Dragon Age Origins, Hardware Question.

Locut0s

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
22,205
44
91
I'm psyched about this game but was wondering what kind of resolution do you think I could get out of my older Gefore 8800 GTS? A year or more back this was a good card, now not so much. What kind of rez do you think I could make playable? By the way my monitor is working against me here as I have a 30" LCD, that means a native resolution of 2560x1600. Doubt I can make that playable right?
 
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Dahak

Diamond Member
Mar 2, 2000
3,752
25
91
I have that same card, but only on a 19 inch monitor, I just got DA yesterday as well but have no had a chance to install it yet. I'll see if it can max it out on mine and let you know
 

Locut0s

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
22,205
44
91
I have that same card, but only on a 19 inch monitor, I just got DA yesterday as well but have no had a chance to install it yet. I'll see if it can max it out on mine and let you know

Thanks that would be great. Let me know what max rez you can get to and still comfortably play :)
 

mwmorph

Diamond Member
Dec 27, 2004
8,877
1
81
I run it at 1280x1024 4XAA, max everything else and I'm getting an average 60FPS for reference.

I have Core2Duo @ 3.5ghz
4gig ram
HD 4870 1GB
Win 7 64bit

A 8800GT 512mb is about 60-70% as fast as a 4870 1GB depending on resolution and AA level so take that as you will.

2560x1600 is ~315% as many pixels as 1280x1024, but of course the scaling wont be linear. I'd say 2560x1600, no AA, high quality would be borderline, but I don't think it would be playable, maybe low quality or lowish mid would work though.
 
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Locut0s

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
22,205
44
91
I run it at 1280x1024 4XAA, max everything else and I'm getting an average 60FPS for reference.

I have Core2Duo @ 3.5ghz
4gig ram
HD 4870 1GB
Win 7 64bit

A 8800GT 512mb is about 60-70% as fast as a 4870 1GB depending on resolution and AA level so take that as you will.

2560x1600 is ~315% as many pixels as 1280x1024, but of course the scaling wont be linear. I'd say 2560x1600, no AA, high quality would be borderline, but I don't think it would be playable, maybe low quality or lowish mid would work though.

Doing some quick math it sounds like I would be getting something like 19 frames a second at 2560x1600 with everything being equal and swapping out your card for mine. Maybe a frame or two more if the game is at all CPU bound and well multi-threaded as I have a Core2 Quad. At any rate not really playable. So I'd probably be looking at running something like 1680x1050 or maybe 1980x1080 (1080p if I turned some things down from max.) Not too shabby actually. I know it will look a little odd with pixel scaling but shouldn't look too bad. Alternatively I have a few things I should be able to sell for a few hundred bucks and get a more modern card :D
 

mwmorph

Diamond Member
Dec 27, 2004
8,877
1
81
Doing some quick math it sounds like I would be getting something like 19 frames a second at 2560x1600 with everything being equal and swapping out your card for mine. Maybe a frame or two more if the game is at all CPU bound and well multi-threaded as I have a Core2 Quad. At any rate not really playable. So I'd probably be looking at running something like 1680x1050 or maybe 1980x1080 (1080p if I turned some things down from max.) Not too shabby actually. I know it will look a little odd with pixel scaling but shouldn't look too bad. Alternatively I have a few things I should be able to sell for a few hundred bucks and get a more modern card :D

It's a little more complicated because GPUs have a sweet spot resolution wise and so, scaling isn't linear. Once you go above a certain predetermined resolution, bottlenecks show up and FPS starts to degrade non linearly. When you get up to high resolutions, it's usually because of insufficient memory bandwidth or frame buffer.

For example, 1920x1200 is 1.3x the pixels of 1680x1050. When we see here, the 8800GT 512MB falls takes a 1.45x penalty from going 1680x1050 4xAA to 1920x1200 4xAA in the sum of all benchmarks numbers which means high rez + AA stresses the memory subsystem too much.

With medium textures and 0XAA, i think you might be able to get away with 2560x1600. I believe you will be able to run those settings at 1920x1080 no problem.
 

citan x

Member
Oct 6, 2005
139
1
81
You have the same setup as I do. If you play it, let me know how the experience was.

After a lot of thought, I went with the PS3 version simply because I thought 108" in 720p (although I was hoping it was at least 1080p) is better than 30" in 1600p.
 

