Halo 1 & 2 for PC
This topic has moved here: Subject: The Buyer's Guide to Graphics Cards
  • Subject: The Buyer's Guide to Graphics Cards
Subject: The Buyer's Guide to Graphics Cards
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yeh u have a crap resoltion thats all. or crap video card drivers.

like the guy above said rioght click anywhere on your desktop background click properties. then click settings.
on most, there should be a slider on the left hand side. move that to the right a bit, make it about 1200x 750. that'll do fine.
if uy cant do this then that means that u have a crap graphics driver. update it by going to the manufacturers website and downloading the lastest one for ur system.

  • 03.12.2005 6:56 AM PDT
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face

  • 03.12.2005 9:23 AM PDT
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What?

  • 03.12.2005 12:35 PM PDT
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Ditto, I have no clue.

Deepfryed, is that your new sys you're having problems with, or the old one? If you have nVidia go to their site and get the ForceWare drivers, other get the ATi Catalyst drivers. That should fix it. I have actually never witnessed a card that could not get above 640x480, or even 800x600 for that matter.

  • 03.12.2005 1:33 PM PDT
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ive fixed it but it was the old one cus the new one got taken away cus got into trouble
oh yeah it was the res. i switched it but it kept resetting itself so had to do it in safe mode and delete some adware off of my registry keys-weird


[Edited on 3/12/2005 2:31:23 PM]

  • 03.12.2005 2:22 PM PDT
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Couple things...

The wildcat 3d is a CAD design card for professional CAD design, if you were to try to run games using that card it wouldn't run even if wildcat provided driver support for games it would be slower than an FX5200.

eVGA should be added to Nvidia's trusted list as they're one of the largest Nvidia card makers behind Asus. Really what it comes down to is support because all manf. have to meet the Nvidia or ATI reference design.

The 6600GT should be added to the reccommended list as it is faster than a 9800 pro.

128mb cards vs 256mb cards doesn't make a difference for Halo as Halo does not need 128mb of textures to be stored nor do alot of games out now.

128bit vs 256bit memory has some exceptions. The 6600GT is only 128bit but is faster than a 256bit 9800 Pro(because of faster memory 1ghz and core clocked at 500mhz) but in general 256bit memory interface is better especially at higher resoultions.


The 6800 Ultra can be found for 390.00's where as the X850XT is still around 560-650 dollars so price to performance id say the 6800 Ultra is a better deal in the high end segment.


Oh yea Sapphire makes the built by ATI 9800 Pro's you only have to watchout for the "Atlantis" version from Sapphire as it is a 128bit card as opposed to the reference 256bit.





[Edited on 3/12/2005 7:13:43 PM]

  • 03.12.2005 7:09 PM PDT
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1. The 6600 series is under recommended cards....
2. True not really on Halo, the shaders are a bit of a joke the amount of memory they take up, but is that the only game people play? You can bet that you'll be liking that extra 128 come a couple years down the road. Some people don't buy new cards every 2 years or so - it's future proofing (although it never truly works to a great extent). I usually only upgrade my card every 3 years, which is when I build a new system. Why not fork over another $40-$50 right now so you don't have to buy another $200+ worth in a few years?
3. 256bit=good. Yes. Might as well get it, especially with current generation cards.
4. I put the 6800 Ultra in the PERFORMANCE area, which is where I also put the X850XT. It's not price/performance, just performance. Ie, the top of the line...

5. Fixed the 3d labs thingy. Gracias for that added knowledge, so they only provide drivers for CAD programs, not actual game framework? Interesting, but makes sense.

  • 03.12.2005 7:34 PM PDT
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1. the 6600 GT should be recommended. the normal should not.
2. 256-bit matters but its only for the really serious gamers who plays at 1640x1280. ( who does0?
3 the x850 does have limits though. don't try playing doom 3 at high resolutions with that thing. I'm also surprised that 3dlabs isn't compatable with games today. its so powerful and fast, it should. oh by the way, nvidia now has a 512 mb geforce 6800. nvidia beats ATI so bad.

[Edited on 3/12/2005 9:17:45 PM]

  • 03.12.2005 9:17 PM PDT
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Damnit !

I have the 6610 XL 128 and still lags on halo!!!!

  • 03.13.2005 5:07 AM PDT
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???????? does that card even exist????????

  • 03.13.2005 8:08 AM PDT
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lol yeah many people have asked him that I think it's Russian.

  • 03.13.2005 8:13 AM PDT
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ATi also has an X850XT PE with 512MB. However, if you look performance wise, neither of those cards outperform their predeccessors by more than a few fps. And let it be known that nVidia rocks at OpenGL games while ATi rocks at Direct3D...so really you can't say one is far better.

  • 03.13.2005 8:56 AM PDT
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Yeah but most good games are direct3D except for Doom 3.

