System Requirements?

[air_head1]

What will the system requirements be?

[Hamma]

I dont think they will be much different than the demo req's which was:

1ghz Proc w/ 512MB of ram (that was the min reqs)

[Camping Carl]

Don't forget a decent grapics card, geforce2 or voodoo4/5 at the very least.

[Vimp]

Voodoo4-5? Those were old by the time the first Geforce2 came out. Those are like equivelant to like a TNT2 card, (which was the last tnt before they switched to geforce), which is hardly likly to run PS, never mind play PS in any capeable manner.

[Navaron]

ugg Voodoo is evil.

[Hamma]

Didnt Nvidia buy out voodoo ? :eek:

[Navaron]

Nvidia is the microsoft of vid cards

[Camping Carl]

Hey voodoo made decent cards, a voodoo 5 was better than a geforce2 any day. But yeah, I think they're dead now, though some people still have them.

[FireFrenzy]

Originally posted by {BOHICA}Navaron
Nvidia is the microsoft of vid cards

Microsoft sells utter and complete SHIT ('scuse the language) at a high cost, and has most of the market. nVidia sells good cards, for not that expensive, and has a very competitive market with ATI.

I really don't see the connection is.

[Stalefish]

I'd actually say ATI is pulling away from nVidia as far as quality of cards goes. Their 9700's are WAY better than the new Geforce FX's, benchmarks prove it too. ATI Radeon is actually the card of choice now for Doom 3. nVidia is definately NOT the microsoft of video cards (and Fire, he was implying that nVidia has a monopoly on the video card industry, not that they made stuff alike). Within the next year or two I say ATI will come out way on top, plus their cards are really damn inexpensive too, like AMD is to Pentium.

[FireFrenzy]

GeForce FX benchmarked 50 fps in Doom3, while the ATI 9700 (which the game is currently optimized for) was getting 20. The GF FX will be the same amount as the 9700 is now (roughly the same as the gf 4600 was when it came out). But really, we'll have to see, i'm surprised your so sure that ATI will come out on top without the GF FX not even out yet. The reason i'm for nVidia and GF FX is because of the horrible hell i am/have gone through with my Radeon 8500. Will NEVER buy them again.

[Stalefish]

Did you buy the ATI card or some other company's?

I usually go with either Verto (for nVidia cards) or Hercules (for Radeons). They're my favorite two companies. :D

Where did you get those framerates for Doom3? Just curious, not digging in to see if you're LYING OR ANYTHING! j/k :D

But seriously, I want to see them. :)

[BLuE_ZeRO]

Originally posted by Stalefish
I'd actually say ATI is pulling away from nVidia as far as quality of cards goes. Their 9700's are WAY better than the new Geforce FX's, benchmarks prove it too. ATI Radeon is actually the card of choice now for Doom 3. nVidia is definately NOT the microsoft of video cards (and Fire, he was implying that nVidia has a monopoly on the video card industry, not that they made stuff alike). Within the next year or two I say ATI will come out way on top, plus their cards are really damn inexpensive too, like AMD is to Pentium.

Just wondering where you got your info on the radeon 9700 being 'way" better than the fx... you may be talking about the geforce ti 4600 benchmarks compared to the radeon 9700 which weren't all that different except at higher resolutions in which the ati blows away the geforce. As for the FX... might want to check your info again.

[FireFrenzy]

The card is your run of the mill built by ATI, ATI box radeon 8500.

The benchmarks were obviously by nvidia (since no one else would really have them, nor would ATI show it). You can see them in the 1 hour 30 minute presentation Nvidia has, on the GF FX website (look around @ nvidia.com, impossible to miss).

[Stalefish]

Why does everyone have to be a smartass. :p

I found it Fire, you were right, but I'd rather see it released on ATI's site. I can't really trust nVidia to put up the right stuff. :(

Maybe PlanetHardware has something on it...

[Navaron]

"(and Fire, he was implying that nVidia has a monopoly on the video card industry, not that they made stuff alike). "

Yep

"nVidia sells good cards, for not that expensive"

Not true, their cards have consistantly been the most expensive for a couple years now.

