I have the pleasure to announce my new system. My old rig which was retired :
Athlon XP 2200+, Asus A7V8X-X, Leadtek GeForce 6800XT(128MB, AGP ver),Excelstor 80GB (1MB cache), 1GB Super-Talent DDR400, 2TheMax EB-530 (600W) PSU, Generic DVD ROM, SoundBlaster Live! 24Bits.
I just replaced the CPU and with Pentium D 805(2.66GHz, 533FSB, 2x1MB L2Cache) and a motherboard Asus P5P800 SE.
Let me tell you, the difference is light and day!
BF2 automatically detected my old rig and assigned Medium settings with 75% view distance. The frame rate was in fact very low. It was between 18~25. And I frequently get killed because of lag especially when there are many people turn up in the same screen.
In the beginning I categorised BF2 as a GPU bound game. So 2 weeks ago I bought a new card GeForce 6800XT. To my disappointment, the frame rate does not increase dramatically though, the quality of graphics now looks better. In fact with nVidia's series 6, you can see the water through. And grass looks crispy. BUt the frame rate was still horrible.
Now that I know it is a CPU bound game. So I bought the above CPU and motherboard. The reason I bought a Pentium is because Intel CPU nevertheless, is smart in calculations. Afterall, even though we are talking about a FPS genre of game, it still requires tons of calculations to do specially when you are talking about textures, shadings and all sorts of other things. When I start the game last night in Single Player Mode, I applaused along side with my friend. Frame rate holding at 47 and fluctuates between 45~50. Ideally, 60 is the best cause that is real wolrd frame rates we see things with our flesh eyes.
But What I wanted to share with you is more than that. Now that BF2 still auto assigns everything to Medium except AA and viewing distance I get 90% which is as you know very crucial in combat. Prior to this Leadtek 6800XT(128MB) I was using Leadtek 5900XT (128MB). No doubt about it, 6800XT gives a better umage quality like a soldier is less blocky. I am not saying that it was very blocky with 5900XT, but 6800XT eliminates more edges and splines more obvious and nicely drawn. And I must mention the lightings. The sun glare is so rendered. So is the water. Now that I can see the sand in shallow water and the water to my surprise is so clear even in some very rural area. If all the water in the world is so clear then we have a very environmental friendly Earth to live in.
EA has done a great job. At first I thought, "So this is it. This is BF2. Just slightly better graphics than BF1942 which was invented back in 2002.". IN fact what I find out about BF2 is that it takes whatever hardware you give to it. The game arranges the best settings for your given hardware. But the better hardware you have, you will see better quality unleashed. They are all behind that spec which is opened basically. You can play the game with even an plain 5900 with a P4 2.4GHz Presscott. Or you can play it with a Core 2 Duo and a 7900GTX. Thanks EA! Ingenius invention.
Athlon XP 2200+, Asus A7V8X-X, Leadtek GeForce 6800XT(128MB, AGP ver),Excelstor 80GB (1MB cache), 1GB Super-Talent DDR400, 2TheMax EB-530 (600W) PSU, Generic DVD ROM, SoundBlaster Live! 24Bits.
I just replaced the CPU and with Pentium D 805(2.66GHz, 533FSB, 2x1MB L2Cache) and a motherboard Asus P5P800 SE.
Let me tell you, the difference is light and day!
BF2 automatically detected my old rig and assigned Medium settings with 75% view distance. The frame rate was in fact very low. It was between 18~25. And I frequently get killed because of lag especially when there are many people turn up in the same screen.
In the beginning I categorised BF2 as a GPU bound game. So 2 weeks ago I bought a new card GeForce 6800XT. To my disappointment, the frame rate does not increase dramatically though, the quality of graphics now looks better. In fact with nVidia's series 6, you can see the water through. And grass looks crispy. BUt the frame rate was still horrible.
Now that I know it is a CPU bound game. So I bought the above CPU and motherboard. The reason I bought a Pentium is because Intel CPU nevertheless, is smart in calculations. Afterall, even though we are talking about a FPS genre of game, it still requires tons of calculations to do specially when you are talking about textures, shadings and all sorts of other things. When I start the game last night in Single Player Mode, I applaused along side with my friend. Frame rate holding at 47 and fluctuates between 45~50. Ideally, 60 is the best cause that is real wolrd frame rates we see things with our flesh eyes.
But What I wanted to share with you is more than that. Now that BF2 still auto assigns everything to Medium except AA and viewing distance I get 90% which is as you know very crucial in combat. Prior to this Leadtek 6800XT(128MB) I was using Leadtek 5900XT (128MB). No doubt about it, 6800XT gives a better umage quality like a soldier is less blocky. I am not saying that it was very blocky with 5900XT, but 6800XT eliminates more edges and splines more obvious and nicely drawn. And I must mention the lightings. The sun glare is so rendered. So is the water. Now that I can see the sand in shallow water and the water to my surprise is so clear even in some very rural area. If all the water in the world is so clear then we have a very environmental friendly Earth to live in.
EA has done a great job. At first I thought, "So this is it. This is BF2. Just slightly better graphics than BF1942 which was invented back in 2002.". IN fact what I find out about BF2 is that it takes whatever hardware you give to it. The game arranges the best settings for your given hardware. But the better hardware you have, you will see better quality unleashed. They are all behind that spec which is opened basically. You can play the game with even an plain 5900 with a P4 2.4GHz Presscott. Or you can play it with a Core 2 Duo and a 7900GTX. Thanks EA! Ingenius invention.
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