There's no doubt that XFX's Extreme Gamer Edition will be faster, but worth an extra £50 for the extra 20MHz clock speed? I don't think it is worth it right now. :)
What's interesting is that under Far Cry, you get a 12% average FPS speed boost for only a 9% increase in clockspeed. Plus, the minimum is up a massive 50%!
thank you for the review! im pretty damn sure alot of people curious about this card will finnally have something to go by with, maybe...the first english review of this card?
Erm, due to the extreme lagginess of the game (due to drivers) and I set out the following conditions for 'playable'
Quote:
Below is a table of the best-playable settings that we found best for each video card configuration. In this title, we experienced a lot of hitching and found that the frame rate could regularly jump in to the mid teens. We feel that the drivers need some work before the game is released in order to remove the hitching we were experiencing at all resolutions on any video card that we threw at this title.
We decided that a minimum frame rate of around 15 frames per second and an average of over 60 frames per second would deliver the best-possible gaming experience in the circumstances. This was not what we would call smooth gaming, but it was about as smooth as possible given the issues we were having in achieving smooth game play. We just hope that the drivers are fixed in time for the full release of this game.
If you can find another way for me to get a minimum frame rate of around 15fps and an average of over 60fps I am happy to listen to your concerns. Don't forget that a single 6800 GT will be slower than the X850 XT PE and I am quite sensitive to the game lagging - it is far from smooth when it drops to 15 frames per second so I'm not willing to let it drop further. I am using a portion of the demo that does not have any auto saves in it, so the lag is from the game lagging, not from the slowness of the hard drive or other parts of the system.
I will play on an X800 XL later, for comparison purposes, and a single 6800 GT too (if you want me to) to show you what my opinion of 'playable' settings and frame rates are on those cards.
why do you set a target average of > 60fps, its smooth (apart form the driver causing the jerky spots) at 40fps
i get about 30-40 with my x800xl, but thats not including the bits where it stalls for a second going round a corner, i cant get rid of that no matter what settings i run so im not counting it in the average
guess we just have different definitions of playable :)
although in MP games i like to have ~80fps if possible, which is why i run BF2 with no aa etc
Incidentally, a quick Google revealed at least one other English-language review. Strangely, their card was clocked at 480/1300 - UPDATE - I spoke to my inside guy at Gainward, who told me that the other review was *very* early on (the review isn't dated), and then decided to ease back the clocks to 470/1300 for higher yield - obviously not EVERY card will leap from 430 core to 480 core!
There is, of course, the CoolFX watercooled version to follow - rumoured to be 500/1400 - try THAT in SLI baby!
Originally Posted by Hamish why do you set a target average of > 60fps, its smooth (apart form the driver causing the jerky spots) at 40fps
i get about 30-40 with my x800xl, but thats not including the bits where it stalls for a second going round a corner, i cant get rid of that no matter what settings i run so im not counting it in the average
guess we just have different definitions of playable :)
although in MP games i like to have ~80fps if possible, which is why i run BF2 with no aa etc
In BF2 anything above 60-70fps is good going - in some cases 90fps. It is all down to the minimum frame rate being above 30fps in that game though.
Seeing as you can't get the minimum respectably high in F.E.A.R. at the moment, and pausing when going round corners is what I'd call 'hitching'. Geoff found that he could play F.E.A.R. at 1280x960 2xAA 2xAF with all details on - I tried that to see if I was missing something, but the hitches when going around corners get annoying and in firefights it was dropping in to single figures and all the way to zero in some instances too. :)
I used to play a lot of Counter-Strike and dropping below 60fps was 'bad' in that game and I'd trade image quality for added smoothness. Ok it gets to a point where the trade off is too great, but I think that F.E.A.R. looks good at 1024x768 with DX9 shaders no matter what card you're running. If you can get to that setting, you've got a pretty nice looking gaming experience considering how taxing the game's engine is.
