Need help picking out a vcard

Maxxing a game takes quite a lot more than running it on medium. If you have a low resolution, it will help, but the it looks bad and you need AA.

I do not own the game myself, so I was estimating by screenies, benches I have seen.

I never really consider a game maxxed unless its at 1920x1080 resolution or higher either...

30fps will be easy though. Why 60? Are you like me, and able to see 60Hz flicker in flourescent lights and such?
 
Not sure what you mean by that, but if you're asking me if I can see a clear-cut difference between 30 and 60, then that's a yes. It's a gargantuan difference to me.

As far as resolution goes, 1440x900 what seems to run best on my monitor, although I don't know if native resolutions are connected to monitors or vcards, as far as I know, all 19" monitors should be 1440x900. Could be wrong, but that's what I'm given to understand.

The difference between medium and high on Dragon Age is not that big. On the 8600gt, it CAN run at max, but the framerate is bad, like 10 fps. There should be SOME kind of card that will run it on 1440x900 with very high settings, AA and post-processing effects for $40-50. Even at 45fps I would be happy, seeing as most console games run at 30 fps or lower.

Oh, and the benches you saw are WAYYYYY overkill. The game is by no means up to par with things like Crysis. The 8600gt runs The Last Remnant at max settings (1440x900) at 60 fps, and Dragon Age isn't much more graphically intense than that.
 
If high is 10fps, and you still want to go to very high and get 60, that will require a much more powerful card. An 8600 is still a somewhat decent card. I say you need a 5770 to max it and get 60 fps. If I had played it, I would be able to give you a better estimate.

5750 or 5770 I say for max @1440x900.
 
If high is 10fps, and you still want to go to very high and get 60, that will require a much more powerful card. An 8600 is still a somewhat decent card. I say you need a 5770 to max it and get 60 fps. If I had played it, I would be able to give you a better estimate.

5750 or 5770 I say for max @1440x900.

5770 is what I was planning on getting for my beast PC 3 months from now, I really, really think that's overkill for DAO. And I said MAX is 10 fps, not high.

DAO's graphic strain is equivelant to a game from like, 2006-2007. It's about the same as running WoW in northrend with max settings. It's a real minor-leaguer.
 
Hmmm.... 5750 then....?

All you need is the 512MB version because of your low resolution.

That won't be too expensive. I just got a 1GB one for $130.

I don't really like the 'old game' excuse... Crysis is from 2008, and there were some uber intensive games out even before then.

Heck, my 4870 x2 gets about 5FPS in some areas in Xplane 9 from 07.

/OCDRANT

5750 is prolly your best value too...
 
Don't forget my budget.

It's not a matter of "I have money but I only want to spend X dollars"

It's a matter of "If I spend more than $50, then I have to cut down on groceries and starve".

I'm starting to think that I should just buy another 8600gt, they're around $40 now I believe. I don't HAVE to be able to run DAO perfectly, I would probably barely ever play it. All I care about is being able to run WoW at the moment to pass time until I make some money.

The only reason I want to buy a new card now, rather than waiting and buying a really good one, is because between now and the time I have money, I want to do more than twiddle my thumbs and play starcraft 1.
 
I'm.. more of a software guy, dunno what SLI means, but I think I've seen that term used somewhere on this PC so I'll assume yes. Is there anything that's just, SLIGHTLY better than the 8600gt for the same price? I doubt that the 8600gt is the BEST you can get for $40, even if I just get an extra shadow setting or higher AA or 10 more FPS, it's worth it.
 
SLI = Scalable Link Interface.

NVidia's multi-GPU technology.

You can only SLI the same model cards pretty much. You will need another 8600 GT, same amount of VRAM.
 
*edit* I misinterpreted the whole comment about multi gpu, I must be tired or something. I don't plan on running Dual vcards so I dunno how that got brought up.

Anyway, forget all about dragon age, I've played that enough I think. Instead, here are the starcraft 2 requirements, and I WILL want to play this on very high settings.

Minumum Requirements
GFX: GeForce 7/8 Series or Radeon 1000/2000 with 256 MB RAM
CPU: Pentium 4
RAM: 1 GB
Internet: ADSL 1 Mbit

Recommended Requirements
GFX: GeForce 8000 or Radeon 2000 series with 512 MB RAM
CPU: Core 2 Duo or Athlon X2.
RAM: 2 GB
Internet: ADSL 3 Mbit

Optimal Requirements
GFX: Geforce 9000er or Radeon 3000er Series
CPU: Core 2 Duo 3 GHz or Athlon X2
RAM: 2GB with DualChannel mode

What would be the best course of action? I feel so dumb, this all looks so easy to understand and figure out if I actually KNEW what all the values meant on hardware.
 
Back
Top Bottom