View Full Version : Graphics cards
Knight_Sir_Galahad
25-10-2006, 20:33
im going to be getting a new graphics card this friday and i was wondering which graphics cards will be good to play NWN2 with maximum settings?
can't find a list of graphics cards on the bioware forums so i thought i'd ask here :D
Nomen_Luni
25-10-2006, 21:01
You can't go wrong with NVidia. I'm not sure what the latest model is called but you shouldn't have any trouble finding it, either online or in your local computer shop.
It kind of depends how much money you are ready to put in. My suggestions are (for kind of reasonable price, like not more then 300€):
ATI Radeon X900XT 256MB
OR:
Geforce 7950 GT 256MB
They both are PCI-Express so make sure you do not have AGP but PCI-E motherboard!
Knight_Sir_Galahad
25-10-2006, 21:53
It kind of depends how much money you are ready to put in. My suggestions are (for kind of reasonable price, like not more then 300€):
ATI Radeon X900XT 256MB
OR:
Geforce 7950 GT 256MB
They both are PCI-Express so make sure you do not have AGP but PCI-E motherboard!
well my current card is an AGP (Nvidia Geforce 6800GS) but in my motherboard manual it states that my motherboard supports PCI and PCI-E cards
the cards i am currently looking into are:
1: Connect3D ATI Radeon X1950 XT-X SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR4 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
2: BFG GeForce 7950 GT OC 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
they both look like they would be worth the money and that they will last a while before i haveto upgrade my graphics card again.
It depends on what the rest of your machine is like. ...... :respect:
it always depends... *g*
no one will be able to tell you to buy this or that card becaus almost certainly your demands are others than any other ones...
to me price was first, i wanted to get as much power as possible for under 250€. then i wanted a really silent card, that doesn't heat my system too much. and of course i really needed something very potent, as i was to throw my beloved 6600gt out of the system...
after long bothering (almost an hour! *g*) i stumbled upon msi's nx 7900gto, which is a limited edition very similar to the 7900gtx, only a little slower ram, but has all other features of the 7900gtx, especially that celebrated super silent fan (and really, you dont hear it in a closed system, even after 2 hours of benchmarking the card was under 50°C) and future-proof 512mb ram. and of course i tried for overclocking and had no problems (neither temperature or graphics failure) raising the ram-speed even above that of a normal 7900gtx (which of course has even higher potential for overclocking...).
i _can_ recommend that card, but there's one drawback: it comes without any specials, only driver disk, no games (never played them anyway...).
but there's one thing that stunns me... you actually have a board sporting AGP as well as PCI-E ? please read your manual carefully if this is really a PEG-bus (pci-express for graphics) or some other "extended pci-bus", so you don't run into problems there.
and whatever you buy: remember, your card _will_ be outdated as soon as it is installed, don't go to the extremes, todays fastest cards are _never_ worth their price and will become quite standard within weeks...
Knight_Sir_Galahad
27-10-2006, 16:39
i got a geforce 7900GS and its a very good card :)
it works very well and i get higher framerates in every game now
i got a geforce 7900GS and its a very good card :)
it works very well and i get higher framerates in every game now
i also have this one :)
duel core 3.0 ghz
2048 ram
above card.
MarkNelson
07-11-2006, 00:14
I ask because I am considering a new computer and that is on the spec sheet from the store that I am considering buying it from. :hin:
CHighwind
07-11-2006, 01:19
You can't go wrong with NVidia. I'm not sure what the latest model is called but you shouldn't have any trouble finding it, either online or in your local computer shop.
Oh yes you can, if you want High Dynamic Range Lighting and Anti Aliasing enabled at the same tim :)
@MarkNelson: In my humble opinion the whole Geforce 7300 line is a waste of money if you want to do some gaming. A friend of mine has it and he's very disappointed with the card. I would personally suggest picking something like a Geforce 7600GT, it gives a lot of bang for the buck.
