What's with all these games that require at least a $400 gfx card??

[Feldenak]

I have been able to play Company of Heroes, NWN2, and Medieval 2 fine with my 9700 Pro.

 

[Canai]

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe

Originally posted by: jthg

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: jthg

Oh, wait, yes I do - he wants laptops to be as powerful and upgradeable as desktop PCs for the same price.

No, that's not what I want. I just want some way, regardless of the quality, for my x1400 to run these games at 20+ fps.

an x1400 can't run NWN2 at 8x6?

Heh, if only the ATI drivers let you set custom resolutions like the Nvidia drivers.

Ever heard of Omega drivers?

Yeah.. but last I checked they were still on 6.9... ati is on 6.12 now. Plus they have nothing for vista.

To OP.... yeah the 1400 is pretty old and crappy. Maybe it's beyond the scope of old, low end graphics tech to play new games? The Source engine is old, hell my old GeForce4 ti 4600 ran Source fine! Perhaps you should do a little research into the hardware before purchasing a laptop (especially a non-desktop replacement one) expecting it to play games.

I bought an AIW x1900 for $200 a couple months ago, can still run everything currently out at max detail with no problems (except nwn2... have to lower shadows by 1 click on that one heh)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R520#X1400_series for more info.

edit: 2/10 for whining about laptop not being a super sweet gaming machine with $800 video card

edit: changed to 2/10 for originality

 

[Firebot]

Originally posted by: jthg
It seems like every game I look at these days require at least something like a 7900 GTX to run decently and a GeForce 8800 GTX to run well. That's a $400 graphics card just to run the game at 25fps and with a good portion of the effects you paid for turned on. (and probably $800 to run well)

I'm personally a fan of laptops - and not those portable desktops - laptops. I bought one with an ATI x1400 256mb thinking that I'd at least be able to play games at the lowest settings. Well, I was completely wrong. I'm into RPGs more than other types of games and the last two major ones to come out, Oblivion and NWN2, destroys my x1400 (according to benchmarks). Completely unplayable. Well you know what Bethesda and Obsidian? I don't @#$%ing care about your graphics engine. I play the game for the game play. Couldn't they just have put in a lower quality engine so that I'd at least be able to play the @#$% game?

How does this make business sense? Why cut off every potentional customer who isn't willing to sink $400 into just a graphics card? (or like me, at least $1000 into a desktop) Did everyone just get richer and I don't know about it? As far as I know, it's not that hard to develop a lower quality engine that can be swapped in for lower specced systems. Why force me to not buy either game when I was really interested in playing them?

X1400 barely qualifies as a bargain video card. Why would you think that such an underpowered card should run the top games out there right now? That's almost as bad as the 5200 FX owners whining that they couldn't play Doom 3.

 

[CVSiN]

Originally posted by: jthg

Originally posted by: HamburgerBoy
Bullshit. My 7900GT can play all games perfectly and that cost me $200.

Hm, whats your standard of perfect?

My standard of barely playable is avg. 20 fps, 800x600, 0% quality (whatever that means...)

My standard of OK is 20+ fps, 1280x768 and 50% quality

My standard of perfect is 35fps, 1440x900, and 90% quality

My standard of beyond awsome is 40fps, 1680x1050, and 99% quality

then its not your vid card that sucks its your PC period..
7900GT will run anything out right now at 1600x1200 maxed out with a fantasticframe rate.
my stsem specs are in my sig.. i have no issues..

 

[Rock Hydra]

Originally posted by: BurnItDwn
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the approximate performance level of the x1400?

Core Clock: 432 MHz
Memory Clock: 396 MHz (792 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth: ~12.6 GB/sec
Shader Operations: 1728 Operations/sec
Pixel Fill Rate: 1728 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 1728 MTexels/sec
Vertex Operations: 216 MVertices/sec


My X1800xt is several generations old, I bought it over 6 months ago for around $250.
It's got a Fill Rate of around 10000 MTexels/sec and 48GB of memmory bandwidth at stock speeds.

No wonder why your laptop sucks for recent games
My video card (which is probably worth less than $200, yet can handle every game at 1920x1200 with moderate to high settings) is between 3.8 and 5.7 times as fast as your video card. I consider my card to be "midrange" among the pack. It was "high end" when it was new, but the X1900 has come since then, and the X1950, and now the 8800 ...

Now something like the 8800GTS, the ~$400ish vid card, has a fill rate of 24Mtexels/sec and 64GB of memory bandwidth.

For reference purposes, a Geforce 6600GT has more than double the fill rate of yoour card & about 50% more memmory bandwidth. Last time I checked, they were around $100 used.

I don't mean to rain on your parade, but it sounds like whatever salesman tried to convince you that an x1400 was in any way shape or form a "good" gaming card pulled a fast one on you.

I am at a loss as to why you aren't able to lower the resolution though. I'd think that it would help your playability a great deal. Oblivion should run decently at 800x600 with low settings on something with those stats.

