How would a AGP 6600 or 6600GT compare with a 9800Pro or 9800XT?

[deadken]

A buddy has a 9700Pro and plays BF2 on occasion. Needless to say his FPS isn't great. I was gonna pop in my Sons 9800Pro (R350 core) and see how big the improvement was, but my sons 9800Pro died (out of the blue, running stock w/Artic Cooler Rev.3, just F@H). So, I was looking to upgrade my friend to a 9800Pro (w/R360 hopefully) and run it @ XT speeds. If he is unhappy with the gains, I would take the card to replace my sons dead 9800Pro.

I have seen quite a few 6600's and 6600GT's around the F/S forums for not much more then the 9800Pros. How do these hold up in BF2 compared to the 9800s? I know that the 6800GT I got rid of wasn't that great in BF2. I could check out VGA charts, but I want real world comparisons in BF2 in particular.

-Thanks in advance for any help/info you can give, Ken

 

[imported_Kiwi]

You should have that silly BF2 limitation on answers in the message title/ subtitle to avoid annoying anyone who might consider shooters beneath contempt (or thereabouts).

 

[apoppin]

the 6600GT is faster than the 9800xt . . . say [guess] around +20%

there are some current hot deals on faster cards [e.g. $135 after MIR for a 6800gs in AGP] that would spank the 9800xt and even the 6600gt.

 

[Auric]

If your son is content with a 9800 then perhaps you should just get another 9800 or 6600 to replace the failed one and consider your friend's seperately by axing the question what would be required to play at certain desired resolution and quality settings given certain system specs. 'cause it may not be worth bothering replacing the 9700 with something which performs so similarly. Another tack would be shunting the 9700 over to your son if his games do require the minor advantage of the 9800, then looking at an X800, 6800 or 7600 for your friend.

 

[Captante]

The 6600GT is a bit faster then a 9800XT/Pro but not 20% except in an occasional benchmark which favors Nvidia ... a plain vanilla 6600 will be a lot slower.

The difference between a 9700 & a 9800 Pro will me minimal, you'll be able to measure it but may not see it with the naked eye.

 

[mrfatboy]

I'm playing bf2 with an athlon xp 2000 and 9800pro. Everything on low and 800 x600 res. I get 50 -70 frames (normal gameplay).

 

[deadken]

Originally posted by: mrfatboy
I'm playing bf2 with an athlon xp 2000 and 9800pro. Everything on low and 800 x600 res. I get 50 -70 frames (normal gameplay).

Do you have ATI Tray Tools? What is your minimum FPS on BF2? I have no problem with an average of 50FPS, as long as the lowest FPS doesn't get below 30. He keeps on sputtering down @ 17FPS.

I recognize that a 9800Pro would have similar performance to a 9700Pro, but what I don't know is how big of a difference the 9800XT clock and memory speeds make. I don't think that I would get another R350 9800Pro at this point. It'd have to be R360 so that I would know it could achieve 9800XT speeds.

 

[mrfatboy]

I don't have ATI tray tools installed. The frame rate can dip below 50 once in a while especially with Arty. The frame rate is mainly around 50. It's very playable but it just doesn't look great. However, with everything turn down low it is easier to see the enemy (lack of shadows, thick grass).

 

[deadken]

Thanks, Even if he can just run 30FPS, that would eliminate most of his problems... One other thing, do you have viewing distance set to %100?

 

[mrfatboy]

yes, view distance at 100% and sound on medium. Everything else is off or low.

 

[Modular]

Here's what my 6600gt can do.
I run BF2 at mostly medium, except shadows and lights on low, 2xQ AA enabled through the nVidia driver
control panel, AF @ 8X, view distance at 100% at 1024 x 768. I would say that my lowest frames are 35 ish. I average 45-50.

My rig:
P4 Socket 478 @ 2.8ghz with a 533mhz FSB
1.5GB Corsair Value Ram <-----great stuff!
80BG Maxtor Ultra IDE
100GB Maxtor SATA
400GB Seagate SATA
Leadtek 6600gt AGP with Zalman AlCu VF-700 cooler

One thing to consider is that I use AA for this game and still get those decet FPS. Anti-aliasing is a MUST in this game as it looks terribad without it IMO. AA takes alot of GPU horsepower so I bet without it frames would be higher. The 2xQ AA is amazing BTW (Visually looks like 4x AA without the performance hit).

The other thing to take into consideration is RAM. I have 1.5GB of RAM in my build. I initially only had 512mb and that is not enough for BF2. Anything below 1024 is going to have some deep drops in FPS simply because of the large page file usage that will be required to run BF2.

And finally a SATA HDD will help alot in this game for load times and initial map jerkiness.

All that to say that if you decide to go with a 6600gt you won't be disappointed. It's a decent card for BF2, but there are better cards becomeing available for about the same price range with more horsepower. like the 6800gs. Also, if you don't have enough RAM, you can be running a 7950Gx2 and you won't get good FPS in BF2.

What was it that you disliked about your 6800gt for BF2?

 

[BassBomb]

I was able to play

1280x1024 high everything, medium textures, 100% DD, 2x AA, High AF

very playable 30+ FPS on average i believe... 1024x768 i played samething with 4xAA
right now i lowered it to medium due to try to fix network lag problems (still wont fix!!! ping 100+ when i used to be low 40s)

 

[mrfatboy]

oh, btw, my bf2 game resolution is 800 x 600. Low but fast I rather be fast and alive then slow and dead

 

[akshayt]

6600GT may be a little faster than the 9800xt. But you may not be able to play better than 1024x768 Med with a 6600GT that too with A64 + 1GB RAM.

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: akshayt
6600GT may be a little faster than the 9800xt. But you may not be able to play better than 1024x768 Med with a 6600GT that too with A64 + 1GB RAM.

You fool, learn to read... clearly I could do it

 

[secretanchitman]

i installed battlefield 2 yesterday and im running a 6600GT with 2GBs of ram and an intel pentium 4 2.4C @ 2.9Ghz. i can run all medium-high settings and 2xAA 4xAF enabled and still get good frames (50+).

but my card is overclocked to 615/1.08. yes its on stock cooling.

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: secretanchitman
i installed battlefield 2 yesterday and im running a 6600GT with 2GBs of ram and an intel pentium 4 2.4C @ 2.9Ghz. i can run all medium-high settings and 2xAA 4xAF enabled and still get good frames (50+).

but my card is overclocked to 615/1.08. yes its on stock cooling.

Thats killer OC for our card, pci-e/agp? what manufacturer?

 

[akshayt]

A 6600GT on stock with 1GB RAM won't manage more than what I told you, maybe a little more, but not more than that, if you want good performance. An average of less than 40-50FPS can not be called decent performance.


If you really want the game to be smooth, snappy and fast, don't expect much from a 9800Pro/XT, at best 1024x768 Medium or so.

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: akshayt
A 6600GT on stock with 1GB RAM won't manage more than what I told you, maybe a little more, but not more than that, if you want good performance. An average of less than 40-50FPS can not be called decent performance.


If you really want the game to be smooth, snappy and fast, don't expect much from a 9800Pro/XT, at best 1024x768 Medium or so.

Do you have a 6600GT? Thats what I thought. 1024x768 if I drop AA to 2x I get more like 40FPS+. Clearly I can manage much more than what you claim.

 

[deadken]

Thanks for all of the input. Honestly, if he is playing @ 800x600 with everything on LOW + viewing distance on %80 (it might be %85) and still drops to 17fps in game then running 800x600 with all low + %100 with over 30fps would be a HUGE improvement.