This list (http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/10/31/the_best_video_cards_for_your_money/) might help you a lot in making your decision, good luck :)
Knight_Sir_Galahad
07-11-2006, 19:04
well i also think the 7900 GS is a very good card also because i can run NWN2 with maximum eye candy like i wanted to in the first place :)
You can't go wrong with NVidia. I'm not sure what the latest model is called but you shouldn't have any trouble finding it, either online or in your local computer shop.
Unless you have a dual core system, then 7900GT and 7900 GTX Overclocked models are guaranteed to crash and burn. Its a lovely and well known problem brought to consumers via NVidia. On my third card, through the evga step up program, I'm basically screwed. My roommate went through 5 7900GTXs before asking for a refund. =(
If your dual core, avoid Nvidia.
Maximum settings? Well, I have a Nvidia 7950 GX2 - the best card in the 7000-series, and a pretty fast machine as well....and I cannot run the came at maximum settings. Perhaps the top cards in the new 8000 series will be able to handle it in a few months.
Unless you have a dual core system, then 7900GT and 7900 GTX Overclocked models are guaranteed to crash and burn. [...] if your dual core, avoid Nvidia.
what are you talking about? do you say dual core owners will be in trouble? or those wihtout? in any case: what proof do you have to that? i've never heard of such problems...
anyway:
my elder nv 6600gt was good enough to play the game smooth with only some less important options disabled, my new 7900gto is absolutely fine without any overclock or tweaks. with both cards (6600gt from asus, 7900gto from msi, obviously) the temperature remains comfortably below 60 degree celsius, and my amd64x2 3800+ (box fan) won't heat up too much either.
so... really no clue what you are talking about, please give links to respective postings if it really is a "well known problem".
valestis
09-11-2006, 15:21
I think the reason that your 7950 GX2 is not providing the best graphics is that as this game does not use SLI you are in efect only using one of your 2 graphics cards. The official forums has lots of posts about this. In fact lots (but not all) SLI systems are showing problems.
Jase
as far as i read (doesn't really bother me, as i've only one gpu) the SLI-feature wasn't activated correctly in earlier versions of nvidia's forceware drivers but that's said to be fixed in the latest.
I would say that nvidia geforce 7900 is indeed a great card. At the moment though stay away from sli configurations... Give it some time to polish itself. I have one of this dogy geforce 7300 cards but im still playing nwn2 with top settings apart from shadows :-P
My nVidia GeForce 6200 TC PCI-E 265MB has been working good so far... until I updated the drivers, then it was sucking memory and skyboxes turned pitch-black... luckilly I still had the 81.98 drivers stored on my PC (new ones are 93.71), so I was able to fix it.
Just goes to show that updates aren't always better.
spinyhedgehog
12-11-2006, 12:31
Hi Im new here so please be gentle - having tried twice to get support from atari as to why "cant find direct3d" keeps coming up - here on this forum are my answers. I now know I need a better graphics card - I have Nvidea but 440 - my PC is 2.6ghz P4, 512 RAM and therefore not a bad spec - I dont really have the money to buy a new PC but am desperate to get going on NWN2 - I dont know whether im AGP or PCI - can anyone tell me an easy way to fing out and a sensible card to buy??
Cheers.
PS: From other posts it seems that Atari and some video card makers have never heard of the sale of goods act which states that goods must "work"??!!.
CHighwind
12-11-2006, 13:05
You probably have an AGP card, because the GF4 MX series didn't come in PCI Express format. I also doubt it's a plain PCI card either.
Seeing how your system is pretty low end these days, having the latest videocard wouldn't help either. I think with a Radeon X1650 (XT or Pro) you should be able to get the game to run. Otherwise if you prefer nVidia, stick with the 7600GS, or GT if you can find one. These are all available in AGP versions. They all should cost around €150,-
@ spinyhedgehog
Welcome to the forums.........I'll be as gentle as I can.... :)
The Nvidia 440 is known as an MX and is incompatible with the shaders that the game needs to run.........your only option is a new card.
Something like this
Clicky! (http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/114895/rb/23018053985)
will do, but as usual, the more you spend the better the game will run/look.