"The GF FX will be the same amount as the 9700 is now"

I don't think this is a likely chance, nVIdia cards come out at much higher prices, and it is pretty well assumed that Radeon will lower their price of the 9700 when the FX comes out.

The FX will have more muscle than the Radeon, but I have read several articles saying it is too little too late, and that at that high performance you don't really gain any noticible improvements. I own a nVIdia card now and am very happy with it. I just don't feel like waiting months for a card that has little to offer me at such a price. I'm sure it's a good card though.

[powdahound]

Originally posted by Stalefish Their 9700's are WAY better than the new Geforce FX's, benchmarks prove it too.
I'd like to see the results you saw that in.
ATI Radeon is actually the card of choice now for Doom 3.
Ya, especially after they leaked that alpha build... :lol: I don't think id is too happy with them, at all.

GeForce FX will be the top of the line for graphics cards when it comes out. I doubt they'd even release it if it wasn't better than the 9700.

And a few other points:
1. nVidia's driver team OWNS. Radeon has crap drivers. :p
2. Benchmarks aren't everything. Radeons are known for underperforming in game compared to their benchmarks.

nVidia for life. Radeon falls in to the same category as macs for me. I don't hate them, but I don't feel like they're the best. :shrug:

[Dragoon412]

Originally posted by FireFrenzy
The card is your run of the mill built by ATI, ATI box radeon 8500.

What? You're comparing a Radeon 8500; a card that's already over a year old, to an FX series card? Ha!

And if you screwed up and meant 9700 Pro, there's one more thing to keep in mind: ATi, for some reason I don't understand, underclocks their OEM cards. Seriously, right out of the box, a retail 9700 Pro will smoke an OEM 9700 Pro (nVidia does the same thing, actually), so there's probably a good chance that the test is loaded.

I'm going to side with ATi on this debate. Yes, their drivers need some serious work (but I always find myself using the omega/plutonium 3rd party drivers, anyway), and nVidia <I>does</I> have excellent driver support.

But, nVidia also markets themselves for the drooling fanbois. I think that Microsoft analogy is a lot better than people gave it credit for, 'cause nVidia's the one relying on marketing hype to sell their product. And drooling, idiot fanbois who need to tell everyone about their 1337 benchmark scores seem to be nVidia's primary customers.

Didnt Nvidia buy out voodoo ?

Not quite... nVidia bought out part of Voodoo's remaining IP, but as far as the company, like employees and production/design facilities, no, those weren't part of what nVidia got.

...you may be talking about the geforce ti 4600 benchmarks compared to the radeon 9700 which weren't all that different except at higher resolutions in which the ati blows away the geforce.

...and you fail to point out what this indicates: that the 9700 is so much faster than existing cards, that the processor was the bottleneck. Most video cards give a 15-30% performance boost over the previous generation when they're released. Yet, the 9700 absolutely embarassed the GF4 line, and we're *still* not seeing games that push the 9700 Pro. Right now, the 9700 Pro's like an olympic sprinter at a middle school track meet.

I can't say much in terms of the FX's performance, but I know two things:

1. It will be incredibly overpriced
2. It'll for the price down on the 9700 Pro

Buy ATi if you want a ton of performance for your money, buy nVidia if you want to throw away your money on a label and a bunch of features that'll probably never be implimented

[Zatrais]

The Radeon 9700 was never intented to compete whit the Geforce FX... the 9700 is a competitor to G4..

the R350 chip that ATI is making will compete whit the Geforce FX.

[BLuE_ZeRO]

I really don't think they're going to price the new FX much higher if at all higher than the 9700. They aren't going to charge people $500 + for cards. If they do they're retarded but I really doubt they will. As for not mentioning the other cards, why would I? The ti4600 is the only that even comes close to competing with the 9700 but even that falls short. Radeon is superior to the cards that are currently out right now but once FX comes out that will most likely change.

[Vimp]

Camping Carl -

Hey voodoo made decent cards, a voodoo 5 was better than a geforce2 any day. But yeah, I think they're dead now, though some people still have them.

