Graphics Card for Unreal Tournament 3

[owensdj]

I'm looking for a graphics card primarily for the upcoming Unreal Tournament 3 for a new system. The info I've seen recommends a NVIDIA 6800GT/Ultra or 7800GT/GTX SLI. Would a GeForce 8600GTS 256MB card provide good performance for this game and some of the new games in the near future? I'm looking at a budget for the card of under about $175, if possible.

I'm also thinking of a X2 4200+ 2.2GHz processor. Would this be fast enough?

 

[heymrdj]

I'm curious too if my 8600GTS 512MB is powerful enough to play it decently and 1280x1024.

 

[onlyCOpunk]

Just find another game that is based on the Unreal Engine like Bioshock or Gears of War and try those. They should be able to at least give you an idea.

 

[Lord Banshee]

Gears of War is only for xbox 360, it is coming out for PC sometime around the time UT3, i believe.

Unreal 3 Engine current PC games:
Bioshock
Rainbow Six: Vegas
RoboBlitz
Medal of Honor: Airborne

Also check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...gine#Unreal_Engine_3_2

 

[Laminator]

Don't forget Medal of Honor: Airborne.

 

[Piuc2020]

Just because its on the same engine doesn't mean it can run the game or will run at the same settings.

 

[Lord Banshee]

Originally posted by: Piuc2020
Just because its on the same engine doesn't mean it can run the game or will run at the same settings.

Yep this is true, every dev will have there way add what they want to put on the screen if they put 10 million more poly then the next guy and 256MB more worth of textures then of coarse it will not run the same. But at the moment running games with similar engine is the only way to test, or wait for it to come out.

 

[RussianSensation]

What resolution are you going to be gaming at?

You should look into X1950Pro for $120-130 or 8600GTS for $140-150.

Bioshock
X1950Pro wins from mid-range.

Medal of Honor: Airborne
Looks like ATI architecture focused on shader performance wins here. So X1950Pro should perform well in this game too.

I would also check out benchmarks based on other games you play to compare X1950Pro to 8600GTS.

As far as the CPU goes, I'd probably pick up a cheap $100 mobo like Gigabyte P35-DS3L and something like E4400 and overclock that.

 

[Dribble]

Originally posted by: Piuc2020
Just because its on the same engine doesn't mean it can run the game or will run at the same settings.

Not quite true - they are all optimised for the consoles so you can bet someone with a dual core and a 7800GTX or equivelent (approx same power as console GPU) will get about 30fps at highish settings on a stock map at 13*7 (HD) resolution.

UT3 isn't quite as simple as custom maps and more players (consoles probably 16 player but PC's more) put much greater demands on cpu and graphics.

 

[Rage3kMoiz]

The 8600GTS is not a very good card for gaming. This card is the best for it's price range.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Thanks for posting my exact same situation, OP. In my case, I have a single core Socket 939 Opteron 148 and an x800xt (actually, a Connect3D x800 GTO unlocked to 16 pipes and overclocked to x800xt speeds).

Unreal Tournament (both the Original and 2004) is by far my favorite game, and the only reason I'm interested in upgrading is to be able to play UT3. It's too bad that Epic hasn't released any benchmarking data for the game yet (as far as I know), but I guess we'll find out in a couple weeks when the demo's released.

What kinds of settings are you hoping to play the game on? I'd like to play at 1024 x 768 with at least medium detail and 40 FPS minimum.

I wonder what would happen if I kept my single core Opteron and merely added an x1950 Pro.

What happens if x1950 Pros are available for $130 shipped, hard-to-find x1950xt for $175 shipped, and 8800 GTS for $240 shipped (lets assume some price drops in November)? Which one would you choose? If the x1950 Pro can be shown to cut the mustard for that game while the x1950xt can provide good performance and the 8800 GTS would provide excellent performance, which one would you choose?

Does anyone know if UT3 will require a Shader Model 3.0 card? Bioshock seems to require it and it uses the same engine, but will UT3 require it? I'm guessing it wouldn't simply because Epic is supposed to be known for its scaleability.

Thanks for the links, Russian Sensation.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: Dribble

UT3 isn't quite as simple as custom maps and more players (consoles probably 16 player but PC's more) put much greater demands on cpu and graphics.

Custom maps? We'll see. I saw some very impressive custom maps for UT 2004, but will hobbyist mappers be able to produce maps with any more detail than the UT 2004 maps?

I've authored five UT99 CTF maps and I have a funny feeling that I do any UT3 maps (which I do want to do) that they'll look like BSP UT99 maps (but hey--they might have fun game play!). I'm pretty sure that my maps won't stress systems nearly as much as the stock maps.

 

[Dribble]

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Custom maps? We'll see. I saw some very impressive custom maps for UT 2004, but will hobbyist mappers be able to produce maps with any more detail than the UT 2004 maps?

I've authored five UT99 CTF maps and I have a funny feeling that I do any UT3 maps (which I do want to do) that they'll look like BSP UT99 maps (but hey--they might have fun game play!). I'm pretty sure that my maps won't stress systems nearly as much as the stock maps.

Sure their will be lots of cool custom maps, however the big difference for ut3 is map size - I hear a full custom map using all original textures could be about 300mb - no downloading that between rounds ....

Any how the point was the cpu and graphics grunt required for ut2004 16p ons on a stock map is very different to what was required for 32p ons on a custom map. I'm sure ut3 warefare maps will be the same.

 

[EvilComputer92]

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

Originally posted by: Dribble

UT3 isn't quite as simple as custom maps and more players (consoles probably 16 player but PC's more) put much greater demands on cpu and graphics.

Custom maps? We'll see. I saw some very impressive custom maps for UT 2004, but will hobbyist mappers be able to produce maps with any more detail than the UT 2004 maps?

I've authored five UT99 CTF maps and I have a funny feeling that I do any UT3 maps (which I do want to do) that they'll look like BSP UT99 maps (but hey--they might have fun game play!). I'm pretty sure that my maps won't stress systems nearly as much as the stock maps.

Actually it's the opposite. The user made maps stress systems way more than the stock ones. Take a look at Hourences creations for UT2004, and you'll see maps made almost entirely of static meshes. I expect the same case with UT3. The community always ends up developing more impressive maps than the stock ones.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Dribble

Originally posted by: Piuc2020
Just because its on the same engine doesn't mean it can run the game or will run at the same settings.

Not quite true - they are all optimised for the consoles so you can bet someone with a dual core and a 7800GTX or equivelent (approx same power as console GPU) will get about 30fps at highish settings on a stock map at 13*7 (HD) resolution.

UT3 isn't quite as simple as custom maps and more players (consoles probably 16 player but PC's more) put much greater demands on cpu and graphics.

However, I know that the team behind UT3 won't cut corners like the team that did Bioshock. They will probably use it as a showcase for their engine and what it can do technology wise.