Something like THIS! (http://www.memory-express.co.uk/index.aspx?pageid=17&id=473683&utm_campaign=froogle&utm_source=froogle&utm_medium=ppc&utm_name=473683&rndstr=2006-1023-704) will make it play far better........ :)
It all depends how much you want to spend..... :respect:
as i'm really not known for my kind and gentle ways i'll mercilessly add: get some memory too, your 512 mb of system memory is what others sport on ther graphics cards...
Careful there tanita.........you'll scare the nice little hedgehog away........even if you are correct... :respect:
:p nah, i don't want to scare anyone, i only want them to buy new computers...
to be serious:
512 mb is minimum for playing the game. if you can live with occassional glitches and don't need hires textures you probably can run the game quite satisfactory. you should stop background tasks and especially tray-sitters like "ms office starter" to free up as much "real" memory as possible. just be prepared to do some dishwashing while patching...
CHighwind
12-11-2006, 23:14
To be honest, 512 mb is enough to run NWN2 very well, it isn't as RAM intense as some other games out there. I've played both Oblivion and FEAR with 512 mb and my system choked on both. With NWN2 I have only experienced it once that my computer started using the harddrive for RAM, I noticed it by a huge slowdown. And this was after several hours of playing.
The fix: Just restart the game to flush the memory :)
Fluxx: For heaven's sake, please, never ever recommend a Geforce FX card to anyone. They're the **** de la ****, Obsidian even scrapped them from the list of supported cards because of their bad performance. The only cards from that generation that might run the game are the top end ones from ATi, the Radeon 9800pro 256 mb.
If you're going to buy a new videocard now, get a GF7600GS or higher. This is mainly because it doesn't cost a lot more than the 6600GT while giving quite a boost in performance.
I'm sorry if it sounds a bit arrogant, I mean no offence. But the geforce 5 series has always been known for having very bad Shader Model 2 support, which is exactly what the game is depending on really heavily. The GF6 series has improved immensely on this, and the 7 is even better. :)
Fluxx: For heaven's sake, please, never ever recommend a Geforce FX card to anyone. They're the **** de la ****, Obsidian even scrapped them from the list of supported cards because of their bad performance. The only cards from that generation that might run the game are the top end ones from ATi, the Radeon 9800pro 256 mb.
If you're going to buy a new videocard now, get a GF7600GS or higher. This is mainly because it doesn't cost a lot more than the 6600GT while giving quite a boost in performance.
I'm sorry if it sounds a bit arrogant, I mean no offence. But the geforce 5 series has always been known for having very bad Shader Model 2 support, which is exactly what the game is depending on really heavily. The GF6 series has improved immensely on this, and the 7 is even better. :)
Please dont assume that everyone has that kind of money to spend on a graphics card.........90% of people who have computers have lousy graphics cards.......only the hardcore spend more than the price of a console(PS2/360?) on a card...... :noooo:
It was meant a a quick guide to the sort of price someone could expect to pay for improved performance. Ive always used Nvidia myself so dont feel confident to recommend ATI......... :respect:
CHighwind
13-11-2006, 20:53
No problem, however, the GF FX/5 series are simply too slow to run the game properly. Just from the top of my mind, a GF5500 will probably cost you ~$50
Yet a GF 6600GT will hardly cost $100. The first card will not run the game, while the 6600 will. There is no use in upgrading cheaply if you cannot run the game you want to upgrade for.
IMHO a 400 buck videocard is just too expensive, and only meant for hardcore gamers. However midrange cards in the ~150 - 250 segment give great performance, way better than anything that costs less. If you want to run games properly, I simply highly suggest saving up a little bit more and to do a proper upgrade.
i had a 6600 gt before nwn2 and after reading all about minimum requirements and the heck i decided to upgrade my beloved 6600 gt (fanless, silent as a rock) to a real rocket (in my case 7900gto, €250). well, i decided to do so _before_ i got the game, i just couldn't wait. and of course the game is fun on my 7900gto. but then out of couriosity i reinstalled the 6600 gt and was shocked. well, i had to lower texturesize (the card has only 128mb) and turn of water reflections, but then the game ran so smooth that i really had to ask myself if the difference was worth spending 250€? i don't think so.
so in my eyes you don't need to spend more than, say, 100€ to get a new gfx card well suited for nwn2, perhaps only half that for a used one on ebay.
