Angry_Games Posted February 21, 2006 Posted February 21, 2006 You're ATI card is just fine for the time being. There are no games available that even consider Dx10. If you are looking toward M$'s "Vista", I'd hang with XP for a while and wait for the bugs in Vista to be fixed. words of wisdom games that use DX10 will not be around until you are ready to upgrade past any current AMD/Intel platform games that fully utilize SM3.0 will not really be in full swing until this same time games will for the forseeable future always be able to downgrade to SM2.0 and you really won't be noticing much difference. the only real feature that is out right now that is truly worthy is HDR and only the newer cards support this (but the 7800GS AGP should support it, and any newer ATI card that is AGP should support it, but as far as I know, current gen AGP ATI cards do not support it) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGeekMistress Posted February 21, 2006 Posted February 21, 2006 You're ATI card is just fine for the time being. There are no games available that even consider Dx10. If you are looking toward M$'s "Vista", I'd hang with XP for a while and wait for the bugs in Vista to be fixed. From what I have read of Vista requirements, one will be much better off with a PCI-E platform than an AGP platform. IMHO, if you want to spend >300 to upgrade your AGP platform, you might as well as go S939. ATI will do the same as nVidia, they more than likely will not put out an AGP card that will be even close performance wise to their PCI-E cards. Plus, the power requirements for the PCI-E cards exceed what an AGP slot can put out. The 6800 Ultra pushed the AGP slot (power wise) to its max requiring 2 seperate molex cables. The true 7800 series gpu's use more power than an Ultra. Every nVidia PCI-E card has 2 dedicated 12V lines within the 6 pin connector. I was very surprised that the GS only had a 4 pin molex instead. The 6 pin dual 12V pin and the greater voltage of the PCI-E platform almost preclude seeing a similar performing gpu card in AGP format. Face it, we are the last of the holdouts. Save you're pennies for a format upgrade. well yes, i plan on going to Vista and DX10 with an AGP 754 nf3 250 newark @ 3.2ghz +/- 100mhz. but i'm not thiking about upgrading my vid just yet. i read, can't recall where right now, that the AGP 7800GS has 100% comapitablty with Vista. i read that on their site maybe? don't recall. it's something to do with DX9.0L Vista. (while winxp is DX0.0c). ther are games that are already out that use DX10's SM3.0, like Far Cry's 1.32 patch and a couple other add on patches for other games. the power requirements are lower than the 6800 GT/Ultra's now that they're had a year or more the refine their core and memory architeture, i guess. it only requires a 350watt psu and i have a EG651P enemax psu. and i wouldn' be spending $300 on the 7800GS, i would be spending what ever amount of cash i get from selling my x800xtpe plus some pocket change for the 7800GS. so i'm guessing 100bux or something like that for this card. i'm still checking the AGP situation out, but i know i'm going to have to get rid of my x800xtpe if i want to see all the shader effects and eye candy. the x800/850xtpe will not show you all those effects in games. i read that the game engines turn of the advanced shader coding when SM3.0 isn't detected. and selling one card to get the other will cost me pocket change. TGM Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGeekMistress Posted February 21, 2006 Posted February 21, 2006 words of wisdom games that use DX10 will not be around until you are ready to upgrade past any current AMD/Intel platform games that fully utilize SM3.0 will not really be in full swing until this same time games will for the forseeable future always be able to downgrade to SM2.0 and you really won't be noticing much difference. the only real feature that is out right now that is truly worthy is HDR and only the newer cards support this (but the 7800GS AGP should support it, and any newer ATI card that is AGP should support it, but as far as I know, current gen AGP ATI cards do not support it) yah, the 7800GS has HDR and ther already games out, including one of my favorite's, Far Cry. Far Cry has SM3.0 support and so do other games. and by the time Vista is out there'll many SM3.0 games coming out. Patch 1.32 has been released Fixed a Shader Model 3.0 issue that caused graphics corruption on new ATI hardware. also, the nf3/newark 754 agp is the system i'll be using for about the next 1.5~2.5 years. sure i'll wanna upgrade like everyone else, but i don't have the money to do an upgrade when new tech comes out, i have to wait for the new stuff to be almost at the end of it's life span of new equipment sales to buy it and get the good deals. yes, i know games are backwards compatible, but i don't want to run games with the special effects reduced b/c of a cheap vid card upgrade i didn't take advantage