M Bday is coming up: What are some good fps games?

[Comdrpopnfresh]

Is farcry 2 any good? What type of game is fable 2? What about fallout3?
Can I run any of the above on a 7600gt? I use a 19" lcd @ 1280x1024

I might be getting a new gfx card in the coming months. Not sure what. Is now a good time? My budget is <$200. So will current offerings thin out, or will they be cheaper in a bit? My board can run sli- is the price returned with a comparable performance gain?

 

[ultimahwhat]

Fable II is an RPG and is not available on the PC. You'll find a lot of opinions about the other two games. Check out the recent threads in this forum.

I don't know anything about your video card, so I'm not going to venture to predict your performance in Far Cry 2 or Fallout 3. I'm running Far Cry 2 with a 4850 @ 1680x1050 2x AA and Ultra High settings but barely making it (probably because my CPU is holding me back). I don't know about the performance gains of going SLI, but there are lots of good choices for sub $200 GPUs right now. There's the 4850 on the ATI side and the 9800GT, 9800GTX(+) on the nVidia side, to name a few. I'll let you decide what fits your needs best.

If you've only got 1 GB of RAM with Vista, another gig or three would probably also improve your gaming performance before your GPU upgrade, I would think.

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

thx for your reply! My ram upgrade is pending. lol. I'll be getting at least 4gb of ddr2-800. I might get more, or a higher speed, or both- I'm awaiting some input on other forum posts I've made.
Do you think waiting until the new year will put more options available in my price range, or would it dry up the availability of other offerings- such as the 9600gt? Are there any upcoming graphics card releases that may place current cards into my budget?
I've heard farcry2 gives the same eye-candy as crysis, but it a bit more hardware-friendly. Should I seek a card w/ 1gb of memory on it? What about those 384/7xx mb ram cards? Does having an atypical amount of memory present any issues? do they give more performance? And what about gddr3 vs gddr5? I'm pretty sure gddr5 is out of my budget range now... but what type of impact does the difference between the two present? Will I capitalize on any memory features on cards, given my resolution of 1280x1024?

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Comdrpopnfresh
thx for your reply! My ram upgrade is pending. lol. I'll be getting at least 4gb of ddr2-800. I might get more, or a higher speed, or both- I'm awaiting some input on other forum posts I've made.
Do you think waiting until the new year will put more options available in my price range, or would it dry up the availability of other offerings- such as the 9600gt? Are there any upcoming graphics card releases that may place current cards into my budget?
I've heard farcry2 gives the same eye-candy as crysis, but it a bit more hardware-friendly. Should I seek a card w/ 1gb of memory on it? What about those 384/7xx mb ram cards? Does having an atypical amount of memory present any issues? do they give more performance? And what about gddr3 vs gddr5? I'm pretty sure gddr5 is out of my budget range now... but what type of impact does the difference between the two present? Will I capitalize on any memory features on cards, given my resolution of 1280x1024?

1280 is a good res for a 4870. You can get the 512MB versions for less than 250, if that is within your price range. I don't think 1GB cards are really necessary until you notch up your resolution few more steps.

I'd avoid FarCry 2 though, the limited activation secuRom DRM should pretty much make it a black listed title for everyone. By buying it, you are agreeing with the DRM and ensuring that future titles will come crippled with this crap.

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

guess no torrents are out there to see if my system can run it then, huh?

 

[Raduque]

Talking about pirating a game is a big no-no on the forums. Might get you a short vacation.

As for your system, a 4850 will do you good to run FC2 and Fallout 3, especially at such a low res. I'm running FO3 @ 1680x1050 with everything maxed on an HD3870 with a C2D @ 2.8ghz and 2gb ram. A 4850 is faster than a 3870.

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

my meaning was to quickly download a demo. Most demos offered by production companies find their way onto torrent trackers. It'd be a lot quicker to get ahold of a demo that way. besides not being able to run x-fire/sli, is there any downside to using an amd card on a nforce board?

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: Comdrpopnfresh
my meaning was to quickly download a demo. Most demos offered by production companies find their way onto torrent trackers. It'd be a lot quicker to get ahold of a demo that way. besides not being able to run x-fire/sli, is there any downside to using an amd card on a nforce board?

no demos of either of those games.