Yet a GF 6600GT will hardly cost $100. The first card will not run the game, while the 6600 will. There is no use in upgrading cheaply if you cannot run the game you want to upgrade for.
But the card has to be AGP for spinyhedgehog's purpose....and theres not a huge amount of them around anymore...... :noooo: :respect:
spinyhedgehog
14-11-2006, 09:42
Hi,
Ive had a reply from Atari themselves confirming my card is too old/slow/rubbish so out of interest I asked for their recommendation and they plumped for the 6600 - I think I might get a 7 series just to slightly future proof myself.
Also bumped into a techie mate of mine yesterday who reckons AGP is more reliable and generally "better"..........
Spiny.
CHighwind
14-11-2006, 09:51
The only difference between AGP and PCI-e at this moment is the amount of power that can be given to the card through the bus. Most highend cards however, require one additional power plug coming directly from the PSU anyway. PCIe 16x also allows for higher maximum bandwith, but currently not even the X1950pro has pushed it that far, though that might change with the newer generation. AGP wasn't obsolete, but PCIe was pushed anyway.
Also Fluxx, I think it shouldn't be much of trouble finding a 6600GT if you'd also take online shops into consideration. I don't know where Spinyhedgehog is from though. For little more the 7600GS can be had, which serves as a replacement for the 6600GT AGP series, that one shouldn't be too hard to find either. :)
if only agp is viable at the moment i'd advise to go for the cheapest card that can handle nwn2 properly. why? simply because it won't be long until our friend hedgehog will have to upgrade his/her whole system anyway, and any agp card bought today will be obsolete then.
in terms of framerat/money it really depends on whether you want to buy a new one (stick to low end 7xxx then) or are ok with used cards from ebay&co (you might get a top end 6xxx card even cheaper).
CHighwind
14-11-2006, 19:11
The problem however is, that the low end 7000 series would be the 7300, which is a card that is meant for office stuff, and it will not run the game at an acceptable pace. The midrange 7600 will do though, which is reported to be a good card for the game.
Tomshardware's Charts (http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html)
Here's some charts pointing out you'd be better off getting a 6600GT card, than a 7300. A friend of mine has got a 7300 and he found it really disappointing, he expected a lot more from a '512mb nVidia card'. The 7800 however would be overkill, that I agree with :)
The 7800 however would be overkill, that I agree with :)nah, not overkill at all - but you really can live without the little more eye candy your get for the much more money... on _that_ system anyway, as in your case your cpu will be the limiting factor.
anyway i really can say that 6600gt (gt, not gs or other crippled versions, mind you!) is good for playing at moderate gfx settings. when pointing out at ebay i had something like 6800 in mind, i'd bet there are a lot of freaks throwing this one out these days...
spinyhedgehog
16-11-2006, 18:20
In answer I live in Southern France - Im going to the UK Tuesday for a week or so and am having another 512 of RAM installed whilst away and am looking at buying a 7600 GS 256mb card whilst over to install myself.
Any comments and/or hints ??
Spiny.
CHighwind
17-11-2006, 00:07
Well, there are a couple of things that will improve general performance.
- Turn off water reflections and refractions
- Turn off Normal Mapping
- Use low resolution shadows, not the 4096 ones, but 1024 instead
- I needed, play without Environmental Shadows, though these add a lot to the scene.
Go to the NWN.ini file in My Documents and set the cache to 50, it's at the top of the file.
Grab the latest drivers from www.nvidia.com.
If you feel like tweaking some more, you could always try to overclock your videocard, nVidia cards are pretty good at that. But just make sure to see how it runs at stock speeds first.
