What graphics card shall I get for PSU?

[Jools]

I'm looking for a card with a spec that is just right to give me very high performance for PSU but not much higher ('cause that'd be a waste!).

All help appreciated!

-Jools

[Feran]

IF you want MAXIUM performance I suggest 2 NVidias Geforce 7900 with SLI.
THen again one Geforce 7900 would prolly do it http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif

[lostinseganet]

On 2006-05-24 06:28, Feran wrote:
IF you want MAXIUM performance I suggest 2 NVidias Geforce 7900 with SLI.
THen again one Geforce 7900 would prolly do it http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif

They make 7950's now. You can get sli quality and save your self pci E space.

[Jools]

I should tell you that this graphics card will go in a brand new (probably quite good) pc that I haven't even bought yet! (Pretty much getting the machine just to play PSU!).

-Jools

[Ryna]

You don't really need a SLI setup to play PSU at max graphics settings. Almost any decent graphics card will do. I used a 6800 GT for the closed beta and didn't encounter any problems.

[Tystys]

GeForce 6800, http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

[Nuclearranger]

ATI X1900XTX o.o i win?

7950 whoa o.o i might buy that one lol

EDIT: Don't double post

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Ryna on 2006-05-24 07:48 ]</font>

[Blitzkommando]

Right now ATI offers better options in quality than nVidia. There are a few things that make this happen:

Firstly, ATI offers producs with huge numbers of pixel shaders in hopes that games will be more pixel shader driven, which is seeming to be correct based on Oblivion and FEAR and the like.

Secondly, ATI offers HDR (High Dynamic Range) with anti-alias enabled. Nvidia doesn't offer but one or the other enabled at once.

Thirdly, ATI cards use angle-independent anisotropic filtering. This means textures are filtered equally no matter what the angle, whereas nVidia, again, doesn't offer this.

Really, I would suggest the X1900 XT over the 7900 GT right now. And with the further optomizations of drivers we could easily see Crossfire running with no dongle on the upper end cards with the 3200 chipset. (This is already the case with the X1800 GTO and lower cards)

ATI really pulled themselves out of the rut of the lackluster launch of the X1800 and has pulled ahead technilogically and performance wise. Just for running PSU you could easily get by with a X1800 XT at maximum settings and probably the X1800 GTO. Of course, depending on what resolution you use the X1600 should do just fine if using 1024x768 with full Anti-alias and full anisotropic filtering. You should be able to do 1280x1024 with it with less anti-alias as well.

[kassy]

"What graphics card shall I get for PSU?"

If you're buying card simply to run PSU at max settings, which card to get depends on what resolution you want to play at, basically.

[Zarbolord]

Just get the new pc, I'm gonna use the card it comes with when I get mine (I'm lost in all of this stuff -_-)

[Fleece]

I have an X1600 XT, its relatively cheap and runs Oblivion at full settings at 40 FPS, Id go for either that or Geforce 6600/6800 if you want high settings for a low price, these cards these guys are recommending will set you back 100's of dollars/pounds.

[Fleece]

On 2006-05-24 10:38, kassy wrote:
"What graphics card shall I get for PSU?"

If you're buying card simply to run PSU at max settings, which card to get depends on what resolution you want to play at, basically.



It's Mainly CPU that determines resolution nowadays.

[Blitzkommando]

On 2006-05-24 15:01, Fleece wrote:


On 2006-05-24 10:38, kassy wrote:
"What graphics card shall I get for PSU?"

If you're buying card simply to run PSU at max settings, which card to get depends on what resolution you want to play at, basically.



It's Mainly CPU that determines resolution nowadays.


Only when playing at or under 1280x1024 with no anti-alias. Once those two are factored in it becomes apparent why the 7900GT/GTX and X1900 XT/XTX cards cost as much as they do and why the 7300/6600 and X1300 cost as little as they do. Although, the X1300 can easily become bogged down even at 1024x768.

I do agree that, unless the user is planning on running over 1280x1024, the X1600 XT would make an excellent choice for the performance to cost ratio for PSU. Luckily it seems the game is made on a much better engine this time around that is not quite as... irregularly done as PSOBB was.

[Fleece]

Aye but you have to remember PSO BB was just a heavily modified PSO PC.

[Blitzkommando]

On 2006-05-24 16:00, Fleece wrote:
Aye but you have to remember PSO BB was just a heavily modified PSO PC.


Actually it was more a poorly ported version of PSOX than PSOPC.

[Fleece]

which in turn was PSO PC as it was easy to port and add content to.

[PhotonCat]

Uh, your not gonna need a 7xxx or X19xx series of card to play PSU at max... But those are very good cards and if you can afford it and have a PCI-E slot then go for it (and don't listen to ppl who say "ATI's cards beat Nvidia or vice versa, there really isn't any pro/cons to either).

PSU will run fine on a 6xxx/5xxx and whatever is ATI equivalent to those. The graphics on PSU aren't spectacular and the Japanese don't consider PC gaming a huge thing so of course there gonna have the game be able to run on junk.