of. in a couple of months i'm thinking i should sell my x800 R420 first x800 gen card, while the sellin's good and buy a card with SM3.0, HDR, 16pipes, 256bit mem bus, and if possible 512 megs vRam. but i'm staying with my x800 for now. i am trying to figure out when would be an optimal time to buy the latest/greatest AGP and which card would that be. right now the 7800GS is stomping all over my x800xtpe while the x850 is keeping wihtin a reasonable range. but when you apply AA and AF the frame drop a lot, apply the same on the 7800GS and you hardly see frame drops. one of the reasons i play video games is for the beautiful and life like looking graphics. TGM Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Candymancan Posted February 22, 2006 Posted February 22, 2006 I play BF2 and all the new games @ 1280x960 @ 4xAA 8xAF, or sometimes 4xAA 4xAF. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
vector7 Posted February 23, 2006 Posted February 23, 2006 well yes, i plan on going to Vista and DX10 with an AGP 754 nf3 250 newark @ 3.2ghz +/- 100mhz. but i'm not thiking about upgrading my vid just yet. i read, can't recall where right now, that the AGP 7800GS has 100% comapitablty with Vista. i read that on their site maybe? don't recall. it's something to do with DX9.0L Vista. (while winxp is DX0.0c). ther are games that are already out that use DX10's SM3.0, like Far Cry's 1.32 patch and a couple other add on patches for other games. the power requirements are lower than the 6800 GT/Ultra's now that they're had a year or more the refine their core and memory architeture, i guess. it only requires a 350watt psu and i have a EG651P enemax psu. and i wouldn' be spending $300 on the 7800GS, i would be spending what ever amount of cash i get from selling my x800xtpe plus some pocket change for the 7800GS. so i'm guessing 100bux or something like that for this card. i'm still checking the AGP situation out, but i know i'm going to have to get rid of my x800xtpe if i want to see all the shader effects and eye candy. the x800/850xtpe will not show you all those effects in games. i read that the game engines turn of the advanced shader coding when SM3.0 isn't detected. and selling one card to get the other will cost me pocket change. TGM I've been looking around and ATI is stalling and may not make it to the 16-Pipeline SM3.0 AGP party after all, I really hope they reconsider. There are tons of peeps on AMD 32Bit, Intel, MAC etc, that would rather pick a $300.00 16-Pipeline SM3.0 AGP vcard than upgrade their whole system just to get to play the latest games. You know it’s only because I just bought an X850XT last month and have a working 6800GT with NV5 Silencer and the fact that it can run all day at 420/1100 and can OC to 435/1250 that puts me in a wait and see mode. If I didn’t have the 6800GT and only had the X850 (R481-16PL) and had owned it for a while I would definitely jump on board the 7800GS. I think that Nvidia is not giving us AGP users a weak GPU in that it almost does 500MHz with the stock cooler from several manufactures. In a couple of months if the 7800GS looks to be still the only game left in town for AGP I will probably purchase one. I would put the most aggressive air-cooling HS I could find on the GPU. I think it’s possible to make it to 550+ although it may take a vmod on the core to get there. The fact that the ram did 1500MHz out of the box with very few artifacts is very respectable. A little more voltage there and you could get 1500-1600 stable. You know I only used OEM drivers on both cards so I’m sure they will come up with some slicker drivers that will make a performance difference for the 7800GS down the road and keep the UT250 alive and well until the landscape seriously changes. v7 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrandSam Posted February 23, 2006 Posted February 23, 2006 Well, I have no immediate plans to jump PCI-E. Mine gives a pretty nice gaming power, so I'll stick with this AGP for now... I had only one problem,when I sarted to upgrade my rig from socket A I had this 6800GT AGP g-card. I had NO plans to spend pretty big money to get PCI-E card of same level (besides, it was only smthng like 5 months old). My quess is that there were/is a few other in same situation? So I started building a socket 939 system with AGP. It took a while and my wife got a bit fed up with me tuning my "mistress" (as she calls my computer)... Here are my scores (sorry about messy sharpness), if anyone cares: 3DM01 3DM03 3DM05 3DM06 AquaMark Should be sufficient. At least for a while? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGeekMistress Posted February 23, 2006 Posted February 23, 2006 I've been looking around and ATI is stalling and may not make it to the 16-Pipeline SM3.0 AGP party after all, I really hope they reconsider. There are tons of peeps on AMD 32Bit, Intel, MAC etc, that would rather pick a $300.00 16-Pipeline SM3.0 AGP vcard than upgrade their whole system just to get to play the latest games. You know it’s only because I just bought an X850XT last month and have a working 6800GT with NV5 Silencer and the fact that it can run all day at 420/1100 and can OC to 435/1250 that puts me in a wait and see mode. If I didn’t have the 6800GT and only had the X850 (R481-16PL) and had owned it for a while I would definitely jump on board the 7800GS. I think that Nvidia is not giving us AGP users a weak GPU in that it almost does 500MHz with the stock cooler from several manufactures. In a couple of months if the 7800GS looks to be still the only game left in town for AGP I will probably purchase one. I would put the most aggressive air-cooling HS I could find on the GPU. I think it’s possible to make it to 550+ although it may take a vmod on the core to get there. The fact that the ram did 1500MHz out of the box with very few artifacts is very respectable. A little more voltage there and you could get 1500-1600 stable. You know I only used OEM drivers on both cards so I’m sure they will come up with some slicker drivers that will make a performance difference for the 7800GS down the road and keep the UT250 alive and well until the landscape seriously changes. v7 yes, i agree. i'm puttingtogether my new build with the intent on using my R420 x800xtpe and then when the time and price is right, i'll sell my card and buy the best SM3.0 and HDR card i can find. which i agree with you V7, will prolly ne the 7800GS CO Superclock from eVGA. i'll have water ready for it, so i'll prolly run at, for starters, 500/1500. i just hope my x800xtpe still has a decent price on it, b/c i can't afford to just got out and buy a 300USD card w/o selling my current card. GrandSam the benches you want to focus on are the 3D05 and specially the 3D06 benches. the future DX10 games that we're trying to prepare for using AGP cards are heavy shader usage games. my scores on my nf2/baton/x800/512mb/2xraptor config with these specs: 11x230=2533mhz, 540GPU/585DDR, drivers set to optimal performance then tweaked more for low detial with ATI Tray Tools and the vRam timings tweaked using the same app for highest benchmark. the scores are around: 3d01=23K 3d03=11K 3d05=5.4K and 3d06 i didn't get a chance to run since i had taken that system apart already fro my new build. check out the Test setup and the bench scores http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/13/nvi..._buy/page8.html my R420 x800xtpe barely makes a showing, the 6800GT with it's 12pipes and lower clocks, in the next gen type of game bench cases are the same as the x850xtpe and the 7800GS is at the top for most of the time, specially with settings like 4xAA 8xAF or HDR and 16xAF. these benchmark and games at tomshardware are the games predessors that we want to play in the future. the thing isthat not only are those numbers inflated for benchmarking only, they won't be what i'd like to run in real world gaming. comparing the R420 x800xtpe to the 7800GS with HDR and 16AF with transparencies is like comparing a MustangGT to a baseline honda civic. the 7800GS hardly feels the added intensity if the shader model 3.0 implementation, but the HDR does make a dent. but none of ATI's AGP card even have these technologies. so when we run the new DX10 games, the games will automatically turn of SM3.0 and HDR and we'll see a less impressive graphic rendering. i don't care if the 7800GS doesn't compare to the 7800GT(X) i'm just happy there's a pretty fast AGP card that's at least, for the most part, DX10 compliant. winVista will support the card natively with 100% compatibilty running DX9.0L which is where the partial DX10 hardware comes in. TGM Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Candymancan Posted February 24, 2006 Posted February 24, 2006 yes, i agree. i'm puttingtogether my new build with the intent on using my R420 x800xtpe and then when the time and price is right, i'll sell my card and buy the best SM3.0 and HDR card i can find. which i agree with you V7, will prolly ne the 7800GS CO Superclock from eVGA. i'll have water ready for it, so i'll prolly run at, for starters, 500/1500. i just hope my x800xtpe still has a decent price on it, b/c i can't afford to just got out and buy a 300USD card w/o selling my current card. GrandSam the benches you want to focus on are the 3D05 and specially the 3D06 benches. the future DX10 games that we're trying to prepare for using AGP cards are heavy shader usage games. my scores on my nf2/baton/x800/512mb/2xraptor config with these specs: 11x230=2533mhz, 540GPU/585DDR, drivers set to optimal performance then tweaked more for low detial with ATI Tray Tools and the vRam timings tweaked using the same app for highest benchmark. the scores are around: 3d01=23K 3d03=11K 3d05=5.4K and 3d06 i didn't get a chance to run since i had taken that system apart already fro my new build. check out the Test setup and the bench scores http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/13/nvi..._buy/page8.html