Posts by James Castillo8

Bryan Evans77 said:hd5770..

Isn't the Palitov 450 Sonic a tiny bit better... maybe?

Thanks for the reply—a bit late to the party, but whatever. Stopped by the local post office today to check things out, and apparently if I go through $17 it should work... sent it off with the COD included, so it'll cost me $6.75... we'll see...

I need to know ASAP—how much is shipping a tiny little package under 50 grams to St. Louis if I want COD? If I send it tomorrow, can I actually expect it by tomorrow or Saturday at the latest? Looking for advice... Is using USPS Priority Mail the move here? Would the postage end up being more than $17?

Michael Richardson69 said:I wouldn't push her to the limit... I don't even run games on high settings—maybe some medium details if needed—but I wouldn't crank the resolution that high either... basically, if you stick to medium instead of high, it'd run fine without any stuttering... and having that GTX 460 with 1GB of VRAM would still get the job done

If I'm not running on high, I'm getting maybe 25-30fps on medium at 1280x1024... though that GTX 460 is easily three times better than my old HD 3870.

A 5770 would run a GT4, sure—but not at full settings. Generally speaking, more VRAM means more detail, but even then, it’s not going to be buttery smooth...
For instance, if you set your resolution to something like 1280x1024 and crank textures to high, once the game eats up 550MB of that card, you've pretty much hit the wall. You won't have any wiggle room left...

Mark Brooks72 said:Hey everyone, just wondering which card packs more punch—tried searching online but nothing really pops up...

GTX 580 vs HD 5970

Just check these benchmarks...

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/6889/81756006.gif
http://media.bestofmicro.com/S/P/268...tor%202560.png
http://img.hexus.net/v2/graphics_car.../Graphs/D3.png
http://static.techspot.com/articles-...nch/FC2_03.png
http://static.techspot.com/articles-...nch/AVP_03.png

Casey Long2 said:Finding a card better than the ones with S-Video is a nightmare—mostly because almost everything with an S-Video port uses DDR2 memory, which is absolute garbage by today's standards. I've tracked down a few GDDR3 options, but they're either impossible to find or overpriced by about 3x what they're worth... so buying new isn't happening. You either sacrifice TV-out or you give up on decent performance. Maybe look for something used, though even those are drying up...

Doesn't the board have a PCI Express slot? From what I can tell, it does, so you could probably snag a used 8800GT on Craigslist or maybe a 3870—those usually have S-Video. You should be able to find something for maybe $40 or $50...

Example:http://www.craigslist.org/forsale/graphics-card-listing-12345

http://www.craigslist.org/forsale/graphics-card-listing-67890

Elizabeth Wells53 said:Yeah, a "reflector" could work—you just have to be incredibly precise when you build it. 👍

Nah, 😛 it's not a reflector... that's something else entirely 😁 this is just meant to boost the signal if you put it behind the antenna http://technetz.com/images/wifi-booster/DSC01176.JPG

...but a reflector would definitely make a difference anyway...

Look, you can take my word for it—it’s solid. If not, I can always just sell you my whole antenna setup... everything I used to pull a great signal from 200 meters out without any issues...

I was running a Gsky Wi-Fi card with a 5 dB antenna until recently—mostly just trying to grab a signal from a buddy living about 200 meters away with a house sitting right between us. So, I took one of those little boxes from Cappuccino, sliced it right down the middle, drilled a small hole through the bottom center for the antenna, and tucked it behind... honestly, it boosted my signal by maybe 20-30%. Did the same thing with the other half on my router antenna and jumped from a shaky 40-50% up to 80% signal strength. It actually works, and it’s way cheaper... you could try it with that antenna, though it might be weaker, and instead of blowing $100, you just spend $6.75 and five minutes of effort 🙂

amberlynx0 said:It’s not about buying a new card—it’s just about this specific card.
I've got a Radeon X1950 Pro, but I can't get any temperature readings... tried using Aido and HW monitor, but nothing works. Maybe there isn't even a sensor? 🤷

Have you tried installing the latest ATI drivers? You'd need to go into CCC and look under Overdrive...