the hitches when going around corners get annoying and in firefights it was dropping in to single figures and all the way to zero in some instances too. :)
thing is the frame rate stays about 30 during the firefights (when i have a chance to look :p) and is about 40ish just walking around
but then i go around certain corners (and its replicable, only certain corners, not all of them) and i get hitching
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigz
I used to play a lot of Counter-Strike and dropping below 60fps was 'bad' in that game and I'd trade image quality for added smoothness. Ok it gets to a point where the trade off is too great, but I think that F.E.A.R. looks good at 1024x768 with DX9 shaders no matter what card you're running. If you can get to that setting, you've got a pretty nice looking gaming experience considering how taxing the game's engine is.
hehe i used to be a big RTCW mp player, and everyone would be trying to get to either 86 or 120fps because being Q3 based it'd let you jump slightly higher so you could get on the roof in mp_depot :D
ended up looking horrible, barely any textures, just coloured slabs of walls
In a competitive game like CS (/spits) I don't disagree Tim. But for a romp in the dark singleplayer like FEAR, it bothered me less. Perhaps over the distance of the full game, it might get to me, so I could drop the detail. But having completed Far Cry on my 9700Pro, I wouldn't mind playing it all over again at Max Detail now I have the X850XTPE. And that's something I'd rather avoid the first time here s'all
simple answer is for ATI and NVIDIA to work on optimising the game so that the hitches don't happen - that way we can determine smooth game play and not debate about how many hitches are fair and not fair :)
Every other game I benchmark goes by the same principles to be honest - it just happens that this one really bitches with your system. I've looked at second by second FPS analysis too and the frame rate is often dropping in to the 20's for 10 seconds at a time, so that prooves that I'm already on the edge of what I'd determine as smooth.
made a huge difference to me
im now running 2 of these at 245fsb 3-3-3-8 1t
X800xl (440/501)
X2 4400+ (2.7gig)
got fraps to include the framerate in the screenies and had a play through http://www.frools.net/fear/2gig/ http://www.frools.net/fear/2gig/FEARSPDemo-2005-08-9-16-40-.jpg
lowest i could get it
couple of times it hit 90-100fps when theres no action on screen
the hitching is almost gone entirely
i think i noticed it twice
once in the tunnel when you first 'see' the little girl and the hud flashes and says incoming message, then again turning a corner in the corridor after the first 2 guys you kill
but way way less than with 1gig
i also left task manager open on the other screen, FEAR gets up to around 900mb of ram + few hundred in page file
with 1gig i had about 20mb free during game, with 2gig i've got 700mb free :D
(maybe you should split this bit off and move it to the fear discussion thread as we've gone a bit off topic )
I've got 4x512MB running at 233MHz 3.0-3-2-10 2T with roughly the same CPU speed and that does help a bit now - there's only one major hitch in the entire run through that I use. I haven't benchmarked a 7800 GTX or an X850 XT PE for that matter, but on an unnamed vid card (for now), I found that the same settings were best-playable, but it was a hell of a lot smoother. I'm hovering around the 610MB mark with F.E.A.R.
I can't really turn back on the review I'm working on at the moment, but the game needs lots of memory and also lots of memory bandwidth - I suspect that there'll be more perf available with 2x1GB modules at 1T. I'll be trying hard to get a pair of matched 1GB modules over the next couple of days.
Bit off topic and it might have been better suited to another thread but here goes anyway :)
I've been running Gainward Sli 7800Ultra GTX Golden Samples for a little while on air and currently have them at 519 core - 1400 memory but as you can see in the Compare 3dMark 03 link its showing as 275 core - 1404 memory.
Any idea why this should be and more importantly, what will it actually be running at :(
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Great Review ;)
But does this Card measure up to the XFX 7800GTX "Extreme Edition" :|
... frank
I've got an XFX sitting here by the way...
thank you for the review! im pretty damn sure alot of people curious about this card will finnally have something to go by with, maybe...the first english review of this card?
wtf, my x800xl plays fear at 1024, 4xaa, 4xaf, no softshadows fine (30-40fps), how does an x850xt need AA off :|
If you can find another way for me to get a minimum frame rate of around 15fps and an average of over 60fps I am happy to listen to your concerns. Don't forget that a single 6800 GT will be slower than the X850 XT PE and I am quite sensitive to the game lagging - it is far from smooth when it drops to 15 frames per second so I'm not willing to let it drop further. I am using a portion of the demo that does not have any auto saves in it, so the lag is from the game lagging, not from the slowness of the hard drive or other parts of the system.