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

How about 2 of these in sli? http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16814122049R
I saw a review online where they beat a 9800gtx in everything, and each card individually was cooler than the 9800gtx, in a case similar to mine

 

[TheVrolok]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: Comdrpopnfresh
thx for your reply! My ram upgrade is pending. lol. I'll be getting at least 4gb of ddr2-800. I might get more, or a higher speed, or both- I'm awaiting some input on other forum posts I've made.
Do you think waiting until the new year will put more options available in my price range, or would it dry up the availability of other offerings- such as the 9600gt? Are there any upcoming graphics card releases that may place current cards into my budget?
I've heard farcry2 gives the same eye-candy as crysis, but it a bit more hardware-friendly. Should I seek a card w/ 1gb of memory on it? What about those 384/7xx mb ram cards? Does having an atypical amount of memory present any issues? do they give more performance? And what about gddr3 vs gddr5? I'm pretty sure gddr5 is out of my budget range now... but what type of impact does the difference between the two present? Will I capitalize on any memory features on cards, given my resolution of 1280x1024?

1280 is a good res for a 4870. You can get the 512MB versions for less than 250, if that is within your price range. I don't think 1GB cards are really necessary until you notch up your resolution few more steps.

I'd avoid FarCry 2 though, the limited activation secuRom DRM should pretty much make it a black listed title for everyone. By buying it, you are agreeing with the DRM and ensuring that future titles will come crippled with this crap.

You sound like a politician.


OP, What's the last good FPS you played? There may have been a few good ones that you didn't get a chance to play that could be revisited.

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

I play css a bit. I'm not really into era-type games like ww2, and I don't like call of duty. Did I mention I don't like crysis either? But I love the half-life series, and I can't even turn up the settings on episode 2. I'm interested in the storyline of fallout 3- kinda like a tamed sahdows of chernobyl.... I only ask about the nvidia cards because I have an sli motherboard. I like having the same console from nvidia to look over my motherboard and gfx card, and I can't run crossfire.

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

okay okay okay..... all their prices are fairly close... would I get more from sli'ing 2 8800gt's, 9600gt's, 9800gt's? What about that asus 9800gt w/ 112 stream processors?

 

[pwnagesarus]

I'm pretty sure a 9800 GT is just a rebadged 8800 GT. Also, I think the Asus one you're talking about is the Ultimate. That one I believe is an overclocked 8800 GTS and it does appear to at least be on par with the 4850 if not outperform.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com...gigabyte-palit-15.html

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

I was contemplating going the sli route w/ two 9600gt's. But that'd only give me 128 stream processors- and with the inefficiencies of sli entow... The main reason why I was going to go with two 9600gt's was that they can be had in single-slot designs that don't fry themselves or make those near the computer go deaf. That, and having even 1 dual-slot card in my computer would mean kicking a tv-tuner to the curb (pci-e 1x), or not being able to use my x-fi, should it decide to stop popping + cooperate. Would 1 9800gt outperform two 9600gt in sli?

 

[ultimahwhat]

Originally posted by: Comdrpopnfresh
Would 1 9800gt outperform two 9600gt in sli?

Only if SLI scaling was very low, I'd think...

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Originally posted by: pwnagesarus
I'm pretty sure a 9800 GT is just a rebadged 8800 GT. Also, I think the Asus one you're talking about is the Ultimate. That one I believe is an overclocked 8800 GTS and it does appear to at least be on par with the 4850 if not outperform.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com...gigabyte-palit-15.html

The 9800GT at stock is pretty much the same as an 8800GT, but since it's made on a smaller process it can overclock better. I'd personally go with a single card just to avoid all the SLi scaling headaches. I'd be pretty pissed off if another blockbuster like Crysis came along and didn't support SLi, so you're stuck with just a single 9600GT.

 

[Frodolives]

If you really want a cheap graphics boost, you could even snag a good used 7600gt for around $40 shipped (if not less) on the forums here, and have a go at sli them.

And to find some stuff to bench your cards, have a look at the listings here. http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_demos.html

edit: and yes, your 7600gt could run Fallout 3, but you'd be short changing yourself. I'm a budget gamer, so the 7600gt was my card for Oblivion, but my $70 Asus 4670 is running Fallout 3 gorgeously at high quality, 4xAA, 8xAF, although I only require 1024x768. My point is, do upgrade in some measure since you can, and enjoy your games