I laugh at all the people saying don't get 256meg videocards.

[mastertech01]

I love 256MB video cards. When they are released many people with the 128MB video cards just cant resist them. Then they sell thier 128MB video cards on the FS forum, where people like myself whom otherwise would not be able to afford the 128, much less the 256, can find a good deal and actually own the very capable 128MB version. Its trickle down economics..

God bless you 256MB video card owners.. 😀

 

[mchammer187]

500 now or 200 now and 200 later?

easy choice IMO because the extra 300 will be an extra 10-15% performance gain

the 200 later will be a 50-100% performance gain over your $500 paperweigt in a year 😀

 

[Wolfsraider]

Originally posted by: ahmedaf
By the time games really require 256mb, your current graphic cards features and speed would be too limited for it to be any use.


Nowadays videocards usually become obsolete in 1.5 years for anyone but the most hardcore of gamers, who probably upgrade every 6 months to a year to a faster card.

If ATI was to come out with a 1GB card today, it would still be obsolete aa year and a half down the road even though by then the developers would only have caught up o 256mb, because it would be much slower and outdated feature wise.

just to clarify,

i bought a 9700 pro last september 2002,are you saying i should sell it next march 2004?
i will be outside your boundries then, as i wont upgrade untill 2005 or until it becomes too slow to play games comfortably.i have a 21 inch monitor that can play at 800x600 if necessary.

although i agree it isn't justifiable for me others may have different opinions lol

but when i build my new systems, i want the best i can afford,as i rarely upgrade individal parts (so there are fewer bottlenecks)

mike

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: FearoftheNight

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
The fastest card I own is a gf2 mx 200 :Q

*chokes*

Funny thing is, it's sitting on top of my dresser. I use a matrox g400 in my main machine, and my other (headless server) machine is an matx system with integrated everything. 🙂

 

[NOX]

I understand what both sides are saying, and yes it is true people were saying 128MB was overkill only a short time ago, however look where we are now. With HL2 and other top notch tittles slowly making its way into production and then on to store shelves. It will be only a short time before 256MB will be a valid option and affordable, however I agree with most that right now 256MB is not needed.

I've been using a 64MB Ti4200 for the past few years (or year and a half?), and I believe it is about coming to an end for the top level games. I can still play all the Q3 engine, UT03 engine etc... however I don't believe or I know it won't do so well with the newer engines coming out like HL2 and D3 etc. And I do believe those games like HL2 and D3 will at the least require 128MB of onboard memory.

 

[squash213]

Good thread..... I came across it searching for the same exact question...good argument from both sides... I thought of a question though...

If you take a high end card today (i.e. 9800 pro 128mb) and run say... quake 3 or even quake 2 on it, can you run it with absolutely everything turned all the way up within game and on the card and still get over 60fps?

Point being will a card two years from now be able to run HL2 with everything turned up at 60+fps?

Something for discussion...

 

[Atlantean]

Yeah yeah nobody cares... I agree that there will be a necessity for them sometime soon, but I am not sure how long... and as for the future-proof statement, there is no such thing as future-proof. So if someone wants to get a 128 mb card let them, if someone wants a 256 mb card let them, but sooner or later both of them will have to upgrade.

 

[Mitzi]

Originally posted by: squash213
Good thread..... I came across it searching for the same exact question...good argument from both sides... I thought of a question though...

If you take a high end card today (i.e. 9800 pro 128mb) and run say... quake 3 or even quake 2 on it, can you run it with absolutely everything turned all the way up within game and on the card and still get over 60fps?

Point being will a card two years from now be able to run HL2 with everything turned up at 60+fps?

Something for discussion...

Yes..in 2 years time I'd say any budget will be easily able to run todays games (and HL2/Doom 3 etc) at high resolutions at 60 fps with all eye candy switched on.

Todays cards make short work of games which are two years old (errmm.... Medal of Honour..I think thats about 2 years old), my Ti4600 made short work of games which were two years old at the time of its release (errmmm...Quake III, Half Life, Unreal Tournie etc etc which were all around 2 years old at the time...). I'm sure this trend will continue in future.

 

[oldfart]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Technology is relentless and therefore it follows the fantasy -> reality -> standard -> obsolete timeline.

Well put BFG

I remember when people said the 12 Meg voodoo 2 was not needed over the 8 Meg version. Proved wrong
There were many discussions about 32 Meg vs 64 Meg video cards. We know what the outcome of that was.
Same for 64 Vs 128.
Now we are @ 128 vs 256.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: oldfart

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Technology is relentless and therefore it follows the fantasy -> reality -> standard -> obsolete timeline.

