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CackNBallz
frequent visitor
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Posted - Feb 06 2006 : 12:05:38
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I use a wireless Logitech MX1000 laser mouse. It is claimed to be the first laser mouse. Your G7 is better, but very similar to mine.
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2135,CONTENTID=9043
The mouse comes with a dock to recharge the Litium-Ion batteries and the batteries last about a week or so. I just recharge them while I am sleeping. The mouse has only died on me once while I was playing and that was because it was red for 3 hours and I did the Kramer thing of trying to see how long I could go on empty.
What keyboard do you have? Does it have a F Lock for the function keys? Mine does, I have a Microsoft Multimedia Natural keyboard (natural meaning the keyboard is split at an angle for more comfortable typing. I have to say that it is much more comfortable gaming with it as well. I find my wrists cramp up using my regular keyboard at work.
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http://bf2s.com/player/CackNBallz1/ |
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Country: Canada
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Older- OMO
I got my bike at the ScooterStore
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 Posted - Feb 06 2006 : 12:20:41
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Catheter, your sort of right, but off by a magnitude of performance.  I wanted to add a little mystery to the changes and mess around a bit .
I thought someone would pick up on the addition of the SM3 score (my old card didn't support that test), which would imply that the video card must have changed.
So, I guess I left off small part about adding a new ATI Radeon X1900 XT  512 MB of GDDR3 memory.
625MHz core speed 1.45GHz memory speed 48 Pixel processors 8 vertex shaders
The first set of numbers were with the stock settings. I used the factory overdrive to up it to the stock level settings of the X1900 XTX card of:
650MHz core speed 1.55GHz memory speed
Using the automated overdrive option offered to set it at settings way higher. I tried it, but 3Dmark06 wouldn't run.
I got it at a slight discount at Fry's. I haven't played with many of the settings yet, but don't plan on trying to max the card out. Reviews have been overwhelmingly in favor of the ATI vs. the new 7800GTX 512MB (limited availability). Mine also cost about $200 less than one of those cards too. I would expect that all ATI and nVidia card will see price declines based on the X1900 release. If you are in the market for a new card, watch and wait for X1800s and 7800s (including 7800GTX 512MBs) to come down in the very near future.
Now, there is almost nothing left to upgrade that will affect performance without getting rid of the the Dell MOBO and 3.4 Ghz chip. I don't expect the Raptor drive will affect the 3Dmark score much.
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Decrepit-OMO
To know me, is to shoot me.
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Posted - Feb 06 2006 : 12:29:00
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Cack..
I have been using the ZBoard with the BF2 KeySet since Xmas. It took some getting used to but I do like it. I would have not gone out and bought it for myself though.
Older..
Nice video card! What kind of in game FPS are you getting under load?
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I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
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Country: Canada
| Posts: 270 |
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FuddyDud-OMO
Sub-reme Commander
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Posted - Feb 06 2006 : 13:05:10
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Older, I though you would have gone for one the latest 7800GTX cards with 512MB RAM. Now you've made me curious as to what sort of benchmark6 the 7800 can achieve with overclocking and maybe a little N02 for the AMD proc.
Just to make it really fly, however, I was thinking of cleaning my keyboard, mouse then and putting those flashy case stickers on my PC tower.
Decrepit, I used FRAPS running in the background some months back to check frame rates (though you can get BF2 to display this), and I got a consistant >100FPS (not sure of the exact figure). The FPS will vary, dependant on quite a few variables, including your graphics settings... resolution, anti-aliasing etc. Perception of 'smoothness' in a game is also dependant on the degree of movement within the complexity of the image.
The ideal situation therefore is to have all your settings on MAX at the highest resolution your monitor will allow and still have an FPS over 100. (with no ghosting!)
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Catheter-OMO
Man 'O War
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Posted - Feb 06 2006 : 13:18:54
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I knew it had to be a video card change and you were talking about the 7800. So what did you have to pay for that monster? And have you told your wife 1.0 yet?
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| Posts: 2002 |
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FuddyDud-OMO
Sub-reme Commander
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Posted - Feb 06 2006 : 13:25:34
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Out of interest, I found this comparison between the 7800GTX 256MB and the X1900XT 512MB
The X1900XT is a really nice card though I would have liked to see a comparison with the 7800GTX 512MB.
Game Test
GeForce 7800GTX 256MB Radeon X1900XT 512MB
FEAR 1600x1200 No AA
48 FPS 61 FPS
FEAR 1920x1200 No AA
41 FPS 55 FPS
FEAR 1600x1200 4xAA
25 FPS 45 FPS
FEAR 1920x1200 4xAA
21 FPS 37 FPS
COD2 1600x1200 No AA
31 FPS 39 FPS
COD2 1920x1200 No AA
28 FPS 35 FPS
COD2 1600x1200 4xAA
25 FPS 35 FPS
COD2 1920x1200 4xAA
22 FPS 29 FPS
BF2 1600x1200 No AA
61 FPS 63 FPS
BF2 1920x1200 No AA
60 FPS 60 FPS
BF2 1600x1200 4xAA
53 FPS 57 FPS
BF2 1920x1200 4xAA
46 FPS 51 FPS
Interesting though, the X1900 despite it's 256MB RAM advantage gave a marginal FPS increase in BF2. The other thing to note is that these tests were with stock/standard boards with no overclocking. I dare say, what would be interesting is a comparison between the best variant of each type of card overclocked to the max.