  • 03.13.2005 10:28 AM PDT
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peopel don't use direct3d that much now. open gl is a little mor common now.(far cry doom 3 , halo kind of and WoW. oh by the way sexy legs, today 91% of americans hate wheaties now! YaY!

[Edited on 3/13/2005 12:38:01 PM]

  • 03.13.2005 12:36 PM PDT
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Ive just been given a Gigabyte 3D1 Graphic Card which according to the box uses two nVidia GeForce 6600GT GPU Cores and a 256 bit memory interface.
Apparently it works like a SLI card but one board.

now its got an impressive looking heatink that drowns the card and how it performs on the desktop is reasonable and crisp.
Having said that its probably not quite where the card shows its performance... Ive also just swapped it for the Gainward 128mb Geforce 3 Ti500 out of my other machine because it has better Linux support and my other runs WindowsXP. im thinking of throwing on a few games c the benchmarks and how it performs

Anyone know much about these cards ?... When I told my friend he acted like I had the fountain of youth round my house.

  • 03.13.2005 1:29 PM PDT
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just been to sharky extreme which states in it's banner "reporting on the latest hardware and software technology........."must be good then!They ran some benchmarks there using quake 3, the link is
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/videocards/article.php/ 3211_3459701__3
A geforce 6800 ultra=491.8 fps
x800 xt platinum=ONLY! 462.6fps
So it's official ATI cards are poo poo.
seeing as you've got 2 6600's on one card it must mean, 6600x2=13200.....
Shocked A GEFORCE 13200 Shocked
So it's official ati=2 x poo poo.

  • 03.13.2005 1:30 PM PDT
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Halo, actually ATi cards generally run equal or better than their nVidia competitors. That's been a bit of a joke tossed around in these forums, I know Mard and I share the same view about Halo's performance with nVidia cards, as do some benchmarks.

Half Life 2, Battlefield Vietnam (I believe), CS: Source, and all of the others, Everquest 2...

Like I said before, for every OpenGL game out there, there's a direct3d equivalent. To say that one is better than the other is a bit fanatical. Both are completely different codings and workings, but produce high quality results on their repective cards, ATi or nVidia. While OpenGL uses a slew of extensions which make a messy game code, Direct3D uses a different approach using fewer extensions, but takes a bit longer drawing an object as it combines them (it's like having a palette with 80 seperate colors, or 8 that you can mix to form new ones).

In essence, both take about as long to produce a 3d scene. While OpenGL coordinates the load of extensions, Direct3D combines several of a set of much fewer extensions to form something onscreen. In addition, the architecture of ATi and nVidia's GPU's are centered around Direct3D and OpenGL, respectively. So really, whichever you choose, ATi or nVidia, you will be happy.

People don't use Direct3D much now? People never really liked it that much until now. Direct3D used to be hated, not only because it was single platform, but because it sucked way back when. Instead of taking 100 lines to draw, say a triangle, it used to take up to 800 with Direct3D 7.0! OpenGL used to be the one to have a while back, now Direct3D has caught up and uses fewer lines of code.

Why do you feel compelled with the wheaties thing...? That signature was a tribute to the late Wesley Willis, it wasn't my opinion of wheaties...

  • 03.13.2005 1:31 PM PDT
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You do understand that SLI means about a 50% increase over 1 card, right? Dual 6600GT's will not produce twice the result of a single one. It's mainly because it uses PCI-e 16/8 on the cards, not 16/16.

In addition, isn't that game OpenGL. And isn't that the X800XT, not ATi's top card, while the Ultras are nVidia's top ones, try comparing an X850XT to the ultras, just a bit more fair. Not to mention that even in the game Unreal Tournament, the X800XT, not even ATi's top card, beats nVidia;s top card. Also, do you actually like to rate cards better if they perform 3fps better? No, who notices that when they're playing. Anything about 40 isn't noticeable.

Look at tomshardware's Half Life 2 benchmarks. What does this mean? A single ATi card can hold out dual nVidia cards (the best they offer) up until the absolute max. At every res except 1600x1200, ATi still rocks. Besides, SLI is hella expensive. What would you rather get? A more expensive mobo and dual cards for up to 500 more, or get a less expensive mobo and single card for 500 less and get similar performance? The latter seems desireable to people who don't have much $$$.

Edit: Link doesn't work, could not even find that on the site...

In addition, the 6800 Ultra costs the same as a X850XT. And one X800XT, which is slower, can hold off two cards that cost more until the absolute max res with everything cranked...which most people don't even run anyway because of the lag. Why care if you don't play it at that? Seriously, I don't play with 4x/8x anti/anis because I get lag in fight scenes. Same with nVidia cards, at those resolutions performance is crippling.....if ATi came out with dual card solutions nVidia would be getting hit hard. Even now, ATi is still kicking butt with single cards.

