Is it worth it to upgrade from radeons' 8500 to 9700? Im a BF1942 addict.

I need it for bf1942, then again i will be paying almost $350 for this card and i need to justify spending the money. I have a 8500 now and i looked for comparisons to the 9700. I saw a review at sharkys showing them close, but what about the "real" world preformance? Thanks for any insight.

 

[Atrail]

Nah...

 

How do you like your 9700?

 

[Atrail]

I have an 8500. The performance differnece will not justify the cost IMO.

 

Anyone have a 9700 that had a 8500?

 

[Technonut]

Anyone have a 9700 that had a 8500?

Yep, both the retail 64MB and 128MB 8500. I do not regret the upgrade to the 9700. To smoothly play games with all quality options maxed is stunning IMO...

 

[dfloyd]

My friend had a G3 but now has a 9700. He plays all the games he used to play with 4x fsaa and 16x AF on and runs just as fast as it did if not faster.

Plus in games like Asherons Call II and UT 2k3 (He runs 1600 x 1200 way faster than my Geforce III runs 1024 x 768) it does make a big difference in smoothness.

 

I just got it and i am getting ready to play it for the first time.

 

[BFG10K]

The upgrade is most definitely worth it, provided you have a fast CPU. I upgraded from a Ti4600 to a 9700 Pro and it was more than worth it.

 

[jjjayb]

I got mine 2 days ago. Upgraded from an 8500. The games I used to have to turn details down on, I now have cranked to the max with 4x aa and 16x af and it's still faster than the 8500. Much better card than I expected. I'm only using a 1.2 gig thunderbird so you don't need a top of the line cpu to see the difference. I've been in awe for 2 days seeing how my games were supposed to look. Definitely worth the upgrade.

 

:Q
Wow, its amazing what a performance gain i have gotten! I now play bf 1942 @ 1600x1200 fully cranked without a hiccup. Its quite beautiful as well, well worth it imo.

 

[BP]

Yea, you need the CPU horsepower to get the most from this card.

 

My 2.1 seems to work GREAT with it. I got the boost i wanted from it with bf1942.
Im gonna go tool around on ut2k3

 

[Smilin]

I went from a GF3 Ti500 to a 9700. The Ti500 runs real similar to your 8500. I would say if this is your only reason then you should NOT upgrade. You'll get anti-aliasing, a bit better anisotropic filtering and maybe a one-notch bump up in resolution. BF1942 should run just fine on that 8500. You may want to hold out until the NV30 gets released. BF1942 is graphics intensive but an 8500 is more than adequate. A Good CPU should help minimum framerates if you need it.

UT2003 takes really nice advantage of the 9700, but not so much with BF1942.

 

[Killrose]

I was surprised at how well bf1942 demo actually ran with my old 32mb Radeon at 1024x768 32bit everything maxed. Looked better on my 8500 though, but that died on me and now i'm using a 7500.

Those 9700's need to come down a bit more in price. ;9

 

[Kenazo]

he hee. i'm running bf 1942 on a geforce2mx 400 on a athlonxp 1600 system. Stupid video card. i love the game already, i can only imagine how much better it would be with a proper video card!

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Originally posted by: Phocas
:Q
Wow, its amazing what a performance gain i have gotten! I now play bf 1942 @ 1600x1200 fully cranked without a hiccup. Its quite beautiful as well, well worth it imo.

OK, how the hell did you do that? My 9700 chokes like hell at 1600x1200 (35fps), I have to do 1024x768 to be consistent (55fps). Turning sound quality down to 11khz (yuck!) gives me another 10fps usually. My card seems to run fine on other games. See profile for my system.

EDIT: It also sucks at NWN. 45fps at 1024x768 (excellent), but 15 fps @ 1600x1200 :| My friend's GF4400 gets these numbers!!

 

hmmm, other than a fresh install and latest drivers for everything i didnt even overclock my video card. I assumed this was the norm for this video card.

 

[Lichee]

yeah, goodrevrnd, i think you need to format your system. ive heard lots of performance increases formatting after going from nvidia to the 9700. that is all i can suggest with your killer rig. i should be joining you guys any moment now with some of that 9700 goodness.

<ive been sitting next to my purty red 9700 for a day or so now at my desk>

 

I didnt know he had nvidia b4 the 9700. You REALLY need to reformat after that. I couldnt get good performance till i did.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Reformat is NOT an option, considering I did install the card on a fresh install. I had an 8500 before the 9700, and have never owned nVidia on current sys.

EDIT: Oops, anisotropy was on 8x, I swear I turned that off... So now I cap at about 70fps, but it can still dip to 45 at times.

 

[Lichee]

Originally posted by: Phocas
I didnt know he had nvidia b4 the 9700. You REALLY need to reformat after that. I couldnt get good performance till i did.

lol. whoops. i jumped the gun. hehe. ive been reading many posts lately about people and their 9700s and problems that i think im getting them all jumbled up.

but, if formatting is not an option....then i guess you are outta luck then huh? :/

you should try to squeeze that in as a plan Z or something.

 

[Caitiff]

I was really annoyed w/ the beta of BF1942, used to take forever to load on my system. I got ticked off and tried putting and extra 256 in my system, so now I have 512 on an XP box, 1700+ and a Radeon 7500. Made a WORLD of difference. I still notice that I slow down once in a while if I let the AI have 25% of cpu time, but I dont' think that has anything to do w/ my frame rates overall.... I have everything cranked to the max btw, and I'm on a KK2666 SDR mobo too....