The other great thing about a Geforce4

[gunf1ghter]

Is that I can finally re-visit some of those older games that had really steep system requirements and never ran well even on a top of the line rig at the time they were released.

I just fired up an oldy but goody... Freespace 2. 1024X768 32 bit color with all the goodies set to maximum and EAX sound. And it cranks baby!!! Even with tuned down details it was a slideshow at this resolution on my rig a year or so ago.

 

[JellyBaby]

Someone ought to try Ultima Ascension...in fact I may at some point. Now that I have 512 MB of RAM and a new Ti that game ought to literally fly even at high res.

 

[BFG10K]

Is that I can finally re-visit some of those older games that had really steep system requirements and never ran well even on a top of the line rig at the time they were released.

Undying is the most extreme example of this and it doesn't even run well at high detail levels on the fastest rigs currently available.

Unreal was such a game too but the new OpenGL renderer has done wonders for it. I've gone from 81 FPS to 97 FPS in 1600 x 1200 x 32 in the castle flyby demo.

 

[gunf1ghter]

I haven't looked at Undying... but if I had to pick a game that is out there right now that b1tch smacks even the best rigs at higher resolutions I would have to say it's MOHA. I get about 40-60 fps on it at 1280X1024... even at 1152X864 I dip into the 20's or 30's for framerate once in a while...

It's really pretty though!

 

[BFG10K]

I haven't looked at Undying...

You should, it's a superb game. Absolutely superb.

In fact it's the third best FPS I've ever played, behind Quake3 and RTCW.

 

[nRollo]

I don't know what you mean by "Undying is the most extreme example of this and it doesn't even run well at high detail levels on the fastest rigs currently available."
but it runs great on my Athlon 1600+/Ti4400 at 10X7, even with the 3d glasses on. What do you mean by "high detail" levels?

 

[Sunner]

Funny, first thing I fired up with me Ti200 was Freespace2 as well

Damn, what a difference between the old GF DDR and the Ti200, even playing with FSAA on is smoother than 1024 was without.

 

[gunf1ghter]

Yaa... that game rocks... and now running with max details and the new FSAA that is designed for Direct3D it is just as smooth as glass... sound is incredible with the EAX enhancements too.

 

[jcmkk]

I just love firing up Quake 3 at 1600x1200 with everything on high, Quinqunz FSAA, and 16-tap Anisotropic filtering; and still averaging over 100FPS. It looks amazing, especially with my new monitor.

 

[BFG10K]

but it runs great on my Athlon 1600+/Ti4400 at 10X7,

1024 x 768 is not even close to being classed as high resolution. Try 1600 x 1200 x 32 with trilinear filtering and watch it crawl on your card.

 

[nRollo]

"Try 1600 x 1200 x 32 with trilinear filtering and watch it crawl on your card. "
You'd be wrong about that, although I didn't see where to set it at trilinear. I did have it at 16X12X32, best image quality in nVidia drivers, all detail levels highest/best on the "Advanced" tab of Undying video setup, and it ran......
Fine.
Not as fast as Q3 on 8X6X16, but all motion was fluid, mouse whipped around fine- in general, a long way from "crawling".
Do you even have this game? Unless having more RAM on VGA is what does the trick, I'd think your system would be able to run it as fast as mine, if not faster.

 

[Byte]

Black and White must be awesome with the Gef4, and i really wanna see how cataclysm is with FSAA

 

[rogue1979]

I must be missing something. I can play my favorite games at 1600 x 1200 at 32-bit color with my Geforce 2 Ti and still get 35-80 fps depending on the game, although I use 1024 x 768 with 4X FSAA on most games. Everything plays smoothly and looks good, no "crawling". I would think that a Geforce 4 would absolutely hammer out any games at almost any resolution fast enough to satisfy anyone. I prefer 1024 x 768 for several reasons, some older games don't support higher resolutions, and I play alot of flight sims as well as Mech 4 and even with a 20" monitor, targets at extreme range at 1600 x 1200 are just too small.

 

[gunf1ghter]

Try running MOHAA at 16X12 with all details turned up on your TI200 and tell me that you are getting 30-50fps... I don't think so.

 

[BFG10K]

and it ran......Fine. Not as fast as Q3 on 8X6X16, but all motion was fluid, mouse whipped around fine- in general, a long way from "crawling".

Yeah? Try the monastery snow levels and look across the large courtyard right at the start. I'd be surprised if your system was producing more than 40 FPS in that situation and 40 FPS is an absolute slideshow.

Do you even have this game?

Of course I do. Do you? Because it sounds like you don't know too much about it. Testing one room for smoothness does not make a valid basis for claiming the whole game runs smoothly. The fact is that your card will get crushed at 1600 x 1200 on certain levels.

Unless having more RAM on VGA is what does the trick, I'd think your system would be able to run it as fast as mine, if not faster.

Undying is very video card limited at higher resolutions especially on certain large levels that make even the fastest video cards around crawl at unbearably low levels.

Everything plays smoothly and looks good, no "crawling".

If it's less than 60 FPS average then it isn't smooth at all. Also 35 FPS most certainly is crawling.

