What would you like to see in a video card review?

[nyker96]

I like a live video version of a review, just the reviewer who do a succinct summary of it. I saw a few in HardOCP and liked it very much. i like ur suggestion on doing a stability summary. I recently put on catalyst 9,6 on my machine, COH just started crashing again like every 30min. these types of things should be reported, not just how fast a card is.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: nyker96
I like a live video version of a review, just the reviewer who do a succinct summary of it. I saw a few in HardOCP and liked it very much. i like ur suggestion on doing a stability summary. I recently put on catalyst 9,6 on my machine, COH just started crashing again like every 30min. these types of things should be reported, not just how fast a card is.

I like the succinct idea. Just bottom line it up front, but provide detailed info for download to the people who are interested.

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Newer games instead of old games and no crappy console ports like GRID.
Folding@home performance
Video transcoding performance
Noise, power and heat is always good

Because we can't have games which favor ATI around here...

(I'm surprised nobody else caught that remark)

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Newer games instead of old games and no crappy console ports like GRID.

Most games are console ports now unfortunately.

Video transcoding performance

Yeah like this site did:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/978/2/

 

[TC91]

@ ShawnD1
Yeah I get your point. I'm mostly just not happy about when I upgraded from my 8800GTS 320MB to a 4870 1GB and the 4870 1GB was unable to handle my older and favourite games properly, not to mention numerous other issues I had with the card. Overall my point is that I would like reviews to force the graphics companies (particularly ATI/AMD) to have drivers that are functional in our favourite older games too and not just only newer ones that are most commonly benchmarked in reviews.

 

[dguy6789]

I want them to include older cards. I want to know how well modern cards compare to X850s, 6800s, 7800/7900s, and X1900 cards. It would show to people who own such cards just how large of a jump they would get by upgrading to a new card as well as how well(or poorly) older cards stack up in modern games. It's nice to just look at it from a technological progress perspective and just see how far things have come.

It would also be nice if they included the price for each card next to the name of the card in the benchmarks themselves.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: thilan29

Video transcoding performance

Yeah like this site did:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/978/2/

:laugh:

TC91, there are just too many old games for them to test that. Best thing would be to google search the name of the video card and the game and see if anything comes up.

 

[Dribble]

I would like to see:

1) Older commonly owned cards (e.g. 8800GT) to show the benefit of upgrading.
2) Some sort of min fps - it's no good if a game averages 100fps on some card if it drops down too 20fps when it really matters.
3) Some randomly selected more unusual games - this is basically a test of the drivers - we all know that nvidia/ati spend all their time making sure the 1/2 dozen games reviewers use work well, but when we buy a card we want all the games we own to work well.
4) Some older Sli/Xfire setups (e.g. 8 series nvidia, 3 series ati). This is more a test of how well they bother to support older cards - if I buy an Sli/Xfire setup then is it still going to work when it's no longer the latest and greatest?

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob

3) How many times the system crashes due to driver issues... they always seem to overlook driver stability in video card reviews.

Unless you're overclocking, system crashes should be zero. At least that?s what I find on XP with both vendors.

As for other driver issues, I always list any I come across in my reviews because driver robustness and reliability are very important to me. This is why I also benchmark old games in major reviews. It?s simply not good enough for any IHV to completely neglect old games, and I will continue to campaign to stop that from happening.

Originally posted by: Boobs McGee

I would like to see comparisons with cards from older generations.

I definitely agree there, but not everyone else does unfortunately. For example, I tested a GTX260+ and GTX285 recently and I threw in a 4850 to show people what a huge performance advantage high-end parts have over a mid-range part like the 4850, since most people don?t realize how big the difference is. Heck, most people think a GTX260+ and GTX285 are close, which is simply untrue.

But using the 4850 actually backfired, and I was accused of pushing an nVidia agenda, and trying to put ATi in a bad light. :roll:

Originally posted by: gersson
It would be nice if they added more interesting AA settings to their Reviews. I don't care if Battlefield 2 runs @ 300 FPS w/ 4x AA.

I want to see (as I already play myself) 16xs AA + 16xAF PNGs and report if it is playable. (BTW, this setting is perfectly playable BF2)

I definitely agree there too, and I frequently use a plethora of different AA modes in my reviews.

 

[Qbah]

I'd like a video summary or a small video recap of the whole article. The few that show up on HardOCP are really nice. If done properly, it can only encourage to read up on the article And minimum FPS is a must now I'd say. The FPS vs time graphs are really nice too (also on HardOCP ). Because if the game dips like once or twice to low FPS the min FPS can be misleading too. Such graphs show the picture clearly.

Originally posted by: BFG10K
I definitely agree there, but not everyone else does unfortunately. For example, I tested a GTX260+ and GTX285 recently and I threw in a 4850 to show people what a huge performance advantage high-end parts have over a mid-range part like the 4850, since most people don?t realize how big the difference is. Heck, most people think a GTX260+ and GTX285 are close, which is simply untrue.

But using the 4850 actually backfired, and I was accused of pushing an nVidia agenda, and trying to put ATi in a bad light.

If you explain that the competitor's card is there to show the difference between the "levels" then it's fine. And do so at the very beginning imo so nobody misses it. Many websites show bias towards one camp and even though your review probably had good intentions, it can easily be viewed as bias. In the end you could've used a GTS250 and nobody would probably say a word

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob
What would you like to see in a video card review?

Megan Fox

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Qbah
I'd like a video summary or a small video recap of the whole article. The few that show up on HardOCP are really nice. If done properly, it can only encourage to read up on the article And minimum FPS is a must now I'd say. The FPS vs time graphs are really nice too (also on HardOCP ). Because if the game dips like once or twice to low FPS the min FPS can be misleading too. Such graphs show the picture clearly.