Voodoo5 was old technology by the time Geforce2 came out. Theres not much comparison because the Geforce2 64mb Pro is easily able to perform double that of the best Voodoo card. My Geforce2 can run every game out there currently with very descent frame rates. UT2003 set to max settings runs at 25-30 fps for me and my processor is only a 700mhz with 256mb ram. No voodoo card would be able to come close to that I'm sure.

Hamma -

Didnt Nvidia buy out voodoo ?

I don't think so. However the name Geforce FX is taken from Geforce/3dFX according to Nvidia. The Geforce FX has 3dFX, (voodoo), technology built on.

[BLuE_ZeRO]

Just read in my PC World magazine that ATI is going to come out with another chipset soon after the Geforce FX is released. Looks like graphics hardware superiority will be switching hands for awhile. :D

[BigHairyJohn]

UT2003 set to max settings runs at 25-30 fps for me and my processor is only a 700mhz with 256mb ram
that's a big ghey lie, my friend has a GF3ti500, 1.5ghz and 512mb and gets the same fps as you. My friend pc rapes your 3 fold so your either using a really crappy res or your not tell the truth .I get a 30-50fps with a 2.5ghz 512mb ddr sdram, Radeaon 7500.

[Vimp]

LOL, sucks to be you.

Actually I've always bragged about my performance to people because I admit that my computer runs things that most others won't, even though they have higher specs. I honestly don't know why. I built my PC though. Maybe others buy prepackaged computers from dealers which in my opinion is a huge rip off and the reason their computers run so slow.

However the res was only at 800x640 32bit color for me. All other settings were maxed out. I never max the res out cause other then the color depth, which I have at max, I never see much difference in resolutions above 800x640 in games. I play all games at that res except for games like age of empires and simcity where you actually see alot more with the higher res.

At 1024x768 I average about 5-10 fps less. Which since I don't see much difference in my view, isn't worth it to me.

In fact I've put off buying a new computer for the very reason that my computer runs better then alot of peoples computers that I hear about that are twice what mine is. In Tribes2 for example I get as low as 40 fps outside at the worst and up to 90 fps at the best. Usually about 60fps on average. And this again is with all settings to max with the exception of the res which is 800x640. From what I hear on tribes2 forums most with much better specs then mine don't get half that frame rate.

[Stalefish]

Originally posted by BLuE_ZeRO
I really don't think they're going to price the new FX much higher if at all higher than the 9700. They aren't going to charge people $500 + for cards. If they do they're retarded but I really doubt they will. As for not mentioning the other cards, why would I? The ti4600 is the only that even comes close to competing with the 9700 but even that falls short. Radeon is superior to the cards that are currently out right now but once FX comes out that will most likely change.

Until ATI comes out with an even better card. :p

ATI's been keeping up real close, and even if they release a new card, they'll stick with DDR2 just like nVidia, and they'll go with 256MB just like nVidia. They aren't incompetant, and they know what the hell they're doing.

As for powdahound, their original Radeon 32mb cards drivers were crap, but I doubt you've even test driven one of their newer cards. Their driver team is on the ball.

[sPooT]

I really don't see why people get all defensive when we're talking about videocards ;) Really, I currently have a nVidia GF4 ti-4200 128 MB, which was a brilliant card for it's price when I bought it. I don't get a warm and fuzzy feeling from hearing the word Nvidia now though... No idea acout current prices. But when the time comes to buy a new one I'll just look at some recent benchmarks and prices and draw a conclusion then.

[orogogus]

actually, the estimated retail prices for the FX are $400 for the regular part and $500 for the ultra part, so they are going to charge people $500 (at least initially) for graphics cards... silly really, they seem to go up ~$100 (for the fastest cards) every other cycle.

[Stalefish]

Radeon 9700's are around $425 if you buy them straight from ATI, but if you get them from anywhere else they're $312, and I'm guessing they'll go down even farther, like Navaron said, when the FX is released.

[Vimp]

I think you guys are forgetting the first Geforce when it came out. The Anniallator Pro was over $600 canadian at Futureshop when it first came out. I payed $375 for it and i was getting a very awsome deal at the time. So $400 - $500 is hardly unussual for a new videocard.

