resolution in games [Archive] - DreamCatcher Forums

complit63

08-09-2005, 06:43 PM

guys i have a x850 xp pe pci express video card....now usually when i install games on here and it configs my game to the best settings according to my card and computer it always sets resolution to 1024x768.....now when i start up my computer thats the resoltion i use mainly....i dont get it cuz i have a pentium 4.....3.2 computer with 1024 ram.....plus i have a dell computer....and my games get choppy....i should be able to use 1280x1024 easily....but my games dont run that well....ive always gotten dell computers and its the same problem.....not smooth gameplay....ive tried removing background applications but it dont work....im thinkin its dell cuz ive had this problem no matter what kind of video card ive had.....weird....the only good thing bout getting better cards is u can turn all the graphics options on....

Artas1984

08-09-2005, 06:52 PM

Excuse me mister, pardon, hmm, but you should have posted this thread in techinal top, do i see any painkiller relations here mentioned?
I am shure people here would like to help you and they will, but...
Damm, this a general painkiller site, i always do not understand when someone posts a thread in the wrong place in the top of forum.
One more time pardon for my notice!

[ThePact]

08-10-2005, 05:17 PM

resolution in games

hey complit ! how do u do?

this issue is actually one of the things i was wondering about for a while, i thought the same as u did (having a capable video card and not being able to run on 1280...) but it appears that the thing is not "only" about the video card ! but also the monitor!
it has to be able to show the resolution u set ur game to, u know what i mean ? the card and everything else can do that but monitor also counts.
btw, have u ever played any game on 1280 ?
aren't u the one who had that 50" plasma?! just came to my mind...

Excuse me mister...

hello and welcome ! =]

maybe its not bad to take a look at complit's join date and then take a look at urs, btw also very interesting that "right now" u both have the same amount of posts as 169 if im correct, but that wouldnt make u the same becasue he has joined the forums more than a year before u did ! c what i mean?
so he definatly knows what the "basic" rules r, but maybe it just slipped his mind or he was in a hurry or just having a bad day or whatever that could possibly be there, lets just not hang him alright?
*particularly considering that u could possibly be younger than his first child.
so lets play it cool Artas :) i know he is

Artas1984

08-10-2005, 05:37 PM

']

Maybe its not bad to take a look at complit's join date and then take a look at urs, btw also very interesting that "right now" u both have the same amount of posts as 169 if im correct, but that wouldnt make u the same becasue he has joined the forums more than a year before u did ! c what i mean?
so he definatly knows what the "basic" rules r, but maybe it just slipped his mind or he was in a hurry or just having a bad day or whatever that could possibly be there, lets just not hang him alright?
*particularly considering that u could possibly be younger than his first child.
so lets play it cool Artas :) i know he is

Yes, ha, i do understand, since i am a total new guy here, but keep in mind that i am playing pk 14 months already! That should mean something and i have been watching you in this forum since BooH was released. But anyway you are right Pact, some old veterans in both meanings do have a right to post and ask questions what they like:-)
And lots of members here could fit in my fathers age :D
When i sometimes think of that, i consider such people a bit crazy in good meanings, like big childs, like Robin Williams in that movie where he showed up like a child.
Anyway, the fact that such game like painkiller is hosted and guarded by such old aged members like Varus or Frag is just unbelievable! Ha ha!
Cool! :D

[ThePact]

08-10-2005, 05:59 PM

i am playing pk 14 months already! That should mean something

like what?
it does mean something, but u need to remember 2 things, playing PK even for one thousand months wouldnt teach anyone any rules, except for the rules of the game ! but thats not the point really, we all do love Pk and thats y we r here (with the possible exception of me who hasnt played the game for months now http://dreamcatcherinteractive.com/forums/images/smilies/biggrin.gif )

But anyway you are right Pact, some old veterans in both meanings do have a right to post and ask questions what they like

not at all ! thats not what i wanted to tell u, because if anyone (lets say any old veteran as u said) asks anything they like in "anywhere" they like, soon it'll start a rampage, but what i said was maybe it slipped his mind or something like that, after all hes not a messy person as far as i remember, coz if he was he'd be banned long ago !

the fact that such game like painkiller is hosted and guarded by such old aged members like Varus or Frag is just unbelievable!

yes unbelievable and also an honor for the rest of us!
varus could have been working in one of the top of the line companies in their design section or something, hes really good, hes like a 3D geek (just wait till u get to know alittle bit more about his works), but he could just ignore all of us (the whole PK community) and catch up with his own persoanl life, but hes not doing it so that really does mean something, and what it means is that he actually gives a da*n about us. lol oh varus

im very glad we r having this conversation coz u r obviosuly a very intelligent person and honestly, im happy u've chosen "this" forums to join to http://dreamcatcherinteractive.com/forums/images/smilies/wink.gif

c u around

complit63

08-10-2005, 06:27 PM

hold it...why am i getting attacked here....i posted this here cuz i figured theres more action here then tecnical forums.....i can play games in 1280 but its not real smooth....i cant compare anything here cuz i dont think anyone has my video card.....yes i did post here but not a whole lot....u must hame mistaken here.....i wasnt good at jumpin and secrets and thats the reason i posted......