Originally posted by: BFG10K
I definitely agree there, but not everyone else does unfortunately. For example, I tested a GTX260+ and GTX285 recently and I threw in a 4850 to show people what a huge performance advantage high-end parts have over a mid-range part like the 4850, since most people don?t realize how big the difference is. Heck, most people think a GTX260+ and GTX285 are close, which is simply untrue.

But using the 4850 actually backfired, and I was accused of pushing an nVidia agenda, and trying to put ATi in a bad light.

If you explain that the competitor's card is there to show the difference between the "levels" then it's fine. And do so at the very beginning imo so nobody misses it. Many websites show bias towards one camp and even though your review probably had good intentions, it can easily be viewed as bias. In the end you could've used a GTS250 and nobody would probably say a word

are you kidding?

i did a review exploring CrossFireX - it was 100% "CrossFire" and one forum was complaining that there was no SLi; the next one was an expansion of my other one and i added 2 Nvidia GPUs - still they complained that there was no GTX295 to counterbalance 4870-X2

You absolutely cannot "win" as a reviewer .. there is NO way to please everyone
- that is why there are MANY reviewers and review sites

one of my fellow editors does all the line graphs and detail charts that some of you request - and he gets flack for too much detail


Creig has the right idea

A *total babe* in a bikini doing the video review
:wine:

 

[dixon]

xbitlabs has an MMO VGA reviewn already check out their website

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: Qbah

If you explain that the competitor's card is there to show the difference between the "levels" then it's fine.

Yep, I ended up sticking that in as an addendum to keep them happy.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Originally posted by: Qbah

If you explain that the competitor's card is there to show the difference between the "levels" then it's fine.

Yep, I ended up sticking that in as an addendum to keep them happy.

it still didn't work, did it?
:Q


And didn't someone complain about your latest review when you *underclocked* the shaders? - that you didn't know what you were doing?
:roll:

i think all Video reviews should be 'live' with a total babe in a thong doing the demonstration
- then there will be no complaints [from the straight guys anyway]

 

[LongTimePCUser]

I would like to see some old fashioned 2D benchmarks that represent how fast the screen refreshes for browswer and office style application.,

Game benchmarks are nice, but 90% of the time I am not playing games.

I had the impression that that all of the newer video boards are roughly equivalent in 2D applications because none of the reviews address that point. But, if I am wrong, and some of the boards are much faster in 2D, I would probably get that one.

If they are really all the same, I might as well just get the cheapest, most reliable video board.

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: apoppin

it still didn't work, did it?

Unfortunately I don?t believe so.

And didn't someone complain about your latest review when you *underclocked* the shaders? - that you didn't know what you were doing?

Heh, yeah.

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: LongTimePCUser

I would like to see some old fashioned 2D benchmarks that represent how fast the screen refreshes for browswer and office style application.,

2D performance has been a solved problem for years. OTOH you could certainly measure Aero Glass since it's 3D rendering.

 

[Red Irish]

Perhaps a little more honesty, as in "the card is great for benchmarking, but overkill in the real world as most games are now console ports and will not enable you to take full advantage of the card's potential" or words or sentiments to that effect.

 

[jnmfox]

Originally posted by: theprodigalrebel
I like the performance-over-time graphs that HardOCP and PC Perspective do. A line graph that shows performance over the length of the test is far more informative and revealing than a pair of min/avg numbers. It isn't enough knowing that a game throws 45fps avg/18fps min, if that dip to 18fps barely lasted a second and the game stayed above 30fps 95% of the time.

I haven't played many PC games recently but I liked how the original FEAR's built-in test gave a summary of performance. I think it was something like:

x% below 25 fps
y% between 25 and 40 fps
z% above 40fps

Generating reports like those (from the FRAPS date) for a range of GPUs shouldn't be too hard to do in Excel. The reviewer would just need to determine what fps-ranges can be considered unplayable/decent/smooth.

This ^

Would also like to see CoH in game reviews. I ended up going to hexus.net when I recently upgraded my vid card for this reason. Xbitlabs used to have it with min/max but stopped using it

 

[imported_Asianman]

Originally posted by: jnmfox

Originally posted by: theprodigalrebel
I like the performance-over-time graphs that HardOCP and PC Perspective do. A line graph that shows performance over the length of the test is far more informative and revealing than a pair of min/avg numbers. It isn't enough knowing that a game throws 45fps avg/18fps min, if that dip to 18fps barely lasted a second and the game stayed above 30fps 95% of the time.

I haven't played many PC games recently but I liked how the original FEAR's built-in test gave a summary of performance. I think it was something like:

x% below 25 fps
y% between 25 and 40 fps
z% above 40fps

Generating reports like those (from the FRAPS date) for a range of GPUs shouldn't be too hard to do in Excel. The reviewer would just need to determine what fps-ranges can be considered unplayable/decent/smooth.

This ^

Would also like to see CoH in game reviews. I ended up going to hexus.net when I recently upgraded my vid card for this reason. Xbitlabs used to have it with min/max but stopped using it

+1 to that. Its still an oddly demanding game with all the setting maxed out.
Also, better spelling from many sites

 

[scooterlibby]

Two words: regression analysis.

I remember getting excited to see it mentioned in an Anand article, but I have never seen it actually done. Sure it would take longer to do enough runs for a decent sample size, but I would trust a review of video cards using simple linear regression more than the one shot deal that seems to be the standard.