[Dre_o]

On 2006-05-24 21:03, PhotonCat wrote:
The graphics on PSU aren't spectacular and the Japanese don't consider PC gaming a huge thing so of course there gonna have the game be able to run on junk.



O.o [/ double take]

Have you compared them to PSO? But enough of my annoying crap.

I play Blue Burst with a 6200 on max with no problem at all. I'm sure it'll run PSU at 3/4 (at least) max with no problem. And I got mine for relatively cheap. ($110 on sale)

(Would've been cheaper if those freakin Geek Squad guys didn't have to install it :/ )

[VioletSkye]

Ughh, you let Geek Squad touch your pc? I'm surprised it still runs http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_lol.gif



On 2006-05-24 21:03, PhotonCat wrote:
(and don't listen to ppl who say "ATI's cards beat Nvidia or vice versa, there really isn't any pro/cons to either).

Actually, there are some very definite pros and cons to each of the cards. Saying that they all work and perform the same is simply inaccurate. Norvekh summed it pretty well. ATI had fallen behind Nvidia for the last few generations of cards (not to mention that Crossfire couldn't hold a candle to SLI.) However ATI has answered back remarkably well which is AWESOME!! Obviously I'm not a fanboy of either and I've installed just about every model of card from both companies. I follow the stats, benchmarks, revisions, comparisons and whatever other nuggets of info I can find on their products, and I can tell you first-hand that pros/cons do exist between cards.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: VioletSkye on 2006-05-24 22:01 ]</font>

[Kyuu]

If you do decide to go with a 6xxx series card, definitely consider getting a heatsink/fan for it. As VioletSkye and I can testify, overheating is definitely a problem with those, especially with ambient temperatures going up with it being summer and all. I still <3 my 6800 GT though.

[Blitzkommando]

On 2006-05-24 21:03, PhotonCat wrote:
(and don't listen to ppl who say "ATI's cards beat Nvidia or vice versa, there really isn't any pro/cons to either).

Other than the fact that both operate on entirely different methods I suppose you could claim that. Saying ATI and nVidia produce identical products is like claiming a Ford is the same as a similar type Chevrolet. There are pros and cons to choosing either and right now it just so happens ATI has more pros than nVidia for similarly priced products. This is simply because they have taken different routes when it comes to rendering the games. While you might be able to get similar frame rates between the two, right now ATI has better quality at similar frame rates.

Let me elaborate, like I did earlier, as to the main technological differences between the two as it stands today. The X1000 series by ATI has these three advantages over nVidia 7000 series (and obviously any series under that as well):

1. ATI is able to do rendering with HDR (High Dynamic Range) via Smart Shader 3.0 with Anti-Alias enabled whereas nVidia cards cannot do this. Anti-Alias for those who don't know is essentially the 'edge smoothing' so that the edges of objects don't look as jagged. Essentially, a picture quality thing.

2. ATI has the ability to use Anisotropic Filtering at any angle. AF basically does with textures and maintaining quality of the textures at distance especially. Having it able to filter at any angle makes it so that all textures look equal instead of some noticably more blurry than others.

3. ATI has a huge ammount of pixel shaders in their new cards. 48 for the X1900 series to be precise. This allows for a far greater number of textures to be handled more efficiently allowing for better quality of the images.

I'm not saying the 7000 series by nVidia is bad, far from it, they are great cards. I am using a 7800 GTX myself. But, had I purchased my card this March instead of last October I would have hands down selected ATI over nVidia simply due to the better quality offered by the ATI cards over the nVidia cards.

There's reasons there are different producers of video processors just like there are reasons there are different producers of central processor units as there are different producers of RAM (the chips themselves, not the manufacturer of the DIMMs, an example would be Samsung who's chips are used by Corsair). They all offer different checks and balances in performance and quality and there is a very real difference in choosing one over the other. And, because of this there are often leaders in the field at a given time. Right now AMD for instance is considered the prime choice for a gaming machine with Intel being the choice for encoding purposes and the like. It doesn't mean you can't encode with AMD processors or play games with Intel processors. It just means that for a similar price the consumer can purchase one that has more benefits to what they would use the machine for.

Like I said before, right now the best card for the price versus performance ratio for the mid-range is the X1600 XT. For the low end, well, it's a bit of a toss up between the 7300 and the X1300 as neither is really powerful enough to run modern games very well but both have very nice feature sets. For the high end ATI comes out ahead, both performance wise and technologically wise, with the X1900 XT and XTX over the nVidia 7900 GT and GTX.

If AGP is thrown into the equation... well, it just gets even more complex due to the rather lack of ATI products at the higher end and the watered down 7800 GS from nVidia. Neither side is really offering much at all in the way of AGP anymore as they want to push the motherboards with their newest chipsets as well as their PCI-Express cards because of the potential of running SLI and CrossFire.