[Dragoon412]

The TI 4600 was going for $500 USD when it was first released. Even now, the retail price on the TI 4600 is $300, where retail on the Radeon 9700 Pro is $400. This isn't even remotely competitive from a price vs. performance standpoint. As simply as I can put it, the Radeon 9700 Pro offers FAR more than a 33% increase in performance, but only carries a 33% higher price tag than the TI 4600.

The GF3 was $600 for a couple weeks after its initial release, and settled in at $400 after that, and stayed at that price point as ATi proceeded to release the Radeon 8500, which outperformed the GF3 for LESS money.

It wasn't the MX line of cards that killed off the GF3's popularity, it was nVidia's MSRP. The GF3 was a great card for its day (and still kicks the crap out of anything in the GF4 MX line), but it was hideously expensive.

I won't bash nVidia - I think that overall their product is every bit as good as ATi's, it's just that ATi offers a solid product at a good price, while nVidia offers a solid product with a lot of hype at too high a cost. If nVidia was competitive with ATi on the price front, I'd probably use them for their superior drivers, but as things stand, nVidia is just plain overpriced for what you get.

My prediction for the FX: typical nVidia -- they'll release their competitor to a card ATi's already had on the market for months. It will offer marginally (like 5%) better performance, and will cost 50% more than ATi's offering. Yet people will still buy it.

[Zatrais]

GF FX is not a competitor to the R300 chip (or radeon 9700 line).. the GF FX will compete whit the R350 line that ATI is making (not much heard of this yet, they're keeping the lid pretty tight). The GF FX has the specs to beat the Radeon 9700, how this works in real use has yet to be seen.

As for the G4 vs 9700... they're pretty close in performce whitout AA or AF enabled whit resoilutions up to and including 1024x768. But once you enable AA and FA the Radeon 9700 kicks the crap out of the G4. Also when you go beyond 1024x768 the Radeon 9700 really starts to shine performance wise. All this is also whit 32bit not 16bit.

Personally i think the GF FX will be a problem card for a while considering that this is the first Nvidia card that has AA and FA options. Will most likely be some growing pains whit those options for a while.

Incase you wonder what i base my analasys on the G4 vs R9700... i've used them both in my system... hehe.

To put it simply, if you don't mind jagged lines, less clear textures whit lacking performance past the 1024x768 res go whit the G4. If you want AA and FA, running games at resolutions past 1024x768 then go whit the 9700.

I'd go whit the R9700, because well once you've tasted AA and FA you never want to go back to whitout them hehe

[Dragoon412]

As for the G4 vs 9700... they're pretty close in performce whitout AA or AF enabled whit resoilutions up to and including 1024x768. But once you enable AA and FA the Radeon 9700 kicks the crap out of the G4. Also when you go beyond 1024x768 the Radeon 9700 really starts to shine performance wise. All this is also whit 32bit not 16bit.

And as I pointed out before, what that shows is that the processor is the limiting factor in the benchmarking setup. As you increase the resolution and add anti-aliasing and the like, the load on the video card increases, but the processor load does NOT.

So the GF4 scores about the same as the 9700 when the benchmark is processor-dependant, but as the benchmark moves to place higher demand on the GPU, the 9700 smokes the G4. The truth of the matter is that the 9700 Pro is so powerful that even now, pairing it with a high-end 3.0ghz P4/RDRAM test machine, it's *still* pulling away from the GF4 as you push the resolution and features - I don't honestly think we'll see that card's performance ceiling for a couple more months.

Really, the GF4 is a more powerful card than the Radeon 8500, but the 9700 is just WAY out of its league. The moment ATi released the RV300, every other card on the market was relegate to obsolecense. This wasn't a normal product cycle performance increase -- the RV300 is so powerful that it has more power by itself than most high end gaming systems.

Take a look at some benchmarks:

First, Jedi Knight 2 (http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021104/r9700pro-cards-18.html) , which is probably the most CPU-intensive game out there.