Enjoy the game, I'm sure you'll see way better performance now that you have this card, also with other games :)
Any comments and/or hints ??
Spiny.
Do you mean with the installation?..... :mefiant:
spinyhedgehog
07-12-2006, 19:44
OK I now have an MSI NX7600GS graphics card with 512mb of RAM, I have upgraded my system RAM to 750mb (waiting for 250 more). The game now loads but there are holes in the ground, no sky, peoples faces missing and "lines" all over the place making the words totally unreadable.
Ive jigged around with turning shadows etc. off and on to no success, I have not got onto NVidia for the latest drivers however as (ha, ha) their website is down - it plays all other games beautifully so In know its a NWN2 thing.
Any other suggestions people????
Cheers Spiney.
only so much: your graphics board is well capable of nwn2, the problem has to be anywhere else. sorry, i know that's not much, but it's a start...
spinyhedgehog
09-12-2006, 09:38
only so much: your graphics board is well capable of nwn2, the problem has to be anywhere else. sorry, i know that's not much, but it's a start...
OK Ive now downloaded the newest drivers and it is a bit better. Im sorry Tanita I would normally bow to your obviously greater knowledge but the problem HAS to be NWN2 related because every other game and application I possess runs fine.
Steve.
hey, i don't say it isn't nwn2-related, i only state that your card is fast enough and has enough ram to run nwn2 properly (other users experiencing the same problems often have too weak systems).
of course, if nwn2 is the only app showing problems, then you're right to suspect the game to be faulty. on the other hand there are numerous players using the same game on the same graphics board without any problems.
anyway this is not about "who is to blame?" but about "what can we do to fix it?".
of course, first thing is to check whether nwn2 is installed properly. you did that already, and as the game itself runs fine (that is: without crashing *g*) we can assume it _is_ indeed installed o.k. but still something goes wrong on the way from nwn2 to your screen. so let's think about who is involved: nwn2 tells it's engine (electron) what to show, electron talks to directX, directX talks to the graphics driver, the driver instructs your gpu, the gpu renders the images (involving textures fetched from memory) and finally some circuits generate the signals sent to your monitors.
nwn2 itself seems to be ok.
the engine seems fine, too, as the objects are where they're supposed to be, right?
but then something goes wrong, the actual triangles to be painted to the screen get messed up. i'd say this is either directX's fault, or your graphics driver's.
it could of course also be a damaged gpu, but as you just swapped that one i don't think so.
so having said all that here's my recommendation (sorry if i repeat myself):
check directX, especially check whether you accidentally run the debug-version from the SDK. if not sure: get rid of directX (there are tools out there that can _completely_ uninstall directX, not only delete some files) and reinstall it! then check your graphics driver, if unsure re-install it as well.
and if you have some space left you could also try to install windows to a spare partition and _only_ install gpu drivers, directX and nwn2 - if it doesn't work then you'll at least know that something unmendable is broken...
sorry spiny, i'd like to be of more help, but i can only talk out of my experience and i'm no expert in these things either...
OK Ive now downloaded the newest drivers and it is a bit better.
Did you completely uninstall the old drivers before installing the new ones?........ :mefiant: :respect:
spinyhedgehog
19-12-2006, 16:59
Yes using control panel - Ive now uninstalled and reinstalled/repatched the game with the same unplayable results - it is sooooo frustrating cos it looks like its great.
I now have a new problem however - I cannot now uninstall - its comes up with a 32 error message and every time I look to see if there are new patches it says "Im sorry you have not restarted your PC since your last patch" - well of course you can guess I have!!
Spiney.
Did you completely uninstall the old drivers before installing the new ones?
Yes using control panel
stop. that's not enough. fluxx asked to completely uninstall the old drivers because he knows that you also need to get rid of some registry-entries and system-libraries that remain after uninstalling via control-panel. you may try to clean up your drivers mess using "nvidia nasty file remover" (http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=582) or similar tools and scripts. always remember to do a clean reboot after uninstalling / before installing any complex drivers, as windows can remove some files only during startup when they are not already in use.
spinyhedgehog
21-12-2006, 16:32
OK Ive now used the "nasty file remover" and the game runs totally beautifully (at last) as does the rest of the PC however every time I boot up I get an error message "C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\NvCpl.dll" any ideas??