I will play on an X800 XL later, for comparison purposes, and a single 6800 GT too (if you want me to) to show you what my opinion of 'playable' settings and frame rates are on those cards.
i get about 30-40 with my x800xl, but thats not including the bits where it stalls for a second going round a corner, i cant get rid of that no matter what settings i run so im not counting it in the average
guess we just have different definitions of playable :)
although in MP games i like to have ~80fps if possible, which is why i run BF2 with no aa etc
There is, of course, the CoolFX watercooled version to follow - rumoured to be 500/1400 - try THAT in SLI baby!
In BF2 anything above 60-70fps is good going - in some cases 90fps. It is all down to the minimum frame rate being above 30fps in that game though.
Seeing as you can't get the minimum respectably high in F.E.A.R. at the moment, and pausing when going round corners is what I'd call 'hitching'. Geoff found that he could play F.E.A.R. at 1280x960 2xAA 2xAF with all details on - I tried that to see if I was missing something, but the hitches when going around corners get annoying and in firefights it was dropping in to single figures and all the way to zero in some instances too. :)
I used to play a lot of Counter-Strike and dropping below 60fps was 'bad' in that game and I'd trade image quality for added smoothness. Ok it gets to a point where the trade off is too great, but I think that F.E.A.R. looks good at 1024x768 with DX9 shaders no matter what card you're running. If you can get to that setting, you've got a pretty nice looking gaming experience considering how taxing the game's engine is.
but then i go around certain corners (and its replicable, only certain corners, not all of them) and i get hitching
ended up looking horrible, barely any textures, just coloured slabs of walls
Every other game I benchmark goes by the same principles to be honest - it just happens that this one really bitches with your system. I've looked at second by second FPS analysis too and the frame rate is often dropping in to the 20's for 10 seconds at a time, so that prooves that I'm already on the edge of what I'd determine as smooth.
my 2gig just arrived, ill try it out later see if it helps :)
see what 2x1gig does :)
im now running 2 of these at 245fsb 3-3-3-8 1t
X800xl (440/501)
X2 4400+ (2.7gig)
got fraps to include the framerate in the screenies and had a play through
http://www.frools.net/fear/2gig/
http://www.frools.net/fear/2gig/FEARSPDemo-2005-08-9-16-40-.jpg
lowest i could get it
couple of times it hit 90-100fps when theres no action on screen
the hitching is almost gone entirely
i think i noticed it twice
once in the tunnel when you first 'see' the little girl and the hud flashes and says incoming message, then again turning a corner in the corridor after the first 2 guys you kill
but way way less than with 1gig
i also left task manager open on the other screen, FEAR gets up to around 900mb of ram + few hundred in page file
with 1gig i had about 20mb free during game, with 2gig i've got 700mb free :D
(maybe you should split this bit off and move it to the fear discussion thread as we've gone a bit off topic )
edit: anyone want to buy 2x512mb of BH5? :D
I can't really turn back on the review I'm working on at the moment, but the game needs lots of memory and also lots of memory bandwidth - I suspect that there'll be more perf available with 2x1GB modules at 1T. I'll be trying hard to get a pair of matched 1GB modules over the next couple of days.
im getting about 6.5gig/s in sandra at these speeds if thats any help :)
i have to say, for £81 a stick this crucial is pretty good :)
I've been running Gainward Sli 7800Ultra GTX Golden Samples for a little while on air and currently have them at 519 core - 1400 memory but as you can see in the Compare 3dMark 03 link its showing as 275 core - 1404 memory.
Any idea why this should be and more importantly, what will it actually be running at :(