fixed aspect ratio scaling will most likely work fine with the latest official drivers (93.71). That's what I was using for a while without issues. For a G8x card, fixed aspect ratio scaling will not work in XP. In Vista, fixed aspect ratio scaling is supposed to be supported in the 101.xx drivers, but those drivers are very buggy and crash-prone. A month from now, I bet this will be fixed, but you should definitely check it out again before buying.

ATI: Not officially included in drivers, IIRC. I don't know if there's a third party solution.
 
I'm going to recommend option 1, by then quad cores will be down in price (maybe 350 to 400) and you'll have more options for your graphics as well. the x2800's will be out and possibly the 8800 refresh. And by then nvidia should have its drivers all worked out (maybe) 😛
 
Originally posted by: QueBert

I just bought a Gateway 24" so I'm in the same boat as you, Not sure which 24" you're going to be getting, but the Gateway supports 1:1, my X800 can't push any decent game in the native resolution, but there are other WS resolutions (1060x1050 or whatever the 22"'s are comes to mind) I ran HL2 at the resolution of a 22" and it looked great.

Dx10 games like Crysis, I fear will need an absolute beast of a system to run at native resolution on a 24. I plan to play Crysis, but NOT at 1920x1200, that'll take a rig I don't feel like dropping cash on. Hell one I couldn't afford to drop the cash on 🙂

anyone want to comment on how well 1:1 works, I know it's also depends on what video card. I'd like to run games decently in a resolution that will look nice on my 24" Right now I'm AGP - going to go PCI-E in a month or so - need a video card suggestion, not trying to break the bank, or do SLI/Crossfire right off the bat. But probably will before summer is over. So a card that does 1:1 well would be wonderful.

My new MB will be 939, x2 4000+ will be the CPU.
Click to expand...

1:1 is only really significant for non-PC inputs where you want to maintain aspect and resolution, like PS3/Xbox360/HD cable and satellite/HD-DVD/Blu-Ray etc. Its also nice for PC gaming when games don't support wide screen and you don't want to stretch a 1600x1200 resolution. 1:1 via drivers for 8800 cards is currently broken, but NV did mention an upcoming fix in their latest driver notes.

I plan to play Crysis, Alan Wake and any of the first-gen DX10 games at 1920, I just might have to drop down some IQ settings. As long as minimum frames are @60 with shaders/textures set to max, that's all I'm really worried about. I won't look to upgrade or SLI until minimum frames at 1920 drop below 25 fps but that'll depend largely on how much slowdown/stuttering I see in real-world performance.

If you want to upgrade in the near future without breaking the bank, a 320MB 8800 GTS is a good choice. With rebates and some mark downs you can probably get one for $250-260. The major trade-off vs the 640MB GTS is that you won't be able to use as much AA and AF now. Most reviews show the 320MB performing similarly to the 640MB at 1600 and 1920 until you turn on AA, at which point the 320MB takes massive framerate penalties as the buffer spills into system memory.
 
#2. No reason to wait or build from scratch, IMO. X2 3800 is more than fine to handle 8800 @1920x1200/4AA. Especially if you overclock the 3800 to 2.40~2.60GHz, it's a perfect combo for high-res gaming. Welcome to the world of 1920x1200!
 
I know it's not a graphic powerhouse, but I played Scarface @ 1920x1200 on my 24", my x800 was struggling but the FPS was decent enough. I wanna go X2 + new video card for future. I'm saddened to read ATI doesn't support 1:1 and doesn't look like they will. Guess it's back to Nvidia for me
 
I went to Micro Center over lunch, and they had quite a few LCDs setup with dedicated PCs running off them, such that I was able to get a true feel for how each LCD looks. One step better, they all had Vista and some games installed, so I had the opportunity to see how the LCDs performed with gaming.

I screwed around a bit with the Gateway 24", and all I can say is WOW. The colors and clarity were quite impressive, but the 24" size was almost too much real estate for gaming. My eyes couldn't take in everything that was going on, and much of the real estate was outside of my peripheral vision. Also, there was significant stretching, as there seemed to be something off in the game scaling...granted, this was a no name FPS installed on the machine, and I would imagine that games like Oblivion or Company of Heroes would not have such distortion in scaling to widescreen.

Also had a chance to play with a Sceptre 22". In terms of color and clarity, there was no comparison to the 24". However, I actually enjoyed the 22" size a bit better. Also the price point on most 22" LCDs is quite attractive.

Now, my understanding is that 22" LCDs only come with TN panels. Are there any non-TN 22" LCDs out there, or am I stuck going 24" if I want an S-IPS panel?
 
Just to clarify, all of the sub-$1000 24" LCDs are S-PVA or P-MVA. There's also supposed to be a new 24" TN but not sure which make its going into (maybe the new Samsung 24"). The latest TNs aren't nearly as bad as the last-gen though, so if you like what you saw, don't let the TN labeling bother you. I've seen the Samsung 226BW and it was much nicer than the Dell E228wfp I had for a few days. There's also a Viewsonic and LG or Acer that have gotten pretty positive feedback.

1680x1050 will be much kinder on your GPU though. You might not even need to upgrade your card running at 1680x1050. Keep in mind you'll lose a bit in terms of multi-input functionality, but as a pure PC panel, 22" is a nice upgrade from a 19" 4:3 LCD or CRT.
 
That is what I suspected...24" may be too much LCD monitor for me right now, both in terms of my computer's ability to run games, and its overall size in general. Going 22" will also give my current rig a fighting chance, and extend my upgrade path for a little while longer.

A 20.1" LCD doesn't do it for me...I have a nearly 6 years old Samsung SyncMaster 900NF...a 19", 18" viewable flat screen CRT. It has served me well, but is starting to lose its luster in terms of color and clarity...I want to go LCD, and I want to go big...but perhaps not 24" big.

I may go check out the Samsung 226BW...from what I have seen and read, this does seem to be a fairly solid 22" option, at an attractive price point.
 
Hey star, I have a build very similar to yours and I can honestly say that 22" might be pushing the capabilities of your rig; 24" (the resolution of it, of course) might cripple it. I don't know if you've ever played Oblivion, but 1680*1050 is a bit choppy on my 22" VG2230WM (best stand and bezel in it's class btw.)
 
You could do what i just did and spring another couple hundred for the 1080 westy lol

I'm nervous if my 7800gt will be able to handle it....
 
Hey star, I have a build very similar to yours and I can honestly say that 22" might be pushing the capabilities of your rig; 24" (the resolution of it, of course) might cripple it. I don't know if you've ever played Oblivion, but 1680*1050 is a bit choppy on my 22" VG2230WM (best stand and bezel in it's class btw.)
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True, although at that resolution, there really isn't a need for AA, so turning that feature off would arguably balance things out.

Also, especially on Oblivion, I don't mind turning down some of the extras on the graphics side of the house...even draw distance doesn't bother me because I am playing as a vampire, and spend the majority of my play time dungeon crawling anyway.
 
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