my R420 x800xtpe barely makes a showing, the 6800GT with it's 12pipes and lower clocks, in the next gen type of game bench cases are the same as the x850xtpe and the 7800GS is at the top for most of the time, specially with settings like 4xAA 8xAF or HDR and 16xAF. these benchmark and games at tomshardware are the games predessors that we want to play in the future. the thing isthat not only are those numbers inflated for benchmarking only, they won't be what i'd like to run in real world gaming. comparing the R420 x800xtpe to the 7800GS with HDR and 16AF with transparencies is like comparing a MustangGT to a baseline honda civic. the 7800GS hardly feels the added intensity if the shader model 3.0 implementation, but the HDR does make a dent. but none of ATI's AGP card even have these technologies. so when we run the new DX10 games, the games will automatically turn of SM3.0 and HDR and we'll see a less impressive graphic rendering. i don't care if the 7800GS doesn't compare to the 7800GT(X) i'm just happy there's a pretty fast AGP card that's at least, for the most part, DX10 compliant. winVista will support the card natively with 100% compatibilty running DX9.0L which is where the partial DX10 hardware comes in. TGM 6800GT's have 16 Pipelines they are basicly downclocked 6800Ultra's asside from the few extra power attachments on the ultra. 6800NU'S are 12 Pipes. Iv played some of the HDR games like Farcry tweaking its HDR around. HL2 has a some HDR lighting and few others. It looks really good. Ill post some screenies from Farcry with side by side comparision's that made all ATI owners Jeleous back then lol. Edit: Some pics http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/Can...ry0059Split.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/Can...arCrysplit7.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/Can...arCrySplit5.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/Can...arCrySplit1.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/Can...arCrysplit4.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/Can.../FarCry0031.jpg HL2 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/Can...reen_010010.jpg Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry_Games Posted February 24, 2006 Posted February 24, 2006 My quess is that there were/is a few other in same situation? there's more than 75% of all pc users that are in the same situation (PCI-E, while it may have a big market share of DFI-Street users, and other top enthusiasts, is still VERY much in the minority when it comes to TOTAL computer owners since most have had no need, or could not afford, or like you, just spent big bucks to get the latest AGP, and so have not upgraded yet) this is something that we here at the street tend to forget or refuse to believe since we ARE cutting-edge...but keep in mind the majority of the population still has a Pentium3 or early Pentium4 with a 128MB AGP graphics card... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry_Games Posted February 24, 2006 Posted February 24, 2006 the 6800GT with it's 12pipes 6800GT's, like 6800 Ultra's, all have 16-pipes if you have a 12-pipe card, it is NOT a 6800GT (it is just a plain 6800..like the X800 Pro vs X800XT and X850XT) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry_Games Posted February 24, 2006 Posted February 24, 2006 the future DX10 games that we're trying to prepare for using AGP cards are heavy shader usage games. TGM, I am not sure why you are so focused on DX10 games when DX10 itself is not even released, and it takes up to 1 year or more to have games written in full compliance with the new DirectX versions...which leads to a more realistic 2 years or so (look at DX8...it took almost 2 years for ALL games to REQUIRE DX8 capable or emulatable cards...same with DX9, and as I have explained before, all the games will have to be backwards compatible via emulation or 'crippled' dx routines because only 5% to 10% of gamers will actually have a new card that is capable of the latest and greatest SM and DX routines...as I just explained...we tend to forget that we are in the top echelon of users but 75% or more of the total number of gamers simply do not have the latest and greatest hardware) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGeekMistress Posted February 24, 2006 Posted February 24, 2006 6800GT's have 16 Pipelines they are basicly downclocked 6800Ultra's asside from the few extra power attachments on the ultra. 6800NU'S are 12 Pipes. Iv played some of the HDR games like Farcry tweaking its HDR around. HL2 has a some HDR lighting and few others. It looks really good. Ill post some screenies from Farcry with side by side comparision's that made all ATI owners Jeleous back then lol. sorry, you're right. i should have said, the 6800GT has 16 pipes, but low clocks and the 6800GS has 12pipes and high clocks. TGM Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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