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Edited by - FuddyDud-OMO on Feb 06 2006 13:32:50 |
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Older- OMO
I got my bike at the ScooterStore
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Posted - Feb 06 2006 : 13:40:27
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I actually was thinking about the 7800GTX 512MB. The problem was cost ($750 on average) and availability (not). The ATI card with 512MB was recently released with a huge amount of fanfare. It then became a no-brainer for me. The benefits were cost ($537 vs. $549 negotiated with Fry's) and availability (had them on the shelves). The added bonus was the performance of the X1900 XTX whether single and crossfire versions beat the same config of 7800GTX 512MB without much sweat. I got the XT version since the performance spec wasn't much different than the XTX. It also cost $100 less. The thing has a ridiculous number of pixel shaders. NOTE, this was also with the first version of the X1900 catalyst drivers. The 6.2 drivers are in test right now. People using the beta code are getting 300-600 pt improvements on their 3Dmark scores. I think my score is lower than it should be, but at least it was a significant measurable improvement. Regardless, I don't think ATI has tapped into the potential of this card. I haven't even messed around too much within the available stock clock settings. It goes without saying that the games certainly aren't there yet either. I will have to look at the FPS tonight to see if there is any improvement.
For best performance, make sure the Intel and Windows stickers are firmly in place before starting the computer. Mine keep popping up since there are on the curved part of the from panel.
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Older- OMO
I got my bike at the ScooterStore
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Older- OMO
I got my bike at the ScooterStore
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Posted - Feb 06 2006 : 21:24:06
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OK, Raptor is in and the verdict is  I am not sure. Stuff definitely loads faster. Web pages that are loading cache content from disk literally pop into view. I haven't loaded BF2, the real test, so nothing to report there. I reran 3Dmark06 and wasn't surprised by the results (not much change):
3Dmark06 score 4634 (+5)
SP2 score: 2082 (+9)
SP3 score: 2306 (-3)
CPU score: 977 (+1)
All well within a small margin of error. The tests did load faster
Also, I have read that the CPU test was optimized for dual core chips. Similar speed chips will get upwards of a 600 point difference for dual core.
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Edited by - Older- OMO on Feb 06 2006 21:27:23 |
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Tread
frequent visitor
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Posted - Feb 07 2006 : 00:31:18
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======================================
Score = 3946
SM2.0 = 1801
HDR/SM3 = 1787
CPU Score = 939
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Motherboard: Asus A8N SLI Delux
CPU Type: AMD 64 4000+ 2410 Mhz
Memory: 2048GB
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX w/256 MB of memory
OS: Windows XP
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This is right after putting teh system together andI wa talking to Bloody on Vent while it ran., Im sure itll do better
You should see what Bloody's posts at now with a 4400+ proc and Duel GTX cards.
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FuddyDud-OMO
Sub-reme Commander
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Posted - Feb 07 2006 : 06:30:33
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Hey Tread, thats exactly the same hardware as my system, although I'm using XP 64. I have found that tweaking around with the hardware configuration files makes an appreciable difference along with overclocking. However, unless you're a benchmark addict, as Older says, your system will 'eat up' anything you throw at it on the gaming front.
Thanks for posting those links Older. It would seem that the ATI XTX is now King of the cards until nvidia fights back with its next leap ahead in the 'graphics wars'.
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Edited by - FuddyDud-OMO on Feb 07 2006 08:00:52 |
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CackNBallz
frequent visitor
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CackNBallz
frequent visitor
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Posted - Feb 07 2006 : 08:36:09
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What stinks is that this card is set to debut in Canada on the 17th of February. It's a freaking Canadian company and the release date is later than the States??
Plus the price of the X1900 XT is $649.99 CDN. Hmmm... I want it!
I found another site that is selling the XTX for $829.99 CDN! WTF?!?!
Well first of all I need to buy a motherboard that supports PCI-e, but that ain't going to happen until after I get married (which is when I move out and will need to build a new computer as my sister and dad will need one).
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http://bf2s.com/player/CackNBallz1/ |
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Country: Canada
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Older- OMO
I got my bike at the ScooterStore
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Posted - Feb 07 2006 : 09:36:03
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King of cards means nothing these days. The king is always killed The 7800 GTXs of old (256MB) still smoke and really scream in SLI. BF2 really doesn't benefit much after a certain point. As long as you can get 35-45 FPS, you are in good shape. Much more than that and most people won't be able to tell. I think they should be testing SF as it is more of a resource hog. My game ran smooth, but did hit some lag. It leads me to believe most of the lag we experience is not system or ping related, but server side performance. I started stuttering during a dogfight and looked at ping (fine), card was cool, so it must have been some random server fart. I doubt anyone was hacking, but who knows.