Judge can only issue a warning 😁 I'm out—dealing with an injury here... lol

Sure, some clueless guy might bite, but anyone with half a brain is going to shell out a few extra bucks for a GTS instead of a GT—for $33 the difference is massive, the 8800 blows the 8600 out of the water... honestly, most people would probably drop $33 if you're actually serious about moving stock. I know from experience—I've swapped out five different cards in my own rig just in the last three months, so I'm not exactly a novice here. Smart buyers are going to hunt for those 8600s at $67 and get them, and even the 8800s might go for 300, though they'll definitely hit 350.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/graphics-card-listing-example check the description down there, he might take $67
http://www.ebay.com/itm/graphics-card-listing-example URGENT!! if he's desperate, he'd probably settle for 200-$83
http://www.ebay.com/itm/graphics-card-listing-example he'd let it go for $133
http://www.ebay.com/itm/graphics-card-listing-example here's one for 350, maybe 300 if he's got a better offer. why let it sit in a closet gathering dust when the price could drop even more if someone needs it right now? he'd probably take $100 😉

Alex Harris32, you’re such a noob—it’s not the same thing, a GTS isn't a GT... and it's definitely not worth $100 for an 8600 GTS. You could just throw in $33 more and get a way better 8800 GTS—not even mentioning that the 9800s are still going for $300-$167... so please, stop talking nonsense. 😛

http://www.craigslist.org/search/images?query=f...ch2&advanced=1
http://www.craigslist.org/vi/graphics-cards/2047192

Hard to say for $83 depends on which 🙂 is actually being played... I could probably grab one for 200, though I managed to settle one for 150 before...

Bryan Evans77 said:half HD 😬

LOL... what even is "half HD"... 😁

What about the rest of the specs? It’s pretty mid—fine if you're just playing on some 17-inch monitor... Their price range sits between $550 and $267—so, how much would you actually drop on a new GPU?

Yeah, looks interesting I guess. I'm mostly wondering which DirectX version they'll need to make it feel... what, 80% realistic? Is even that possible with today's tech?... Also saw some stuff about those Ultra HD resolutions and TVs—apparently, out of 10 people tested, 9 of them ended up feeling nauseous just looking at it 🙂

Honestly, I think for those $167 the performance gap between these two cards is pretty negligible—though if you overclock the 6850, you might squeeze out a little extra... or am I just dreaming?

Scott Hall47 said:Can someone explain what Tessellation actually is—and if anyone even cares?

The latest Radeon driver release adds a new feature to the NVIDIA Control Panel for tweaking 3D settings: Ambient Occlusion.

Basically, Ambient Occlusion makes things look more realistic by dimming light where nearby objects block it. It just adds a bit of depth through these "subtle" shading effects based on where everything sits in the scene...

Standard lighting just calculates an object's color based on its textures and whatever light is hitting it at that moment. But when objects get in the way of the light path, they don't get full illumination—that's where the Ambient Occlusion tech kicks in.

^^Seems like a pretty obvious difference to me. Or maybe I'm just seeing things...

Ambient Occlusion mapping

It simulates shadows in unlit areas using existing maps. It’s pretty much the standard shading used in software like Autodesk Maya and 3D Studio Max.

Tutorials:
http://www.game-artist.net/forums/vbart ... ticleid=37 [3DSMax]
http://www.game-artist.net/forums/vbart ... ticleid=17 [Maya]

Tessellation

It's a tech that lets you "smooth out" objects so you don't see those jagged edges between surfaces...
Tessellation is also part of DirectX 10.

Just a few objects blended together using Tessellation technology.

Compute shaders
They're part of the Ambient Occlusion process—calculating where shadows should fall by checking if there are any obstacles in the light's path...

Hope that helps... if I got anything wrong, feel free to set me straight.