Then, UT2k3 (http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021104/r9700pro-cards-17.html).

And those aren't even with FSAA and AF enabled - look at the FSAA (http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021104/r9700pro-cards-20.html), AF (http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021104/r9700pro-cards-21.html), and FSAA & AF (http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021104/r9700pro-cards-22.html) tests, where the 9700 Pro consistantly turns out nearly three times the numbers that the TI 4600 does.

The 9700 Pro is just WAY out of the league of anything else on the market right now.

[�io]

Hehe i was just checking out Tom's hardware comparaison. It made me think twice about getting a TI4600. I'm most likely gonna get a 9700pro now. :)

[Zatrais]

yup the Radeon 9700 kicks ass, it's the card i'm currently using, but as Dragoon said the current PC's dosn't even do it justice yet because they can't throw enough at it hehe... Get a radeon 9700 and you're set for a while.

Whit the Radeon 9700 today you basicly pay for WAY better images in games whit the AA and FA.. not to mention pixel shading (water in Morrowind for instance looks damn sweet whit it) and you get a card that will last longer than the G4, but you pay abit more for it.. not to mention that it's a power beast aswell so be sure to have a nice big powersupply... it needs it's on 4pin power like the HD's use.

oh 1 final tip for future Radeon 9700 pro *hint dio hehe* owners, don't share the 4 pin power connector whit annything else. Yes it can be used whit another because it can "split" but that in most cases just slows things down. It also caused some problems for me until i gave it its own supply hehe

[bliksta]

radeons for life :D

[Dragoon412]

*sigh*

I know it's practically a moot point, but, Vimp, the Voodoo 5 would smoke a GF2. The Voodoo 5 was comparable to a GF3, performance-wise.

[MrVicchio]

SmokeJumperPS
Station Admin
Registered: Sep 2001 posted 12-31-2002 09:23 AM user search report post
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our system is extremely complex, but I'll do the nutshell description here:
a) We load "thumbnails" of everything on the continent at load time. That way, you will always see a texture, and there's no appreciable load pause when something pops into view (like a vehicle or building).

b) We load in higher-res textures in your CPUs free-time. In otherwords, when you're not doing much that keeps your system busy, we have it loading higher-end textures so that your images improve. These higher-res textures are "bubbled" in, to use your phrasing. Basically, they are added in to your memory cache whenever you are in range of possibly needing to see those objects.

c) We flush textures, as needed, but try to never flush textures unless required. The less memory swaps, the better. Memory flushes typically occur between continents.

d) We allow players to use the thumbnail version of the graphics when playing, if desired. The graphics result is less pleasing (a bit blurry), but all textures are loaded at all times, thus eliminating load "ticks" as the hard drive is accessed.
(Folks with the 512MB RAM on the min specs wouldn't see this anyway...but this allows folks with lower than 512MB to play well. Yes...we're working on lowering our min specs.)

I think that helps right there :)

[�io]

Well it depends on the peeps. I know i could very likely play PS on my system (1.4Ghz,256 DDR, GeForce2mx400 64meg) but with everything in low. PlanetSide deserves better, hence i'll be upgrading no matter what. :D

[Dragoon412]

Ditto -- my system's bran new, actually, but it's lacking in the perfromance department. I had a power surge on my old system that blew the surge supressor, the power supply, the mainboard, etc, so I had to build a brand new system on extremely short funds and time, and got stuck with a:

P4 1.6ghz
512 MB Crucial PC2100 DDR RAM
ATi Radeon 8500
*cries* an SiS 651 chipset on my mainboard

But, hey, it's a Shuttle SS51G; the tower isn't any larger than my toaster, and it's very quiet. :D

I plan on updating, too... probably to 1 gig of Corsair PC2700 DDR RAM (Curical has creat customer service, but their RAM has major stability issues when you overclock it) and a Radeon 9700 Pro. I guess I could update my processor, too, but I really don't think it'll be a major issue; I can overclock it to 2.3ghz without any stability issues, and I have PLENTY of cooling - it's just a question of getting RAM that I can ramp up the settings for, too.