Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

[imported_Ph1L]

Re: Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

I love eyecandy.. And want new GFX soon. So yes, if you are like me, get new one :)

[Tenshi]

Re: Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

Ofcourse the game looks better (i could actually SEE artillery)...but this thread is about advantage. I didnt notice any advantage. Except the swapping disappeared from the begining of the game.

I went from

Athlon 1400, ati 9700pro 512 ram, audigy 2

to

Athlon 64 3000+, GF6800 PCI-e, 1Gig RAM ...audigy 2


I play sniper 99% of the time. Theres a HUGE difference playing online. In performance I mean. I played through a university internet connection. I got pings of around 8ms, the game was still slower than playing offline (in terms of framerate and consistency). 100fps online isnt 100fps.

[imported_Sin317]

Re: Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

the main factor is stable fps , not high fps.

eg its better to have 60 fps all the time , then 70 -100 fps.

more stable fps = better

if you have 100 fps while running around , but when you fight it drops down , it doesnt do any good lol.

[pYura]

Re: Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

what question is that? of corse it gives a huge advantage!! //better fps, higher res., AA, AF...)

[pYura]

Re: Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

the main factor is stable fps , not high fps.

eg its better to have 60 fps all the time , then 70 -100 fps.

more stable fps = better

if you have 100 fps while running around , but when you fight it drops down , it doesnt do any good lol.

thats 100% bullsh!t, its no matter if stabel or not if it doesnt go belov 40

[Jofaba]

Re: Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

I've yet to hear of a way to get stable fps over high fps. How do you "stabilize" your framerate? I hit peaks of 300fps with absolutely everything on high (including res of 1600x1200) in Half Life 2, but it drops down to 30 and sometimes lower in heavily animated scenes, like when the tower collapses near the beginning of the game.

And aside from FPS, there is a general lag that occurs when changing direction (left and right etc). Some people don't have it, some people do. Fighting against these lag "stutters" and fps lag isn't really worth your while. It's best just to make sure that your computer is optimized, and then choose settings that work for you. Then go kick ass on the servers, and regardless of how pretty their game is, you'll be the better player.

[Tk-421]

Re: Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

To OP in rgards to the actual topic - Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

Only in this respect: With a better graphcis card you can run better settings. With that you may be able to run with additional eye candy (contrails from planes are much more defined for example) which may help you see things you might not have.

--

For all the miscellaneous BS floating around on this thread:

CRT > LCD for gaming (but only enough to start a flame war between the ppl who own either a CRT or an LCD)

A stable 30 FPS is more desirable than a 100 FPS max with dips below 30 FPS.

The human eye processes a huge amount of information, of which only a limited amount is actually focused on. Your perf. vision is highly sensitive to small motion and very poor at discerning even obvious details (i.e. was it a triangle or a square?)

A higher FPS only matters in 3D games because of the speed of the action going on. I can send you a 3D demo that will run at 10 FPS, but because the movement is very slow (it's a fish wiggling in slow motion) it still seems smooth because the perceived distance the fish has wiggled is small. If you want to have a 3D game look good while there are lots of things going on very quickly then a high, stable framerate is what you need.

And as for the joker who claims "physics said bumblebees can't fly but they do"...

The short answer, physics says bumblebees can't GLIDE, not fly. Bees and other flighted animals of that size created a vortex by clapping their wings together, generating lift.

Phyisics never claimed this. This is urban legend:

"...the story was prevalent in the German technical universities in the 1930's, starting with the students of the aerodynamicist Ludwig Prandtl at Göttingen. The story he tells is that a noted Swiss aerodynamicist, whom he does not name, was talking to a biologist at dinner. The biologist asked about the flight of bees and the Swiss gentleman did a back-of-the-napkin calculation of the kind I described. Assume a rigid, smooth wing and so on. Of course, he found that there was insufficient lift and went away to find out the correct answer."

[.damage.nl]

Re: Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

i have a radeon 9800xxl, but only 512 mb ram. should i set my video cards performance to the highest, giving me higher fps, or lower, giving me beter visuals? also how can i check my fps ingame?

[McBain35]

Re: Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

The monitor response has little to do with it. You might gain a minimal advantage, but we are taking about milisecinds here, I doubt you can react iun that time. The hertz… you will get a headache at lower hertz, so, if you run at 85hz, your fine, the images appear without that “flickering” you might get at 60 hz.

Most tournament players lower their resolution to the lowest in order to get the highest FPS – Frames Per Second. Only if you are a sniper and do not plan on moving, do you need the detail of 1600x1200, otherwise, the lower your resolution, the smoother the game will be 4 U.

I personally play at 1024x768. I have a ATI Radeon 9700 128mb, I can play at 1200x1600, but I get video lag in large areas. So I compromise, lowered to my current resolution and I also get some nice scenery.

[imported_Fig]

Re: Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

Not gonna read the whole thread on this one, but theres my 2 cents:

Better graphics card makes for better graphics and smoothness.

However, the higher you run the graphics on, you actually are playing with a disadvantage. Mainly, If you have high lighting effects, then people in dark areas are dark and hidden, and in general things blend in better. lowering the lighting effects makes people bright no matter what, so people stick out everywhere.

[Tenshi]

Re: Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

you can stabalise the fps by limiting it. Thats why we have the option. Game creators will tell you that most of the time, if they cant keep the frame rate steady, they'll cap it.

[Indecisi0n]

Re: Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

Having recently switched from a radeon 128 9800 AIW, to a X800Pro, just get the better card crank up the settings. Make your surroundings as realistic as possible, play fair and have a good time, enjoy the shadows and the rest of the eye candy and don't worry about 12 yr old billy stupid, his shadows off frantically bunny hopping his way to the veteran knife badge, billy just graduated from pokemon.

I havent read all post but this one is so true. I paid $300.00 for a x800xl (a while ago) why the hell would i want to turn down my settings ?!

I play the game for fun which means i want it to look, feel and sound as real as possible. When i take a screen shot and send it to my buddies they are in awwwww at how my graphics look. rock on guys

[tjmhay]

Re: Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

Right now I'm on a
3.0ghz P4
1 gig DDR
aaaand a geforce 5200FX

compared to the 3.2 HT 9800xt at home - NO comparison

running it on low with even 75% draw distance is a huge disadvantage. I tried piloting some helis and while I can manage ok there's simply too much onscreen sometimes and I'm forced into stuttering dive bombs.

simply put - if you have steady fps at 1024x768 on med/high you're set.

Anything less and you're going to be on the wrong end of the slope.

[Tk-421]

Re: Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

i have a radeon 9800xxl, but only 512 mb ram. should i set my video cards performance to the highest, giving me higher fps, or lower, giving me beter visuals? also how can i check my fps ingame?

With only 512 MB of ram, you should probably aim for medium to low-medium settings. Your video card can't change the fact that you will be constantly swapping out to disk b/c of your ram shortage. Up it to 1GB (1.5-2 GB pref.) & the you should be able to get it to high.

To check your ingame fps bring up the console by hitting ` (the ~).
type renderer.drawfps 1

close the console.

The 1st number you see is your FPS. The 2nd number is the time delay between refreshes.

[Jofaba]

Re: Does a better Graphics Card give you and advantage?

What do you mean by the time between refreshes? I've always wondered what the second number was but have been too lazy to look it up.