T'krau

08-10-2005, 06:35 PM

Complit - What's your monitor, CRT or LCD? What's your refresh rate?

Artas - you might be surprised to learn the ages of a LOT of us, here...and quantity doesn't always equal quality.

complit63

08-10-2005, 06:38 PM

and nope im not the guy with the plasma....plasmas no good anyway....but honestly guys i didnt post a whole lot....i stopped posting for a while cuz i was done with painkiller and im playin half life 2 now....soon i play booh and then i post here....if someone didnt like me posting in the wrong area ask me nicely and ill do it.....i miss posting in here anyway....its been a while....

complit

complit63

08-10-2005, 08:16 PM

i have an LCD monitor....well lowest refresh rate is 60 and highest i can go is 75

T'krau

08-10-2005, 10:53 PM

complit63

08-11-2005, 01:23 AM

my native resolution is 1280x1024....

T'krau

08-11-2005, 01:40 AM

...oh...well, then...errr...

Seriously, does Dell use a proprietary 'board driverset? For that matter, which motherboard do you have?

Frag Maniac

08-11-2005, 01:41 AM

Anyway, the fact that such game like painkiller is hosted and guarded by such old aged members like Varus or Frag is just unbelievable! Ha ha! Cool! :D
I usually just joke about being an "old fart" because of the age difference from myself and others to most gamers, but I read someone's post the other day saying there are senior leagues for online players with ages of 40-60!:eek:

Wow, what a shock, geriatric at age 47, yet I ran the fastest mile of my life at 5:20 just two years ago, and on a treadmill no less!:D

I guess when it comes to gaming I fit somewhere in the middle of all of it, because though I'm 47, I'm not really a veteran player. Truth is I've only even been a PC user for a little over 4 years now, and a gamer for about 3 and a half, so I'm really a noob compared to most serious players my age.

I love the way the gaming world is so diverse now, it's a good thing I think. There is a forum member on the Ubi Far Cry boards that is 69! Though he mentions that some of the maps take him a very long time to finish, getting "zapped" a lot, he insists he doesn't want to use cheats, not even devmode quicksave.

Gaming has taught me a whole new appreciation for the cyberworld, which I used to reguard as just a trendy and unecessary part of people's lives.

I've met a lot of ex military players lately that have quite an appreciation for how challenging and exciting video games can be, it's kind of an eye opener.

Blaise

08-11-2005, 02:23 AM

Firstly, hi to all in the PK community!

Well said Frag Maniac, although I'm a few years younger (43). I been hooked on Painkiller for about 12 months now and have worked my way through the original and BooH. After discovering this forum a few moths ago I visited here from time to time before finally joining a few days ago. Currently I'm working my way through the 5 star challenge albeit on Insomnia. I enjoy being forced to find every breakable, every bit of armour etc. etc. as it makes you search the entire map and discover things you missed on previous visits.

Back on topic:
I run @1280x1024 with the settings maxed out and it's smooth as a baby's bum using a pair of 7800 GTX's but this was also the case when I had a single 6800 Ultra. Some of the massive explosions may cause a momentary lag (¼ a second at worst) but it doesn't matter. Maybe complit63 should consider lowering the eye candy a notch of two and see if things improve.

complit63

08-11-2005, 03:12 AM

T'krau

08-11-2005, 01:17 PM

...i have the fastest 256 meg card out there...
Sorta off-topic - I'm not trying to pick on your choice of card, but I question how much good the extra memory is, in some aplications. I've read reports that, currently, it's sort of overkill (it may be better utilized in future graphics engines, and current owners are future-proofed...).

