Some serious dillemma about wether to upgrade or not.

[boran]

okay lemme sketch the situation first:

I got
P4 2.4 (533 fsb standard) (OC to 2.7andabit max)
512 PC 333 (at 266 mhz fsb due to 845E chipset)
GF4 Ti4400
Audigy 2 ZS Plat. Pro
..(rest of sys not of relevance for question)

550 ? on the bank (of which 250 ? is realistically usable, I dont wanna drain it all)

now lately my Ti4400 aint cutting it exactly in DX9 titles (Halo approx 12 to 20 fps for example)

now I'm really doubting to upgrade seeing that according to reviews the 5600, 5700 and 9600 series are all slower than my card.

so what's left as alternative is the 5800, 5900, 9700, 9800 (pro) now all thse cards cost quite a bit more (around 300 to 400 ? for em) but could be afforded if I manage to sell my current Ti4400 for a decent price, however I've seen the 9800SE AIW from hercules available in stores here, and theres possibility to softmod it, now I was wondering, how much of a chance is tehre that I'd succeed into softmodding it (50% or lower/higher ?) some ppls that have tried this (or another brand of 9800SE cards) failed/succeeded please let me know.

also would the thus accquired 9800 (non pro) be a much better card than my Ti4400 ?
cous if it's not really much of an improvement than I'll probably save some more money and skip another generation (and live with using fixed function shaders whenever possible)

thanks in advance.

Boran.

 

[modedepe]

Well the 9800 would be quite a bit better than your ti4400, but I think the odds are probably less than 50% that it will work. Is halo the only game where you're having problems? That game doesn't always even run good on high end hardware, so it's not surprising you're having problems with it.

 

[dfloyd]

I can give you this advice.

If your basing your upgrade purchase on Halo PC. Dont.

Halo PC does not run as smooth as it should. Well not as smooth as other similar type games like UT 2k3 and such.

In fact on my system the only game that ever gets a slow down is Halo PC and I am running a 9700 Pro. So not sure it would be a good idea to base a complete upgrade on just that game.

However if you are getting slow gameplay in other games then you might consider upgrading. But your 4400 should be fine depending on how you play. If you want higher resolutions with 4x fsaa then I would definatly suggest a upgrade to a 9700 pro or better.

If you just run 1024 x 768 w high quality settings, then your 4400 should be fine in most games out. Would wait if that is the case.

 

[Keysplayr]

If you do a search in this forum for 5900 and 9800, you will come up with 25 bazillion threads just like this one. I dont mind repeating myself, but it might be faster to view others threads who went through all of this already.

Anyway, the 9800 pro is a nice card and I think you can find it for around 250 ish. The 5900nu can be found for around 200 ish.

Both are good cards and scored well in Halo.

Keys

 

[boran]

Originally posted by: dfloyd
I can give you this advice.

If your basing your upgrade purchase on Halo PC. Dont.

Halo PC does not run as smooth as it should. Well not as smooth as other similar type games like UT 2k3 and such.

In fact on my system the only game that ever gets a slow down is Halo PC and I am running a 9700 Pro. So not sure it would be a good idea to base a complete upgrade on just that game.

However if you are getting slow gameplay in other games then you might consider upgrading. But your 4400 should be fine depending on how you play. If you want higher resolutions with 4x fsaa then I would definatly suggest a upgrade to a 9700 pro or better.

If you just run 1024 x 768 w high quality settings, then your 4400 should be fine in most games out. Would wait if that is the case.

well yes, I'm not only basing on halo, also another crap game (Tombraider aod), and one really good but badly coded game, morrowind, those R the only three that run sluggish on my system that I have encountered so far. I allways run all my games at 1024x768 (LCD so that's the res it's allways gonna be) with or without FSAA depending on wether it goes or not thanks for the advice tho, I'll stay put a bit longer and see what nV and ati has up their sleeves (if anyone has some spec previews bout NV(nextnumber) and RV(nextnumber) point me in their general direction (right now I only see one flamebait thread))

 

[dfloyd]

One more thing friend. I know its a video question but you might try another route to get better performance out of the listed games.

More ram. A friend of mine just upgraded to 1024 of ram and says its night and day difference in many games. Alot of the times the main slow down from a game is swapping. I guess the extra ram almost eliminates that. Am about to follow that route myself.

 

[boran]

hehe, another 512 is on it's way allready

 

[VIAN]

Stick with the card, new cards dont perform well in dx9 anyway. next gen is a good time to upgrade. WAIT.

 

[boran]

yes I kinda noticed that with the benchmarks on websites, only path that would give me some significant performance increase would be to go with a high end vidcard.

(5800,5900,5950,9700,9800,9800XT)

and those cost some big bucks...

 

[Evdawg]

ti4*** is a great series... hold off a few more months and wait it out... it'll be worth it. I went from a 1.2 athalon and a gf3ti200, to a xp2500 (@3200) and a 9700pro.... it was like light and day. Wait to upgrade to the best, its the only way of doing it (imo).