9800 Pro still good?

[PizzatheHut06]

The next generation games i guess will REQUIRE a GeForce 6800 or greater to run well.

What do you mean by "require" and how much time until the "next generation"? The reason I'm asking is because in a business sense this doesn't seem like it would be a good idea for companies to do. Say the card drops to around $100 dollars by the time that happens. How many mainstream users will get that card? I'd say probably not too many. People like us on these forums make up a very small percentage of the marketshare. I don't know an exact number, but I'd say <5%. Most of the people playing computer games will still be people will their Dells and HPs and Compaqs. I would say that games will require a 6800 in something more like 3-5 years, although that's a very rough estimate. Right now for instance, my old roommate just got a new Dell and the graphics card was a GeForce MX440. Think how long ago that was a good card. I guess that's the tricky part about making graphics for games, making them able to run on crappy Compaqs for the mainstream user, while at the same time giving them the ability to be played using a top of the line card.

 

[beedubaya]

By require, I mean to run with all the settings turned up. Thats why I said "run well." Running next generation games on a 9800 card or an X800 Pro will be like running todays games on a GeForce4 TI 4600 or some variety. It will still work for quite some time, but you just won't be able to have all the eye candy. And the GeForce 4 MX 440 is one card that cannot run todays games.

 

[ag3]

The Radeon 9800 is still a great card. You can push it very far.

 

[Nubius]

Yeah the people who buy Dells and whatnot that expect great gaming....well.....they fit the "Dell' profile and really fall into that category of being uneducated and not knowing what they are paying for. So really gaming is now basically left to those who know what's up with their computers internal parts and soforth. It's getting to the point where you have to know some good basics in computers if you actually want to be able to game, but that's how it should be.

In a press conferance when the 6800 was first coming out, they were talking to some game developers who said to the effect of 'We had never been able to design games to our max potential because there hadn't been a card out there that could handle it until now' So they are just now going to be diving into the depths of insane realism. Doom3 is the first step and they'll continue working on it. Imagine if Soldier of Fortune 3 was released with far cry physics, the ghoul engine from sof2 updated and some rendering capabilities of doom3 or even HL2...it'd make for one helluva game, but you'd also need a REAL powerful card to push it through.

Basically now that game developers have the opportunity to make games even more realistic, they are going to take it. I don't doubt that we might actually see a somewhat fast transition from the previous generation to the next gen, as soon as the next card comes out, then prices will drop and then 6800 and alike will be commonplace among most people. I can't wait until the 6600 is released to see what kind of performance comes out of that beast.

Damn you ag3, your computer is a monster!

 

[ag3]

 

[DoomUK]

Talking about next-gen, I presume you've all seen the Unreal 3.0 footage? I saw it on nVidia's 6800 launch party* earlier this year, but you can find it at Fileplanet (http://www.fileplanet.com/files/140000/140731.shtml) if by chance you haven't already seen it.

*Where can I download that by the way? I can't seem to find it on www.nvidia.com

 

[beedubaya]

I was just watching a tech-demo of Unreal Engine 3.......too bad I don't have a job....because that game is gonna NEED a 6800 from the looks of the tech-demo (i doubt my card will be able to handle it, if it can, it wil run it at like 10 or less fps lol).

 

[DoomUK]

Nice, isn't it?

Can't wait to see what Quake 4 looks like too. I'm longing to know what Raven do with the Doom 3 engine *drool*. And RTCW 2, too.

 

[beedubaya]

Yea.....Unreal 3 will require a 6800 card or an X800XT P.E. at bare minimum.....my P.O.S. X800 Pro won't cut it. As for Quake 4, I don't know how well these older generation cards will run it. I know my card had a darn hard time with Doom 3, so anything based on the Doom 3 engine will be progressively worse.

 

[ag3]

I know my card had a darn hard time with Doom 3...

Really? My card cut Doom3 up.