If this is the new trend ..we may never need to upgrade.

[GodisanAtheist]

Guild Wars 2 needs to happen and happen soon.

 

[at80eighty]

bummed about the Alan Wake news, ah well

Games I'm looking forward to play once I rebuild a rig:

Crysis 2
AvP 3
Mafia 2
Bioshock 2

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands isnt looking too shabby either
crossing my fingers that Hitman 5 will be out this year

 

[PingviN]

Im seriously consideringen jumping the 2010 GPU update. My HD4870 512MB is doing it's job and there are absolutely NO interesting titles coming up in said timeframe.

 

[Dribble]

Got to basically agree. If you only have an average sized monitor (say 1680*1050) and are happy playing games at high details not max (i.e. basically looks just as pretty as max unless you pause the game and spend 10 minutes comparing the images) then you hardly need more then an 8800GT, let alone anything newer.

I know because I upgraded from an 8800GT to a o/c GTX 260 when they were cheap last year. Other then crysis it mostly allowed me to turn up the AA - does it make a huge difference to my gaming experience? Not really right now, it might start to show it's worth when I buy a 1920*1080 120hz monitor, but until then it's benefit is limited.

What would I gain by getting a newer card. DX11 in dirt 2/avp? tbh I bet you hardly notice again - sure the static screen shots look nicer but when playing the game does it really make that much of a difference? - doubt it.

 

[Hauk]

The main draw for me with the new cards is their power. Plenty of DX9 & DX10 games out there that bring previous gen cards to their knees. 5870 offers amazing single gpu capability; nVidia hopefully follows suit next month. DX11 is here but not the only reason to upgrade.

 

[Borealis7]

while i agree we have plenty of computational power in our VGA cards today, i would like to see a shift towards less power consumption and less heat. for instance, die shrinks of current cards purely for those purposes and not to add more transistors and more power.

but i think we would always need to upgrade hardware because there will always be new technologies like DX11 is new now, there will be new features like EyeFinity or new ports to hook screens to.
also driver support for old hardware on new OSs will become an issue at some point and dont forget, card do die eventually. so there is no escape from upgrading.

 

[poohbear]

well starcraft 2 & diablo3 wont need anything more than a 9800gt even at high resolutions, Blizzard is'nt known for pushing hardware.

I think now that PC & console games are so closely linked, we wont see any major graphics/physics innovations until the next gen console hardware (2012 or 2013), and by then we'll have DX13-14. That's just the way the industry has become.

I upgraded from an 8800gt that lasted me 2 years+ to a 5770 which i hope will last me another 2 years. (i game @ 1920x1200) Much better than 10 years ago when moore's law was in full effect.

 

[crisium]

Hell, I'm glad the technology is more or less stagnant. Since Crysis, more than 2 years ago, only a few games have been as equally demanding. Look at the difference in graphic card performance between Oblivion and Crysis which were only 20 months apart.

That trend has slowed down, and it's fine by me. Even console ports look better thanks to higher res and AA. I welcome better graphics, but my wallet wouldn't be able to keep up so I'm willing to wait until the new console come out in ~2012.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Guild Wars 2 needs to happen and happen soon.

Nice to see another GWer on AT 😀
I just up-ed to a i7 920 and 2x 24" 1080p monitors while keeping my 4890. Don't feel it's justified paying 2x the cost of the 4890 for the 5850.

 

[Leyawiin]

I'm still comfortably gaming with an over 3 year old 8800 GTX. After two years I put an aftermarket HSF on it and OC'd it to Ultra levels. The biggest improvement was moving it to a new build last summer with a PII X4 955 (finally lifted the CPU bottleneck off it completely). Beginning with that card I have noticed my upgrade schedule has slowed down quite a bit over what it was from 2000 to 2007 (when I replace the GPU almost every year). My expectation now for a new card would be at least two years of use, maybe three. We'll see what NV has in store this spring. I'm in no rush.

 

[Shmee]

I am looking forward to starcraft 2 and doom 4. and quake 5 😀

 

[Compddd]

Consoles are garbage and will disappear within 10 years as the line between them and PCs blur.

 

[happy medium]

Just a heads up, BC2 is having major problems with the latest Nvidia hardware, if you need another reason to go ATI. Hopefully they'll have it ironed out by release 🙁

Well this is what I've read ....About Battle Company 2


"For example, I managed to play this game on my relatively old computer running a Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450, 4GB of DDR2 memory and a GeForce GTX 260 [one of the first GT200 cards made]. This setup managed to run the game in DX10 on both Windows Vista and Windows 7 at 1920x1080 using all settings on "High" and 4x Anti-Aliasing. Not once I did experience lag as a result of my system."

So once again if you have a mid range card ,this game will run fine.
Still no reason to upgrade for me.
I guess this is good news.

I read it here..
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2010/2/13/battlefield-bad-company-2-beta-impressions.aspx

 

[nyker96]

I know lot of you are supporters of pc gaming, I've been exclusively pc for games but now many of the newer games I want to play esp. hack and slash types I enjoy are not coming to pc. so I might just stop buying video cards and save up for a 360. it's a bit sad too see console getting the good games even know pc graphics at dx10 even is superior by far.

 

[digitaldurandal]

Never said PC gaming was dying . Just seems like more and more games are ports or dont really need anything more then a gtx 260/5770.

Crysis 2 at the end of the year? anything else?

BFBC2 is PC dx 11 afaik. Dirt2 dx11.

Personally I cannot stand the lacking AF and AA on console games. My wife plays CODMW2 on the console and my eyes cry.

But the real killer I guess is the lack of keyboard mouse support. If PS3 had implemented mouse in every game I might not be upgrading my PC anymore.

There are releases to push your hardware, but you ARE right - many games in the last few years simply do not. In one way it is good, your new hardware will last longer before you absolutely have to upgrade. In another way it is bad, we're not pushing technology as quickly perhaps.

One good thing is, many companies do such a poor job of porting - you either A) will still need crossfire 5970s to get good frames or B) you wont want to bother playing it! 😛

 

[happy medium]

I had a xbox for mabe 2/3 months , I just don't like the controller. Good for Racing games though.
'Xbox 360 with mouse support? In my dreams.