Without knowing exactly what features are under PSU's hood so to speak, I have a very difficult time figuring out exactly how well it will run on given hardware. If it is OpenGL based or Direct3D based or whether or not it has a high end mode that takes advantage of SM3.0 or whether it is stuck rendering in SM2.0. If it does have SM3.0 anything under the 6000 series or the X1000 series will not run in SM3.0 mode as those cards will not support that technology. I doubt there is a SM3.0 mode, but I've been surprised before and could be surprised again. There's also the question of whether or not there have been any other higher end technologies built into the engine. The one that I am most curious is whether or not the game will adapt to dual-core processors. I also doubt that it would, but I'll test when I do get PSU to see whether or not it accesses both cores or if it just accesses one core.

I can get into a lot more detail but I figure this is enough right now. If you would like to see more information comparing the newest videocards (and everything else to do with current computer hardware) I would suggest checking out:

http://www.anandtech.com/default.aspx

http://www.tomshardware.com/

http://www.guru3d.com/

And for a really nice comparison between videocards all in one article:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html

And a similar comparison between CPUs:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html

[Kyuu]

*sweats* Man, I remember when my Athlon XP 3200+, AGP8x 6800 GT, and 1GB of dual-channel RAM were something to be proud of. Looking at a couple of those websites made me feel like my computer belongs in a museum. ><

[VioletSkye]

On 2006-05-24 22:39, Kyuu wrote:
*sweats* Man, I remember when my Athlon XP 3200+, AGP8x 6800 GT, and 1GB of dual-channel RAM were something to be proud of. Looking at a couple of those websites made me feel like my computer belongs in a museum. ><


Nah, your rig still has some life left in it http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif It should handle PSU descently enough and thats all that matters http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

[Inazuma]

im buying a new pc for psu and i was gonna go w/ nvidia. but now im leaning towards ati...

do we know for a fact which card works better w/ psu?

[Blitzkommando]

On 2006-05-24 22:56, Inazuma wrote:
im buying a new pc for psu and i was gonna go w/ nvidia. but now im leaning towards ati...

do we know for a fact which card works better w/ psu?


If you are specifically building it just for PSU then either should do just as well. However, if you plan to begin regular gaming on the machine you might consider looking into ATI with their newer, more efficient and feature-filled, cards. Games are definitely using more shaders today and ATI has a nice advantage there. I suppose I might put it like this: building a machine for a single game seems silly to me. If you have no intention to use it for other games then it seems like a waste to put in that much money for higher end components to get better results for one application. This isn't directed at anyone in particular I just feel like it is good advice to give to anyone who was thinking of building a machine specifically for PSU. By the time you spent all of that money you could've easily purchased a PS2 or even Xbox360 for running PSU for less.

As for which company will run the extra few frames more? Well, if it is OpenGL it will likely be nVidia if Direct3D ATI. Throw in Anti-Alias and Anisotropic Filtering and a 1+ Mega-pixel resolution the lead could definitely shine towards ATI's favor for the medium-high to high end cards.

[-Klaus-]

Dumb question... but I know almost nothing about graphics cards...

I'm pretty freaking sure my graphics card will run it..

But my card is a NVidia G-force 4, will it be able to run PSU smoothly?

[DamonKatu]

I have an NVIDIA Geforce 5500 and its good for all the other games BUT I know I need a better one just to play the new games coming to the PC. What I heard so far confuse me so far. Can we agree on something so we dont get the wrong graphic cards?

[Fleece]

Your 5500 will run PSU BTW and If you asked me between ATi and nvidia I'd say ATi, I used nvidia for years and i never thought there was much difference between the cards till i saw my friends brand new 9200, The difference in picture clarity was outstanding. Some people will know what im on about. I've used ati ever since.

[PhotonCat]

There is not *too* much of a difference between a 7900GTX and a X1900XTX. Yeah, the X1900XTX can do both HDR and AA at the same time, but so what? Not everyone cares and HDR is overrated IMO. If I wanted to be the subject of realistic sun-light, that it burns my eyes, I'd go outside. Bloom is fine enough and when you get in the higher resolutions you can't notice the aliasing anyway. Having one or the other on is pure preferance.

You also can't trust bench-marks. How much $$$ do you think is being bribed between companies->hardware sites to make there own cards look better?
It also depends on the other hardware besides the card.

If someone asked me what they should get between the 7900GTX or a X1900XTX I would say whatever is cheaper. Each has there own strengths and weaknesses.
It's not justifyable to say "this is better" because of it's 1% or 2FPS boost it gives in a certain situation. They are both excellent cards.

Saying X company is better than Y company is obviously fanboyism.

[Kyuu]

Yeah I agree with PhotonCat about the HDR. I played Oblivion with HDR at first, then switched to Bloom for better performance, and honestly... there isn't really much difference. HDR makes the fire effect look a little cooler, and I noticed more colored light being thrown around, but all in all, I would really say HDR is far from impressively superior to Bloom. And sometimes the HDR effects even got a little annoying.

And honestly, just turn on 2xQ anti-aliasing. It's almost exactly the same as 4x, except you get better performance.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kyuu on 2006-05-25 15:33 ]</font>