Not a big gamer, but want to play C.McRae DiRT - what card?

They make noise, too.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
blackworx
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 601
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 2:04 am
Location: UK

Not a big gamer, but want to play C.McRae DiRT - what card?

Post by blackworx » Tue Apr 22, 2008 3:37 am

Title says it all really. I'm not that big into games and don't know much about graphics cards, but love the Colin McRae series and want to be able to play DiRT in particular on my new machine (Q6600 on P35, mostly used for photoshop and audio/video transcoding).

I basically want a single card that will be the most acceptable from a silencing perspective when in 2D mode (which it will be 99% of the time) whilst being able to cope well with that game. My monitor is a "big" 1600x1200. I'm ok with playing at slightly lower than native res, but it would be nice if I didn't have to. Noise obviously isn't an issue when gaming. I also intend to fit an Accelero, so inefficient/noisy stock cooling isn't a worry.

Shortlist (in no particular order):
  • - 8800GT
  • - 9600GT
  • - 3870
  • - The as-yet unannounced 9800GT - is it worth waiting for (55nm => cooler => quieter)?
Am I correct in assuming a 3850 wouldn't quite cut it for DiRT?

As I say, I know little about graphics cards and gaming, so apologies if I've made any dumb assumptions. I'm in no particular rush (hence considering the 9800GT). Any help/guidance/suggestions appreciated!

sorenbro
Posts: 169
Joined: Wed Apr 23, 2003 2:05 pm
Location: Denmark

Post by sorenbro » Tue Apr 22, 2008 6:00 am

I'm using 8800GT with Accelero S1, which delivers superb performance and no noise (haven't experienced the coil noise some are complaining about)

My brother has a 9600GT with the stock cooler, and it is very quiet, cannot hear it over the other noisesources in the system (running in Antec NKS 3380 case with Antec 120mm fan at low and stock Antec PSU).

Personally I would choose a 9600GT for the casual gamer, see if the stock cooler is quiet enough or else replace with Accelero S1 or even S2

lemonparty
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Oct 02, 2006 12:37 am

Post by lemonparty » Wed Apr 23, 2008 12:41 am

8800GT. It's not very expensive, and is the fastest of the three. DIRT is quite a demanding game.

Modo
Posts: 486
Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2008 3:32 am
Location: Poland

Post by Modo » Wed Apr 23, 2008 12:58 am

Any of those should do. With proper tweaking, I was able to get this game running fairly well on my 8600GTS. The cards you listed are at least twice as powerful.

blackworx
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 601
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 2:04 am
Location: UK

Post by blackworx » Thu Apr 24, 2008 7:09 am

Cheers for the responses folks :)

Plekto
Posts: 398
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2008 2:08 pm
Location: Los Angeles

Post by Plekto » Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:55 pm

The basic GT shoudl be more than fine. I have an older X1800Pro and it runs FEAR at maximum settings just fine. 30-40fps all the time with all the goodies at full blast. You really don't need a massive card to play games these days. You just need to set up the thing correctly.

1:Download and install a utility call ReForce. Set all of your refresh rates for Windows to 60hz and lock them there. Leave the video card's refresh rate alone - it will only see 60hz anyways as an option after a reboot. More than 60fps is wasted, visually, so there's no need to ask your monitor or card to do more than that.

2:Set the thing to 16 bit color. Unless you are using Photoshop for editing photos and such, you'll never notice the difference playing any game on the planet. Even as little as 5fps is enough to where your eyes won't tell the difference. Also turn on trilinear filtering - most games default to bilinear.

3:Set the video card settings to maximum performance other than texture quality, which should be set to quality. Set the rest to application controlled. The idea is to get the card to run as fast as possible yet look good for static stuff like backgrounds and long-range stuff. So that when you DO stop blowing up aliens for a few seconds, the world looks like a proper world.(FPS drops because you hit a lull, quality settings take over)

4:Play all games at no larger than 1024*768 - give or take. Most textures are optimized for this resolution. Turn off AA in-game. It honestly isn't as important as lighting effects and anitstropic filtering. Proper lighting is by far the most important effect in a game as far as making it look realistic.(HDR and such) Second is the Aniso, because it makes lines and geometry look proper in the distance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisotropic_filtering
Go frugal with your settings in order to crank this up to 4x and add in HDR:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynam ... _rendering
These two together are addictive. :)

Far Cry is a fantastic game with the visual effects at maximum. I play it and just wander around sometimes. I especially like the second or two it takes to adjust from a light to dark place and vice-versa. FEAR's enemies seem to be able to see in the dark. Far Cry - they also will get blinded and won't see you in really dark shadows if it's on.

Post Reply