vid card upgrade...

[MaSonZ]

some day when i save up the money, probably not until my birthday, i wanna upgrade my card. right now i have a XFX Radeon 5750. it runs nicely, no issues, but i want a little more eye candy out of the game. finer resolution for the details and overall run it a little sooner. thoughts? preferably below $200ish would be great, but if its a couple over i can live it. just going for thoughts right now.

[guncrasher]

it might not make a difference what you select today as probably it wont be here in 6 months .  what are your settings withing the game, maybe a better option would be to adjust them.

semp

[MaSonZ]

it might not make a difference what you select today as probably it wont be here in 6 months .  what are your settings withing the game, maybe a better option would be to adjust them.

semp

ive played with them, it runs smooth. i have all the shadows, detailed water, hi res pack, smooth shadows. other planes skins enabled, horizon enabled. all the goodies. would love to have the shadow texture size at 8192 and still run it smooth. right now that is at 1024 and im lookin about 40-50 with my other candy. could i OC things? yes, just dont feel a "need" to other then to say i did. and in AH with my performance like so, what would i gain?

i guess what i was asking in my OP was a card that would boost my performance. ive rerad a few threads about how the ATI cards have a numerical system for giving spoecs. the first number is generation, second one is its performance, etc. etc. things is, i dont wanna buy a 6770 if im not gonna gain much of a performance boost.

[gyrene81]

it may or may not...you have a pretty new system. what mobo and ram did you put in it?

[MaSonZ]

MSI 880GM-E41 with 8GB (2X4GB) G.Skill ram. my CPU is an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T. it is all brand new, but i want more eye candy, and im addicted 

only thing is money is keeping me from finishing it to my liking right now 

[TequilaChaser]

MSI 880GM-E41 with 8GB (2X4GB) G.Skill ram. my CPU is an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T. it is all brand new, but i want more eye candy, and im addicted  

only thing is money is keeping me from finishing it to my liking right now  

forget about the 6770, it will not be that much of an improvement to be wasting money on.......

keep your 5750 until you save up enough money and then purchase yourself a 6950 or 6970 ( the 2 GB version of either one )......... just make sure you have at least a 750 to 850 watt PSU minimal.........
with at least  (1) 8 pin PCIe<--- can be 6+2 also for the 8 pin,  and (1) 6 pin PCIe

if I remember correctly, the 6950 will use (2) 6 pin PCIe connectors, while the 6970 will use (1) 8 pin & (1) 6 pin  on the PCIe  power connectors.......


hope this helps


TC

[icepac]

I would start making sure that your system isn't using processor power for unnecessary processes or programs.

If you have 26 icons in the system tray, then you can probably gain a ton of performance.

If your system has a scroll bar in the "processes" tab of task manager in it's default size window, them you might have some non essential stuff running.

[guncrasher]

ive played with them, it runs smooth. i have all the shadows, detailed water, hi res pack, smooth shadows. other planes skins enabled, horizon enabled. all the goodies. would love to have the shadow texture size at 8192 and still run it smooth. right now that is at 1024 and im lookin about 40-50 with my other candy. could i OC things? yes, just dont feel a "need" to other then to say i did. and in AH with my performance like so, what would i gain?

i guess what i was asking in my OP was a card that would boost my performance. ive rerad a few threads about how the ATI cards have a numerical system for giving spoecs. the first number is generation, second one is its performance, etc. etc. things is, i dont wanna buy a 6770 if im not gonna gain much of a performance boost.

do you mean 40 to 50 fps?  I think you should be maxing out your monitor refresh rate with the upgrade you got.

semp

[Noir]

a 5750 is really low end, even with a meager 6870 you would see a HUGE improvement.

a AMD Phenom II X6 1055T is a 6 core CPU, you could run a 3DSmax rendering in the background and Aces high would still be smooth probably

[RTHolmes]

Radeon 5750 (passmark: 1502) is not really low end.

my GTS 250 (passmark: 1071) runs AH in HD, hires tex, with everything maxed (except self-shadow) and doesnt drop under 59fps. the 5750 should easily do the same.

[100Coogn]

Radeon 5750 (passmark: 1502) is not really low end.

my GTS 250 (passmark: 1071) runs AH in HD, hires tex, with everything maxed (except self-shadow) and doesnt drop under 59fps. the 5750 should easily do the same.

Same card I'm using, GTS 250.  It's been working great for over 2 years. 

Coogan

[MaSonZ]

a 5750 is really low end, even with a meager 6870 you would see a HUGE improvement.

a AMD Phenom II X6 1055T is a 6 core CPU, you could run a 3DSmax rendering in the background and Aces high would still be smooth probably

let me ask.. if its a low end why do people claim to play Crisis 2 and/or Black ops with it? those games are far more advanced graphically then AH....just saying.

im aware i have a 6 core CPU, but AH only uses 1 core of it.

i role with AH open, and mozilla with 6 tabs. mozilla takes upa good bit of space no doubt, but why would 5 free cores not be able to handle it?



if i could dedicate AH to a single core and isolate that core for STRICTLY AH i think i would be happening right now until i save up the money for a 6970....

[Bizman]

AH uses two cores (at least). You can set the affinity for each running program and choose which core they are using. Just start the program and then Ctrl+Alt+Del to get to TaskManager. Right click a program, choose Set Affinity and tick any core(s) you want to be used for that specific application. That's the way to do it in XP, probably the same in newer OSes, too.

[MaSonZ]

AH uses two cores (at least). You can set the affinity for each running program and choose which core they are using. Just start the program and then Ctrl+Alt+Del to get to TaskManager. Right click a program, choose Set Affinity and tick any core(s) you want to be used for that specific application. That's the way to do it in XP, probably the same in newer OSes, too.

uses two cores on an itnel CPU, only one on an AMD.

when i go to set affinity, it says access is denied, the operation could not be performed 

[Noir]

let me ask.. if its a low end why do people claim to play Crisis 2 and/or Black ops with it? those games are far more advanced graphically then AH....just saying.

im aware i have a 6 core CPU, but AH only uses 1 core of it.

i role with AH open, and mozilla with 6 tabs. mozilla takes upa good bit of space no doubt, but why would 5 free cores not be able to handle it?



if i could dedicate AH to a single core and isolate that core for STRICTLY AH i think i would be happening right now until i save up the money for a 6970....

A snailman would say, a good graph beats a lot of text



Regarding the web browser in background, it will run fine as long as you don't have any flash videos (youtube) or apps running, these will kill your performance...don't ask me why!