I agree here. I mean x1400 is probably the equivalent to an x1300 desktop counterpart which is NOT by any means a decent piece of gaming hardware.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: BurnItDwn
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the approximate performance level of the x1400?

Core Clock: 432 MHz
Memory Clock: 396 MHz (792 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth: ~12.6 GB/sec
Shader Operations: 1728 Operations/sec
Pixel Fill Rate: 1728 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 1728 MTexels/sec
Vertex Operations: 216 MVertices/sec


My X1800xt is several generations old, I bought it over 6 months ago for around $250.
It's got a Fill Rate of around 10000 MTexels/sec and 48GB of memmory bandwidth at stock speeds.

No wonder why your laptop sucks for recent games
My video card (which is probably worth less than $200, yet can handle every game at 1920x1200 with moderate to high settings) is between 3.8 and 5.7 times as fast as your video card. I consider my card to be "midrange" among the pack. It was "high end" when it was new, but the X1900 has come since then, and the X1950, and now the 8800 ...

Now something like the 8800GTS, the ~$400ish vid card, has a fill rate of 24Mtexels/sec and 64GB of memory bandwidth.

For reference purposes, a Geforce 6600GT has more than double the fill rate of yoour card & about 50% more memmory bandwidth. Last time I checked, they were around $100 used.

I don't mean to rain on your parade, but it sounds like whatever salesman tried to convince you that an x1400 was in any way shape or form a "good" gaming card pulled a fast one on you.

I am at a loss as to why you aren't able to lower the resolution though. I'd think that it would help your playability a great deal. Oblivion should run decently at 800x600 with low settings on something with those stats.

Ding Ding, you nailed it.

OP, just play some of the older games. They are some of the best ever anyway. Try Deus EX, System Shock 2, the Warcraft series etc.

Fern

 

[TanisHalfElven]

Originally posted by: jthg
It seems like every game I look at these days require at least something like a 7900 GTX to run decently and a GeForce 8800 GTX to run well. That's a $400 graphics card just to run the game at 25fps and with a good portion of the effects you paid for turned on. (and probably $800 to run well)

I'm personally a fan of laptops - and not those portable desktops - laptops. I bought one with an ATI x1400 256mb thinking that I'd at least be able to play games at the lowest settings. Well, I was completely wrong. I'm into RPGs more than other types of games and the last two major ones to come out, Oblivion and NWN2, destroys my x1400 (according to benchmarks). Completely unplayable. Well you know what Bethesda and Obsidian? I don't @#$%ing care about your graphics engine. I play the game for the game play. Couldn't they just have put in a lower quality engine so that I'd at least be able to play the @#$% game?

How does this make business sense? Why cut off every potentional customer who isn't willing to sink $400 into just a graphics card? (or like me, at least $1000 into a desktop) Did everyone just get richer and I don't know about it? As far as I know, it's not that hard to develop a lower quality engine that can be swapped in for lower specced systems. Why force me to not buy either game when I was really interested in playing them?

thing is benchmarks are usuall a the highest settings.

 

[Matthias99]

Ignoring for the moment the major hyperbole in the OP's post, and the fact that the X1400 is probably slower than the video card I had (GF4 Ti4600) before the video card I had (R9800Pro) before the video card I have now (RADEON X1800XT)...

It's hard to make graphics engines that scale adequately from very, very low-end hardware to extremely high-end hardware. Really, really hard. Your suggestion to just "swap in a lower quality engine" would require writing another engine first. Other than Valve's "Source" engine (used in HL2), I can't think of any other engines that are really built for use on such a broad cross-section of computer hardware and that actually try to take significant advantage of DX9 features. And the Source engine doesn't do things like full dynamic lighting (a la Doom3), since you'd lock out everyone on older hardware. WoW works great on lower-end hardware -- but it's more or less a DX8 game.

The more you move your game towards extensive use of DX9 shaders, the worse it is going to run (or the more effort it will take to get it to run well) on older hardware. Oblivion? Lots of shaders. NWN2? Shaders. Your card? It *can* run DX9, but it's just not that fast. You *should* be able to run those games at a lower resolution, and with the graphical detail turned down... but it won't look 'pretty'.

You don't need a "$400" video card to play new games -- you need maybe a $100 video card to run them acceptably, a $200ish one to run them well, and the $400 one to run them really well. You have a $50 video card, and if you knew you wanted to play newer games, you should have bought a laptop that does not have a video card whose performance dates back to 2002.

 

[Robor]

You're complaining about gaming performance on a laptop? You need to buy a console guy!

 

[DaveSimmons]

Play Morrowind and NWN1, problem solved.

You have a $50 graphics card, not every new game can be profitably written to scale that low.

HL2 is a two year old game, and was written knowing they could sell millions of copies to buyers with all levels of hardware, and that they could license their engine for other games.

 

[KillyKillall]

Originally posted by: So
I agree w/ HB. I'm still happy w/ my 6800GT.

I run everything you've mentioned on this my 6800 GT OC just fine.

 

[AdamK47]

Why are you even attempting to play new games on an X1400?