Truly, I'm NOT trying to dis your system, here. What I'm saying is I've seen a number of Big Builder systems that looked good on paper, but didn't live up to the owner's expectations (assembling a pile of parts is one thing, making that pile work WELL together is another...Big Builders use a number of porprietary components, along with 'brand name' stuff - this is why I began building my own).

complit63

08-11-2005, 07:15 PM

spyware

08-11-2005, 08:37 PM

x850 is third after 6800 7800. :p

DoomAxe

08-11-2005, 10:07 PM

what u mean its overkill?.....if u read the newest games now they recommend a 256 card.....look at painkiller,,,they put new graphics options on there....so dont tell me its not right.....u need a 256 card to get the newer graphics options they put in games....its not a question of do they use the extra memory its having to be able to use all the graphics options on max....so 256 graphics cards will be recommended....like painkiller says too and f.e.a.r...now fear has a lot of graphics options in it...i saw the demo so that defanately needs a 256 card

I have a 128 ATI Radeon, and even for a purely Nvidia supported game, it runs fine. The only reason I have problems is due to my barbaric area 1.6ghz processor.

If you're too stubborn to experiment with lowering settings and actually tweaking things out, then you're pretty much have shot yourself in the foot already. The extra memory on the graphics card doesn't mean anything if the game doesn' tneed to use it. Its recommended for a 128 card, anyway. Where you might be having problems is your computering using too much of your RAM without you knowing. Even though you said you've already checked background applications, close everything out that you absolutely don't need.

Then open the game, and start to problem solve. Does my game run in slow-motion all the time? Does it only chop in explosions? Does it only chop when a few dozen enemies come at me? Does it chop when the sky is too detailed?

Thats what you need to do, and what was mentioned above, your system may just not be functioning correctly with itself.

kylestyle

08-12-2005, 02:55 AM

Most LCD's have a 'native' resolution (the default size, and taking a guess, yours is 1024x768), and as such, don't always scale well. What's the game run like at 10x7, w/the refresh@75?

Good to see you back, man!

Yes, mine runs at a native resolution of 1920x1200, and I run PK in this resolution. Games are now starting to look rather blocky at 1024x768 - it's the new 640x480 :P

T'krau

08-12-2005, 03:23 AM

...resolution of 1920x1200...
...showoff... :D ....

Bjossi

08-13-2005, 11:47 PM

nope i shouldnt have to....i have the fastest 256 meg card out there....its somethin with the computer....i should be able to max everything out....i havent started BOOH yet but when i do ill see what happens....radeon x850 xt pe pci express is the fastest card....just weird its bad mainly when i turn my mouse left or right....or is that new 7800 for nvidia the fastest....gotta check

It´s impossible to have "the" best card, because some games are optimized for a brand and the rest of the system can affect video card performance.

But your choice is **** good I gotta admit, it shouldn´t be choppy at max. But maybe you shouldn´t get a prebuilt system, if you put your own together, you know exactly what´s inside it, that´s a big plus when you´re dealing with problems such as choppyness.

But now for the basics:
1) Updated drivers for hardware? (video/sound card, mobo etc.?)
2) Heavy tasks running in background?
3) Hard drive(s) well defragmented?

Frag Maniac

08-14-2005, 01:03 AM

Hey welcome to the forum Blaise, we don't get many from the "the land down under" (just love that song).

Very nice system, but here's a few things I've learned about high end cards run singly or SLI, and high MB cards. Running two SLI cards of 256 MB each will not give you the equivalent of 500 MB video memory. Even though you have two high end cards, some of what you are experiencing with minor lag during explosions is that games like PK and Doom3 load huge amounts of textures at given times.

There are cards made with 500MB of hard video memory, and they play such games smoother as far as texture loads, but at most things they are not on par with two good cards in SLI.

I argued for some time with one of the salesmen in the store I bought my system at that the DDR3 "virtual" memory rating being much higher than the actual 256MB of it's hard memory does not help as he claimed it did to smooth out such texture loads.

Recently while talking with him and another employee in the store, they confirmed that a card with 500MB hard memory does in fact handle the texture loads better. The problem is, those 500MB cards are $1000, are made in limited supply, and generally can't be found at a good price.

The other thing like I mentioned, is that you can get two pretty decent SLI cards for about that, and there are only a few games it wouldn't do quite as well, but only reguarding high textures loads for the most part.

So, as far as the question is a large amount of video memory necessary goes, that depends on what is most important to you in how well the game runs, and what games you play.

Making a card with 500MB of hard memory is an expensive process I'm told, but if they come up with a way to do it affordably, two high end cards with 500MB each in SLI would kill any game out there for some time to come.

Bjossi

08-14-2005, 12:52 PM

You won´t need 500 Mb cards unless the game needs that much storage for graphics data such as textures.
I´d rather go for fast 256 Mb than expensive and useless (atm) 512 Mb cards.