Well put BFG

I remember when people said the 12 Meg voodoo 2 was not needed over the 8 Meg version. Proved wrong
There were many discussions about 32 Meg vs 64 Meg video cards. We know what the outcome of that was.
Same for 64 Vs 128.
Now we are @ 128 vs 256.

Ah, if only my Radeon 9100 had 512 MB of RAM, I wouldn't have to upgrade until sometime in 2006. 😛

Balance is important. A 5600/9600 with 256 MB of RAM is an utter waste because the GPU is already the bottleneck. On the highest end cards 128 vs 256 is debatable at best. Right now 256 may show a minute performance increase. By the time 256 shows a marked improvement over 128, there will likely be faster, cheaper cards available.

 

[AMCRambler]

When I say my 4600 will run anything, I mean anything at what I consider reasonable resolution and graphics settings. 1024 x 768, 32 bit, no AA/trilinear filtering whatever, mid to high level details on. I just don't notice a difference in the graphics with all that other stuff enabled. Maybe at 1600x 1200 you can see a difference but once again I have a 17 inch monitor. Running at resolutions that high is ridiculousm for me. Now if you're a gaming freak who needs to have dual monitors with 21 inch displays, then be my guest and drop 400 bucks on a video card. I'm quite happy with what I've got and I think for the majority of people out there, the same thing applies.

 

[Medicated858]

Originally posted by: Regs

Originally posted by: Sideswipe001
That extra memory does matter in things like FSAA and Ansio, especially when running it at higher resolutions. The 9800 Pro with 256 is faster in some benchmarks (1280x1024 and up) with FSAA and stuff turned on than the 128 version.

No, it's not a lot faster. And no, it's not in most things any faster. But it does do something. You should be arguing that the 256 versions are not worth the extra money for the next to negilgible gain, not that they are completely worthless. If someone offered to give you a 128 9800 Pro or the 256 one for free, one or the other, wouldn't you take the 256 one? I would.

Agreed, except you missed some points.

1. Like you stated you may see some differences in high Res with AA/AF, maybe a maximum of 2-3 frames difference. That means you would need a monitor that supports 1280x1024 @ 85 Hertz = a 500 dollar monitor, for it make any noticable performance increase at all if it does make a performance increase at all. Have one of those monitors?? If not, even the 256 MBs that is somewhat worthless is now really worthless.

I do I do naw nana naw na

 

[SkaarjMaster]

This thread is interesting and my response is the same to the people that say don't get 1 GB or 2GB of system memory because this is a waste. If some of this was already said in this thread, then I apologize but here's my opinion on this matter. There are two main points to this argument: cost and upgrading frequency. The cost for these boards is kinda high right now and I wouldn't get one now, but that shouldn't stop the people that can afford it to get one. If you upgrade a lot, then it may seem like it's not worth it and you're probably right; but for the people that hardly ever upgrade or do a massive upgrade every 2-5 years, then it might be worth it. I plan on getting a Radeon 9800Pro 256MB for my new system build in about 4 months.

As far as games, there have been some valid points regarding AA and AF, resolutions, dual monitors and stuff. For anyone that plays UT2003 custom maps, 256MB of video RAM and 1GB of system RAM can help a lot. Ever play the map DM-2019? It requires 640MB of system RAM to run. I'm sure the more video RAM the better for this map. Of course, this is only one map, so take that as you will. Also, as far as the future, I'm sure there are a lot of people saving their money for that first PCI Express video card, hehe.

Holy carp! Is UT2003 a year old already?!

 

[Jeff7181]

It's kinda dumb to buy a video card to plan for future games. Wait till you have the game you want to play in your hands... then find out what hardware you need to run it at a satisfactory rate. ATI is rubbing their greedy little hands together with all the people buying 9800 Pro's, and all the people who will be buying the XT's in anticipation of Half Life 2. nVidia is doing the same thing with Doom3.

 

[Regs]

Holy carp! Is UT2003 a year old already?!

How can you not be sick of that game!? 😉

 

[SkaarjMaster]

Jeff7181, some of us don't buy a video card everytime a new game comes out. .....what the?

Regs, with a forum name like mine do you think there are any other games for me besides the Unreal series, hehe. Actually, my favorite two games are UT and UT2003! I'm still downloading and playing custom maps for both games; although, I haven't played UT online for several months.

 

[madcow235]

1. Like you stated you may see some differences in high Res with AA/AF, maybe a maximum of 2-3 frames difference. That means you would need a monitor that supports 1280x1024 @ 85 Hertz = a 500 dollar monitor, for it make any noticable performance increase at all if it does make a performance increase at all. Have one of those monitors?? If not, even the 256 MBs that is somewhat worthless is now really worthless.