Bloody's new rig sounds hot, but I am not sure what one does with something that powerful. Frankly, I don't have a screen that can benefit from that HW (19" LCD) and don't plan to upgrade that anytime soon. Right now and for the forseeable future, my game is BF2. I have ordered Photoshop and Illustrator, so hopefully it will help there too (although I am hearing 4GB RAM is the "minimum" for the PS snobs). Bloody, post your specs and scores. Also tell us what else you are going to do with it besides BF2. Hopefully you are getting way better performance than what you described in an earlier post.
Fuddy, have you tested Fraps next to the ingame FPS counter (hit "~" and type "renderer.drawfps 1)? I was wondering if they report the same numbers. You reported 100+ FPS and I had heard the engine is capped at 100. Right now I am running 1280 X1024 (highest my screen goes) at 70mHz refresh with all settings on high and 4xAA. I ran the FPS, but don't remember seeing numbers that high. I will give a good exercise tonight. Also want to play with some of the other settings.
Cack, I hope you get paid an inflated salary to go along with your inflated currency $549 (US) to $649 (CDN) isn't as bad as it used to be (I think). I vaguely remember when I used to play in the arcades in the 70s and early 80s I would use Canadian quarters that I had saved from vacations. I think it was almost 2-1, so I would get 8 Canadian quarters for 1 dollar. I thought I was so smart. I guess a dollar isn't really a dollar.
You said you left last night because the map didn't run smoothly for you (Daquing I think). If you have the CPU, the PCI-e motherboard shouldn't cost much at all ($150 at most, then again that may convert into $500 Canadian dollars ) Also, nVidia just released a new 7800AGP card that should benefit you if you are running an AGP card.
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Edited by - Older- OMO on Feb 07 2006 10:23:43 |
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FuddyDud-OMO
Sub-reme Commander
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Posted - Feb 07 2006 : 09:59:27
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Older, I will check out the FPS in comparative mode. My earlier 100FPS observation was done before I invested in the VX922 LCD and upped the resolution to 1280x1024. The lower resolution will obviously give a higher FPS, so I need to do this test again with the LCD resolution... no doubt it will probably be less than 100.
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Target
frequent visitor
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Posted - Feb 07 2006 : 10:10:02
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quote:
Originally posted by CackNBallz
Only begun the graphics wars has.
Nah, started almost 9 years ago when 3dfx was king. It was a heck of a race between 3dfx and nvidia for a while. Nvidia was a huge underdog, 3D standards were not yet establish, real free for all. For about 1.5 years you could only play certain games depending on who made your vid card because of the standard they used (vhs v. beta kinda of thing).
Nobody would even look at an ATI card if they were into gaming.
Things calmed down when 3dfx folded, then nvidia and ati have been head to head ever since. I do think ATI has gotten a little more respect in the last 4 or 5 years though, probably gained a little more market share.
Probably more then you wanted to know :^)
Target
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Tread
frequent visitor
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Posted - Feb 07 2006 : 10:12:52
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ATI..I use to love, and even though they may have the top card, there are problems running them in SLI, (Crossfire) I think they call it..Same ole ATI...Cards that are great, drivers for crap.
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Older- OMO
I got my bike at the ScooterStore
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Posted - Feb 07 2006 : 10:31:50
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I don't know about the driver thing. They post new drivers more frequently and more consistently than nVidia. They have addressed more BF2 specific issues as well. I liked my nVidia card, but am willing to give this new card a shot. Crossfire is still not as widely adopted, so they are in catch mode. More MOBOs are coming out with support, and they need to get the any to any Crossfire done like it is in SLI. Also eliminate the premium for the master crossfire board. They don't appear to be having too many problems as evidenced by their performance over the 7800GTX 512 SLI configs. With that said, there is no way (don't quote me on this) that I am going to run 2 vcards for games. I don't need it for anything other than benchmarking.
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Target
frequent visitor
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Posted - Feb 07 2006 : 10:45:53
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quote:
[i] With that said, there is no way (don't quote me on this) that I am going to run 2 vcards for games.
Your right. SLI has been tried before and failed. Not that it didn't work, but so few use it. Game developers don't really design games for it. I was told it was best suited for high end graphic designers.
Not to mention it usually cost big $ to run a SLI setup.
Target
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Edited by - Target on Feb 07 2006 10:48:58 |
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Target
frequent visitor
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Posted - Feb 07 2006 : 10:51:55
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quote:
Originally posted by Tread
ATI..I use to love, and even though they may have the top card, there are problems running them in SLI, (Crossfire) I think they call it..Same ole ATI...Cards that are great, drivers for crap.
never ran a crossfire setup, but I've always thought they had easy use drivers. Saying that, I don't ever download thier control panel they try to bundle with everything. I just DL the drivers.
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3DMark06 - Make yourself feel like !@%$@