WaitingForNehalem

Platinum Member
Aug 24, 2008
2,497
0
71
You have the same setup as I do. If you play it, let me know how the experience was.

After a lot of thought, I went with the PS3 version simply because I thought 108" in 720p (although I was hoping it was at least 1080p) is better than 30" in 1600p.

You really should have gotten it on the PC. Watch the gamespot review.
 

NoSoup4You

Golden Member
Feb 12, 2007
1,253
6
81
My pc runs the game at 1920x1080 with 8xAA and max settings, vsync on. Never stutters, it's perfectly smooth all the way through though I haven't checked actual frames/sec. C2D @ 3.6Ghz, GTX260.

I'd like to know how your pc runs it at 1600p with no AA though. Who knows, it just might work!
 

Jetster

Member
Aug 1, 2005
105
0
0
I play this game on my 9600gt, which is slower than 8800gts, at 1680*1050, everything either maxed or on high, not sure what my fps is, but very smooth, never noticed any choppy movement. Also agree with everyone above, support pc gaming, get the pc version, and you'll have a much better experience, just go read or watch all the reviews, they all pretty much say pc version is better, better control, graphic and combat.
 

dighn

Lifer
Aug 12, 2001
22,820
4
81
I can run this fine on my 8600M (well, equivalent Quadro to be exact) at 1440x900 at medium. And it doesn't look half bad! I'm very pleased that I can play this on a PC. It just wouldn't be the same on the PS3/XBox.

So far it looks like a pretty deep and polished game. Gonna have a lot of fun with this over the weekend!
 

MStele

Senior member
Sep 14, 2009
410
0
0
I play at 1920X1200 maxed and the only time i having problems are during cutscenes where some hitching occurs on occasion. Otherwise everything looks great. It is a great looking game imo.

C2D E6850 3.0 Ghz
Geforce 260 216
Win7Pro-64
 

Hadsus

Golden Member
Aug 14, 2003
1,135
0
76
second this.

I think the point of the thread is to determine if the PC version will run adequately with older hardware....has nothing to do with supporting PC gaming. No one wants to waste $50+.

BTW, I'm in the same boat.....see sig. I've got a 24 inch LCD and am wondering about how this would run.
 
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cronos

Diamond Member
Nov 7, 2001
9,380
26
101
Geforce 8800 GS/384
22" @ 1680 x 1050
Core 2 Duo E4400 (2 GHz)

Just did the intro part and it works fine for me. I believe I have most settings at high but I don't have AA turned on. Maybe I'll try some different settings tonight.
 

Hadsus

Golden Member
Aug 14, 2003
1,135
0
76
Geforce 8800 GS/384
22" @ 1680 x 1050
Core 2 Duo E4400 (2 GHz)

Just did the intro part and it works fine for me. I believe I have most settings at high but I don't have AA turned on. Maybe I'll try some different settings tonight.

Thanks for posting that....my rig is similar...but I'm pushing a 24 inch screen (1900X1200).
 

Kalmah

Diamond Member
Oct 2, 2003
3,692
1
76
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (3ghz)
nvidia geforce 8800 (512mb)
2 gb ram running at 800mhz
19" screen at 1280x1024
windows xp


I have graphics quality set to medium
AA set to 4
Texture detail set to max.

It's fairly smooth. Definitely playable without any problems. On some large cutscenes the framerate gets a little low and annoying. But not a big deal really.
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (3ghz)
nvidia geforce 8800 (512mb)
2 gb ram running at 800mhz
19" screen at 1280x1024
windows xp


I have graphics quality set to medium
AA set to 4
Texture detail set to max.

It's fairly smooth. Definitely playable without any problems. On some large cutscenes the framerate gets a little low and annoying. But not a big deal really.

You should drop that AA and set all the graphics to high or at least to 2x.
 

Mem

Lifer
Apr 23, 2000
21,476
13
81
I'm playing at 1920x1080 res with my old X2 3800 CPU,4GB,4870 card,all settings to max except no AA.
 

Kalmah

Diamond Member
Oct 2, 2003
3,692
1
76
You should drop that AA and set all the graphics to high or at least to 2x.

I have since my post actually. Another thing that I did that gave me a HUGE performance boost..

Go into the nvidia control panel and set texture filtering quality from default 'quality' to 'performance'. I didn't notice a difference in quality but I must have added ~10fps on average.