LMAO 1280x1024 at 85hz=$500 well maybe in australia but in The US that is a joke. Hell my viewsonic 19in does 1600x1400 at 85hz and it only cost $250. Maybe 1280x1024 costs more because it isnt a standard resolution 😀

 

[arcenite]

My ViewSonic A90-2 (3 year old 19" monitor) does 1280x1024 @ 85hz (it's actually my preferred resolution) and I don't remember this monitor costing any more than 300$ when I bought it...

Bill

 

[BenSkywalker]

You can easily make use of 256MB cards now, I can more then halve the framerate on my Ti4200 128MB due to exceeding RAM on Quake3 engine games from over a year ago. It depends greatly on how you are going to use your hardware, and if you are going to go outside of what the developers have as straight forward options. BTW- If anyone wants to see the limitations of a 128MB boards in a now aging game- load up the level in JKII where you have to sneak around, crank all settings and watch your framerate. Now disable texture compression(in certain sections you can drop from near tripple digits to near single digits, most levels it is perfectly fine however).

There are other factors coming up also(already visible in SplinterCell and Halo). With newer rendering techniques it may become necessary to add yet another full size back frame buffer for proper AA. Combine that with shader programs being stored in on board RAM and increasing texture useage and there really is a lot of good reasons that can make 256MB viable. Is it worth it for most people? Likely not. If the board is too slow, then it won't benefit you nor will it be a major factor if you are willing to forego a few visual benefits for the sake of speed.

 

[suklee]

Originally posted by: Regs

Holy carp! Is UT2003 a year old already?!

How can you not be sick of that game!? 😉

Red Orchestra

I haven't tried it, I don't own UT2003 😛 But I've heard great things

 

[AMCRambler]

I still love it! One of the best games ever made! As long as you download new maps to play on, it just doesn't get old. I'm all about multiplayer head to head action though. Maybe you guys were only into it for the single player mode. I hardly ever play that. the mods and new game types out for it are cool too. If you're bored with it I recommend downloading the Mutant mod. It rocks. Another good one is Greed. Game makers made a smart move when they started including development kits with the games. Greatly increases the amount of aftermarket addons. It's kind of like Linux being open source.

 

[zephyrprime]

In today's games, 256 = pointless, and top end video cards have such short life cycles that it's a waste of money to buy one, hoping that it will play the most demanding games in a year, just cause it has 256 MB of memory, rather than 128.

Bingo. We will of course need 256MB in the near future and heck, someday we'll have 1GB on our video cards but not right now.

ERY slow (32-bit/66MHz as opposed to - Radeon 9800? 128-bit-~500MHz?).

More like 32-bit/533MHz.

 

[mchammer187]

Originally posted by: oldfart

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Technology is relentless and therefore it follows the fantasy -> reality -> standard -> obsolete timeline.

Well put BFG

I remember when people said the 12 Meg voodoo 2 was not needed over the 8 Meg version. Proved wrong
There were many discussions about 32 Meg vs 64 Meg video cards. We know what the outcome of that was.
Same for 64 Vs 128.
Now we are @ 128 vs 256.

i agree completely

basically you are looking @ $200 more for a 256 MB Radeon 9800 Pro and a 128 Radeon 9800 Pro

it is < 5% faster than the 128 MB in virtually all of todays games
option a

$500 video card now radeon 9800 256 MB

option 2

$200 vid card now Radeon 9700 Pro


the 9800 is at best 20% faster than the 9700 Pro and across the board i'd say 10-12% faster

but $300 on a new video card next year + the money you get by selling the radeon 9700 Pro would go towards a card that is a generation ahead of the 9800 and wiill have 256 MB standard


easy decision to make IMO unless you have money to burn


what i'm trying to says is 256 MB is a waste on a 9800 Pro because 128 MB is more than enough
i will by a card that deserves the 256 MB and i dont think the amout of memory is the limiting factor on the card it is the gpu itself

to those that bought 128 MB Radeon 8500s and 128 MB Ti200's how long did you own them for

if it was 1 year or less it was a waste IMO but at least that was only $20-40 vs $200

 

[GnomeCop]

This is America, if you want it, and your expenses allow you to afford it comfortably, then buy it. Who cares?
One guy wants to buy it and 3 other scream: "But its a waste of money!"
They need to realize its not their money to spend anyways.

 

[yhelothar]

no 256MB would never be useful with that card... why?
simply is because it doesn't have the power to feed all that memory...
it's like having a 486 with 512MB EDO ram(yeah i know it's not possible), you have all that memory.. but you'll never use the applications that will use that much memory.. and even when you do have an app that can use all that memory.. you won't have enough power to run it...
my analogy...