ever heard of 1 gig of video memory?

[Juice476]

i have a:

AMD Athlone fx-53
2x nividia 6600 gt's 128MB
1GB of Ballistix ram
Raptor hardrive

but what im planning on doing is getting 2x 6800 ultars 512mb and another GB of ram

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Just get like an extra 2 gb of ram if your motherboard can handle it and put as much as possible towards your video card... might be a little slower but it works...

 

[DoomUK]

Doom 3 on Ultra quality doesn't require 512MB of vram; I myself run the game on Ultra with 256MB with little if no performance loss from running on High quality... It was originally said prior to the game's release that Ultra requires 512 (due to lighting being uncompressed along with all textures or something like that, look it up) but I guess it was bullsh*t lol

Haven't heard about this years games though (i.e FEAR, Stalker, Battlefield 2 etc), I'd like to know what significant difference 512MB-1GB would make- BUT if the new gen of cards are due out this summer, presumably with a native 512MB or vram, I'll be upgrading anyway

 

[Nubius]

Doom 3 on Ultra quality doesn't require 512MB of vram;

Uhh yeah it does. Blatently says so when you click to apply Ultra settings. Just because you CAN run it, doesn't meant that it doesn't technically 'require' 512mb Vram.......the better wording is, it was more appropriately made for 512mb cards.

 

[Juice476]

Well i played doom 3 on high everything with 1600x1200 res it lagged somtimes but it is possible but like i said it didnt always play smooth as silk now HL2 on the other hand as well as Far Cray my machine kicked ass.

I just dont know how i should have every thing set up like on my cards and in the game you can do app control or you can set the AA and AT on the cards them selves?

I want to over clock but i have to get water cooling first, will over clocking everything to full inprove alot of games on my pc?

I just bought and built this a couple months ago so idk if i realy want to spend an extra 2 grand on 512's but idk time will tell but

i do need help with setting up my games and my computer

 

[DoomUK]

Uhh yeah it does. Blatently says so when you click to apply Ultra settings. Just because you CAN run it, doesn't meant that it doesn't technically 'require' 512mb Vram.......the better wording is, it was more appropriately made for 512mb cards.

What? It doesn't display any messages when you apply Ultra settings, unless you're referring to a line in the console somewhere....

It goes without saying that, obviously, having more VRAM would give a performance boost like more of anything else would... but to put it in perspective: In a timedemo (demo1), on Ultra quality/1280*1024/2x AA/Vsync OFF I get around 70 FPS. Turning on Vsync gives me around 44 FPS, but the game is still more than playable for the most part.

EDIT: Juice476, I'll quickly say this: It's usually better to use a game's built-in AA and AF settings than your Forecware/Catalyst settings. Also, seeing as using using nVidia, make sure you've set Image Settings to 'Quality' rather than 'High Quality', it'll give a fractional performance boost at no loss of image quality

 

[Nubius]

What? It doesn't display any messages when you apply Ultra settings, unless you're referring to a line in the console somewhere....

No, when you change it to Ultra and go to hit Apply it brings up a little message that says "Ultra settings uses 500mb of graphical data so a 512mb card should be used" something along those lines.

In a timedemo (demo1), on Ultra quality/1280*1024/2x AA/Vsync OFF I get around 70 FPS.

Theres no freakin way dude, I've seen people with better machines not even get that. Check out www.pimprig.com they have a 'doom3 mini challenge' to see who can get the best FPS under different settings...........wait a second, I just realized something.......you said 2x AA........did you use the nvidia control panel to change it to that or something because Ultra settings = 6x AA automatically and the only thing you can change is AF which you didn't put what you have.

The top dude is a guy named CPUKiller with the following hardware:

A64 3400 (slight OC)
Prototype nVidia 6800Ultra running a modified Golden Sample BIOS
1GB Corsair PC3200LLPRO
Abit KV8 Pro rev 1.1 (1.6 BIOS)

and he only got 54FPS on these settings:

High Quality
4xAA and 8xAF
1024x768 Resolution

 

[Juice476]

ya thanks works great what about monitor res should i just keep it at max and also what should i keep it on for my cards then just app controlled or just 0 them out?

 

[horndude]

VRAM bandwidth= resolution*color depth*framerate

that is correct isnt it?

if it is, off the top of my head Id say 1 Gig is serious overkill

 

[DoomUK]

Nubius, mate ...

First off, seriously, there's no warning message when you hit 'Apply', OK? You've obviously been playing some hacked version of Doom 3, or some mod... I don't know

Secondly, you're getting confused between the AA and AF settings: AF is at 8x by default at Ultra quality, AA is always user defined...

Thirdly, try timedemo demo 1 out on those settings yourself- but remember: NO Vsync, and run it TWICE to eliminate any of those 'pauses'. Tell us what you get the in the first run and the second.