Like I have said, both ATi and nVidia are good companies and produce good cards. You guys prefer to show that nVidia is better by showing OpenGL games, which doesn't make sense. Of course the nVidia cards are better, it's OpenGL. When we look at Direct 3D, the ATi cards are better. Simple as that. EITHER IS A GOOD CHOICE.

[Edited on 3/13/2005 1:52:24 PM]

  • 03.13.2005 1:35 PM PDT
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okay, lets stop argueing about witch is better. Nvidia has a ton more power and compatable with most games. However, ATI is a more of a vlaue and budget. I like nvidia because i use a lot of open gl (halo, WoW)

Also, i doubt ATI will come up with SLI too. If they do, it'll be some time and by then nvidia'll have a geforce 7000 or a new series thats SLI too. also, SLI doesn't boost that much as many peopel think. SLI is basicaclly a geforce 6600 gt being overclocked twice. (50%)Face it, ATI can't beat nvidia and nvidia can't beat ATI. Nvidia can outperform most games at 1600 resol. SLI is expensive but a radeon x850 is 550-700!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. dual 6600 gt's can beat it. that's only 300 for 2 cards. also, ATI is not the master of pci express, so if ATI came up with SLI it won't be that good

[Edited on 3/13/2005 5:21:11 PM]

  • 03.13.2005 5:13 PM PDT
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I disagree with you. Also, you keep arguing after saying, "okay, lets stop argueing about witch is better...."

  • 03.13.2005 6:26 PM PDT
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My X850XT cost me $450, and dual 6600GT's actually underperform a single X850XT.

I will agree that ATi's first attempt at SLI would be ackward since SLI is controlled by an nvidia chipset - whether that effects it or not, I don't know. ATi was considering working with mobo vendors to release their own dual card, but I think that would be stupid seeing as nVidia is already trusted with SLI.

ATi=nVidia. They balance out. If one was worse than the other, that'd be bad. In a consumer market it's better to have two good products than a great/bad one. The good products/companies push each other harder.

I just heard that the new nVidia and ATi 512MB cards don't really give much performance increase. does anyone have a site w/benchmarks?

  • 03.13.2005 6:37 PM PDT
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alright i'll give peace. check on tomshardware guide sexy legs. they say there'll be benchmarks on 512 cards SOON. oh by the way, i just orderd a 6600 gt to replace my geforrce 2 on monarch computer.com. i know the 6600's good, but will it be compatible with my nforce 2 mb and athlon xp 2100? when i update what resolution do u think i should play at?

[Edited on 3/13/2005 7:26:27 PM]

  • 03.13.2005 7:17 PM PDT
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If it's AGP, then yes, and probably 1024x960 or above with everything enabled. Darn, no benchmarks yet. I really think anyone that's going to get one of those is a moron. It's going to be overpriced beyond belief.

  • 03.13.2005 7:41 PM PDT
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um...for the future guys, if any of you have an argument such as that or benchmark comparisons then COULD YOU PLEASE PROVIDE SOME LINKS proving your arguments/statements please?--that is not a yell just feel its important in a crad battle lol!--
oh and sexy legs davis, how do you know so much about this stuff??? did you learn by college or just hardcore research??? please, do tell
i say this because i still haven't bought my card yet cus i didnt have enough so i just got everything else.
and what is this pixel shader 3.0???if nvidia uses that and not ATI then what does ATI use??


[Edited on 3/13/2005 11:45:15 PM]

  • 03.13.2005 11:28 PM PDT
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Posted by: dEEp_FrYeD

um...for the future guys, if any of you have an argument such as that or benchmark comparisons then COULD YOU PLEASE PROVIDE SOME LINKS proving your arguments/statements please?--that is not a yell just feel its important in a crad battle lol!--
oh and sexy legs davis, how do you know so much about this stuff??? did you learn by college or just hardcore research??? please, do tell
i say this because i still haven't bought my card yet cus i didnt have enough so i just got everything else.
and what is this pixel shader 3.0???if nvidia uses that and not ATI then what does ATI use??
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2290&p=5

Scroll down and you can see the comparison between 6800Ultra and the X850XT

Wolf ET -6800Ultra 3.7% faster
Battlefield Vietnam X850XT 13% faster
Halo X850XT is 0.2% faster
Unreal Tourn. 2k4 6800 Ultra is 3.2% faster
Farcry 6800 Ultra is 3.4% faster
Doom 3 The 6800 Ultra is 23.8% faster
Halflife 2 the X800XT is 14.6% faster.

The Ultra can be found for 395.00's where as the X850XT is 450 retail. Price to perfromance the Ultra is a better deal.

As to your question about SM 3.0, it is the next standard for graphics until SM4.0 when windows longhorn is released in 2006. There are a couple improvements over SM 2.0 but it isn't as large a jump as 1.4 to 2.0 was. ATI cards currently use SM 2.0B but their next core will use SM 3.0.

  • 03.14.2005 12:21 AM PDT