 

[rogue1979]

BFG10K, if you think that 35fps is an absolute slideshow, then I respect your preference. But I think compared to the rest of us your standards are pretty high. 60fps average isn't smooth at all? Well, it is for me, with my set up 60fsp average would mean maybe dropping to 25-30 fps for a fraction of a second, nothing that I could notice or see. Yes, a sustained dip to 20fps or below would be noticable, but just a few frames rendered in the 30's isn't gonna be noticed by most people. Remember, the television set uses about a 35fps sustained rate, I haven't seen anyone complaining about their favorite TV show not moving smoothly. My kids' rig and mine are lanned together, and their Duron 750@1008 and Radeon 32MB DDR @180/180 running at 1024 x 768 x 32 on 2X FSAA still looks smooth to me.

 

[ddragon]

It is just BFG10K considering 60 fps a slide show and 1024 x 768 a low resolution ... again (oh yes, I forgot to mention the long debate over average vs. max. vs. min. FPS) Please! Nothing against a personal preference, but I think most people have much lower demands on 3D gaming than sustained 80+ FPS @ 1280 x 1024... At least I do, and obviously, so does rogue1979.

 

[EdipisReks]

rogue, you CANNOT COMPARE FPS ON A TV/MOVIE SCREEN TO THAT ON A COMPUTER AS THEY WORK DIFFERENTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!! with that off my chest, i have to agree that with a lot of games a sustained frame rate of 35 FPS perfectly adequete. BFG just has really high expectations for his games, but that is ok if it works for him. i'm still swayed by my old computer 3 computers ago. i got used to low frame rates (you have to be really good to kick ass in CS at sustained frames of less than 20, and i managed to do it), and i can generally play most games well even when it "crawls".


--jacob

 

[Mingon]

Right lets post This for all the etards who think that frame rates are not noticable. Personally I can tell the difference between 100 and 120 easily

 

[nRollo]

LOL
Well BFG I did only run around in one wing of the house, so I guess I don't know about the monastery. (I'm not even there in the game yet. Still killing those floor critters.

I don't know how to test fps in that game, but will if you'll enlighten me.

As for "crawling" like I said, I ran around shooting floor creatures while they shot me with their green dust. You can say it's unplayable if you like, must be a GF3 thing.

In single player, I define "smooth animation" as "playable". I only care about the 100 fps stuff for online.

For that matter, I have a 19" monitor, so I don't game at 16X12X32. (don't like to squint at the 1" monsters yipping and yapping)

 

[rogue1979]

Mingon, let's not start name calling. Whatever you link was it didn't work for me, so I have no idea what your talking about. Maybe you can tell the difference between 100fps and 120fps, but I can't and the majority of people here would agree. I did a little test here on several of my rigs. I told my family that I was changing resolutions around on two of the computers and which did they think was faster or smoother.
Kids rig- Duron 750@1008, Radeon 32MB DDR @180/180, 256MB PC133@150MHz set at 1024 x 768 x 32 at 2x FSAA
Dads rig- Athlon 1000@1530MHz, Geforce 2 Ti @290/520, 256MB PC2400@161MHz set at 1024 x 738 x 32 at 4x FSAA.

These are actually normal settings, but my family had no idea what each computer was set on so they couldn't assume mine was faster.

The kids rig hammered at out Unreal Gold at a respectable 49fps average, the Radeon does real well at not having any exaggerated dips or spikes in fps.
My rig hit an an average of 85fps, even using 4x FSAA. We could all notice that the 4x on the Nvidia was a little nicer looking then the 2x on the Ati. But I guess we are a family of "retards", because both rigs played just as smoothly and we could not discern any speed difference. The only hint was the little fps counter up in the left hand corner which is giving alot of people an ego problem and allowing them to see things most of us can't! Now this is just one example, there are other tougher playing games that slow the Geforce 2 Ti down much more and the Radeon will start to get to the point where it is not completely smooth. I just wanted to show the fact that most people cannot tell the difference in frame rates once they reach a certain level.

As I had said before, when my rig cannot play games smooth enough for me to enjoy I will upgrade, but that still hasn't happened yet. I figure if I upgrade every 3 or 4 months to keep up with the Jones', then it is an ego thing which is just wasting money. I built these computers for enjoyment and they deliver what I expect. If someone else's rig is a Celeron 850MHz and a Voodoo 3 and they are proud of it and get enjoyment from that, then I respect this and don't try to force my higher standards on them and try to convince them that their fps performance is unacceptable. I think we are all spoiled and guilty of upgrading for the wrong reasons, myself included. Remember back in the days of Voodoo 3 and TNT 2, I didn't see anyone complaining about how crappy the gaming performance was, we all bragged about how good it was!

 

[Boogak]

Here's an interesting article on how many fps a human eye really sees. Personally, once it gets below 40fps, I can start noticing jerkiness. 40 - 60 is ok depending on the game type (FPS, RTS, etc.), but over 60fps is how I like my games because that's what I consider smooth. In the end, I believe it just depends on what your personal definition of "choppy" is.

 

[rogue1979]

Excellent read Boogak. It supports what I was trying to say. I fully agree with your fps standards, that sounds very realistic to me. Staying around or above 60fps is what I consider the sweet spot for enjoying games. When my video card can't maintain the performance level with high settings then it is indeed justified to get a video card upgrade. However, I am worried about my vision, it seems to be inferior in ability to others around here.

 

[Mingon]

The link seems ok to me just right click save target as. The etard (correct spelling) was just a little joke sorry forgot to add the

 

[Sunny129]

hey i know this is a little off topic, but where can i download some frame demos for UT?...thanks, Eric...