🚀 go-pugleaf

Folk wrote:
> Jesus, I guess so.  Most earthlings don't game at 2048 x 1536.  What
> kind of monitor are you using?
> 
It's a 21" Sony F-520 which I bought something like 6 years ago. It does 
2048*1536 at 85 Hz and I'm sad to say they don't make them like that 
anymore. Playing UT in that resolution has some benefits like being able 
to tell friend from foe on a long distance, something which actually has 
gotten me accused of using a zoom cheat while playing Instagib on Face :-)

Before the 21" I gamed using a 17" SONY 17se which was able to do 
1600x1200 so I have allways been pushing graphics cards to the limit


> The first graph is representative of the setup for a typical UT99
> gamer.... 1024 x 768 with no AA or AF.  

I thought a typical UT gamer would use way higher resolutions however I 
did dig up some data for those playing CS, Half Life and other Valve 
stuff and I stand corrected (providing those figures are similar for 
UT). It seems less than 10% is using a resolution above 1280x1024 and in 
fact about 44% is using 1024x768 or lower!

I'm very surprised of this. I know that some years ago a screen letting 
you go 1600x1200 cost a pretty penny, in fact the two monitors I 
mentioned above cost me $3000+, but it has since then become very 
affordable - even if you insist on using a TFT monitor it's a bargain 
compared to back in time. These days one can get a 2nd hand super high 
end monitor like my old Sony for like $100 or so, simply because so many 
people have abandoned CRT's despite them still being the best thing for 
gaming (and photo work if you like the colours to be correct).


> We can see that there are 16
> cards that have the same framerate (given a 3% margin of error).
> Obviously we are CPU bound at that resolution, since those 16 cards
> represent a varying amount of pixel pushing power yet they all yield
> the same results.
> 
Exactly.


> In order to "separate the pack" for a vid card shootout, you need to
> raise the visual stakes, and they do that by using artificially high
> AA/AF or resolution settings.  There's certainly nothing wrong with
> that, but if you do all your gaming at "normal" resolutions and AA/AF
> levels, then any one of those 16 cards are just as good as the other
> in UT.

Now here's the thing. The AA/AF settings aren't really artificially high 
but more like what should be the norm, after all we deserve the games we 
play to look the best possible.



> 
> Now look at the results from the same article when benching Doom 3....
> http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/10/04/vga_charts_iv/page9.html
> 
> Now instead of 16 cards, we have only 3.  Now which game engine would
> you call CPU limited?
> 
No question Doom 3 is a very different beast. However just because it's 
much harder on the gfx card does not mean UT is not demanding once you 
up the resolution and gfx quality settings, the level is just different.

I shall try and do some testing in the weekend. Perhaps I can make a 
graph showing what's the limit in my system - just for the fun of it.


> If you're gaming at 2048 x 1536, then you could certainly be vid card
> limited, but then who wouldn't be at that resolution?  I would highly
> recommend an SLI solution to push that number of pixels.  For average
> gamers using a 19" flat panel (1280 x 1024) and not going nuts with AA
> or AF, then you're going to be CPU bound using the Unreal engine.
> 
SLI is not needed as the current high end cards will do just as my 
X1900XTX does - however they are very different than say a 9600 or a 
X800. (and a lot louder with all the cooling that's needed!)


> FWIW, UT99 is much friendlier than UT2004 when it comes to vid card
> requirements.  Textures are *much* smaller.

Certainly, UT2004 is a lot more complex. Textures are bigger, more 
lightning, more polygons, more everything basicly. UT is in sense a Dx6 
games build on an engine from 1997/98 and doesn't even benefit from T&L. 
I still remember a friend of mine swapping his TNTUltra something for a 
Geforce256 only to realize his old card was faster and that he payed a 
huge amount of cash for T&L which was only used in tech demos at the time.

Kind regards
Bruno