Spiney.
hmm, what does it say about that file? is it missing? or is it causing trouble?
this is the control-panel part of your drivers, maybe you need to install the controlpanel separately. with nvidia drivers you can chose between two alternative control-panels (classic or new one), try activating the other...
if it is there and causing trouble, just remove it...
if it is missing you can try to download it from somewhere and just drop it to the right directory - this one _may_ be ok without installation.
tommynocker001
22-12-2006, 16:43
But to get back on thread...
I have just put in an ATI X1600 Pro AGP to replace my badly aging 9000. The reason? The 1600 is a snap at 91 bucks and will keep the small beastie running games while I put together my minimal cash deposits for a next-gen PC. So whats wrong with ATI???
But to get back on thread...
actually though this thread started two months ago with skg's question it has then for the bigger part been a discussion to help spiny. of course you may now come back to the op's cause, but i'm well confident he has already bought a new card... :-)
tommynocker001
23-12-2006, 18:42
Good point. weirdblue Obviously I've started celebrating early and have addled myself.
So, what would you suggest for a PC to run NWN2 online?
varstyle
29-01-2007, 04:38
Hi, im have a RADEON X1300 512MB but sometimes when the car go very fast the screen delay for a miliseconds and i dont know what happens i overclocked the gpu with ati tool up to 45% in the core and 30% in the memo setting with the zalman fatal1ty fcv9 but i dont know ... i have a CRT Dell 782p ... help please i want to drive to unlimited...
if somebody knows a answer please send me a email to varsismaname@gmail.com
Thanks for all
have a nice day
http://forums.eu.atari.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=999433#
Atari
wow!
cars in nwn2? i always knew there was more to come, but _this_ ! horses, i hoped for. carriages, well, i didn't dare dreaming of, neither boats... but cars! i must say, i'd never thought this was possible, or, in any case, ... desireable?
*cough*
hey, guy, you know that this forum is about a fantasy roleplaying game?
i bet you own a tft display, probably ot-panel? if so, the bad news is: there are panels that delay the picture by up to 3 frames in order to calculate the overdrive voltages! if you're unlucky enough to have one of these you can change that delay by no means. anyway overclocking your poor graphics board will not make the pictures come earlier, only more often...
tommynocker001
30-01-2007, 12:00
I had a heat up utility for my ATI board and it clocked nearly 200% faster than the recomended speed before the chipset turned to glass... definitely a fatal1ty... :atari:
... didn't make my car go fater, though. Who said anything about horses in NWN2? http://nwvault.ign.com/fms/Image.php?id=8133 looks like NWN to me. Can't find a single news article on the subject, just speculation. I know that there is an expansion though so maybe I'll be suprised... And some of these hakpaks are dodgy... I recommend extreme caution.
wow. another one not knowing the what this forum is about... kids, go spamming somewhere else - this is the nwn2 forum.
I got about as low end system that you could have and still play NWN2.
ATI moterboard
Celeron D (socket 478) 2.26 GHz oc to 2.4 (the 533 MHZ FSB makes it faster than most comparable P4 400 MHZ FSB CPUs)
512 MB of DDR 400 system memory
ATI 9550 AGP 128MB video ram (the 9550 is a 9600 but special editioned down from 128 bit memory bus to 64 bit and a slower gpu clock. Ouch!)
160 GB maxtor hard drive 8MB cache
Anyway I've almost finished the game with only a couple of crashes along the way.
Thought maybe some of my fellow poor gamers would like would to know.
BTW I can oc the video but it doesn't really help much.
Still I can use most settings enabled but forget about AA though.
I think the graphics are pretty impressive but I wonder what they would be like on a real game system. mdr1
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