Blaise

08-14-2005, 06:37 PM

Hey welcome to the forum Blaise, we don't get many from the "the land down under" (just love that song).

Very nice system, but here's a few things I've learned about high end cards run singly or SLI, and high MB cards. Running two SLI cards of 256 MB each will not give you the equivalent of 500 MB video memory. Even though you have two high end cards, some of what you are experiencing with minor lag during explosions is that games like PK and Doom3 load huge amounts of textures at given times.Thanks for the welcome Frag Maniac, as powerful as these cards are, they are still being bottlenecked by my 4000+ :( BUT how does 267 FPS sound for the Docks timedemo with the driver set @quality sound?

The main reason I went to these puppies was: The power (gotta love having that eye candy wound right up to the max), and
I was moving from AGP to PCIe (my son is very happy with my hand-me-down Gainward 6800 Ultra "Golden Sample" though).As I mentioned in an earlier post, the short delays don't worry me and I knew that very large amounts of textures were being passed to the cards and thus causing the hitches. I've read in some of the threads here how some of the secrets and/or jumps are near impossible with low frame rates and with my mediocre skills, I need all the help I can muster.

Happy fraggin' - Blaise

Frag Maniac

08-15-2005, 06:10 AM

...as powerful as these cards are, they are still being bottlenecked by my 4000+Yes, the CPU hungry nature of the 7800 was something I did not touch on, mainly because I wanted to share what I'd learned about the video memory.

When the 7800GTX first started getting reviewed, The GURU of 3D had probably the most comprehensive article at 28 pages long. This is some of the closing words of the conclusion:

"What you do need to be aware of is that this little gem requires a really fast CPU though.... Even with our Athlon 4000+ testing rig we ran into CPU limitation here and there."

That was with just one 7800GTX, I can imagine what it's like running TWO of them puppies on that proc!!! The poor Athlon's probably looking at those babies going full tilt and saying :rolleyes:,..."Friggin' gas hogs!"

That site now has an article on the 7800GTX SLI's, I can't wait to read it.:cool:

OH BTW, do pay attention to heat levels on your proc, you may want to get a good aftermarket fan/heatsink for it if you don't have one, or better yet, water cool it.;)

The 7800GTX does consume a bit less power than the 6800 Ultra, but being a slim one slot size card, it kicks the exhaust back into the case, where as the 6800 Ultras blow it out the back of the case.

A 7800GTX is probably almost as hot as a 6800 Ultra, two of them exhausting into the case can mean lots of heat. This is to be taken seriously, especially if your living "down under" with no air conditioning.;)

Hey Blaise, take some pics of your sys and give us a peek if you can.

Blaise

08-15-2005, 08:38 AM

Frag Maniac, I hear what you're saying there and I do have a very good cooler on my CPU (Gigabyte G-Power Pro with a 110mm fan)... it hasn't broken past 42°C yet! I'm a member of Guru3D and Hilbert Hagedoorn spoke about some of his members having SLI'ed GTX cards... well I was one of the first.
A 7800GTX is probably almost as hot as a 6800 Ultra, two of them exhausting into the case can mean lots of heat.A GTX produces more heat than the Ultra, I can guaranty that! My ultra running @455/1255 would hit about 64°C, prior to logging in here I was in PK, they were at 73°C (first card) and 76°C (second card).
Hey Blaise, take some pics of your sys and give us a peek if you can.Sorry, no open case pics ATM but here's what the world normally sees of my rig. I still need to clean up some of the wiring so I'll try to get some pics up here for you to drool over. For the record, here's the specs: AMD 64 4000+ Clawhammer cooled by a Gigabyte G-Power Pro, MSI K8n Diamond motherboard, 2 x BFG 7800 GTX cards in SLI (@460/1300), 1G (2 x 512M) Corsair TWINX 3200XL @2-2-2-5-1T, Creative Audigy 2ZS soundcard, Seagate 120G PATA & Seagate 120G SATA harddisks, Sony DVD-ROM & Dual Layer DVD burner, 1.44M floppy & 250M Zip drive all housed in a Lian Li PC 61 USB aluminium case.

http://img304.imageshack.us/img304/5463/p723013310oa.th.jpg (http://img304.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p723013310oa.jpg)

http://img304.imageshack.us/img304/3974/p723013410ht.th.jpg (http://img304.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p723013410ht.jpg)

Frag Maniac

08-15-2005, 11:20 AM

Nice looking case, I'm drooling already!

GOREGRINDER

08-15-2005, 11:44 AM

wow all this 7800gtx talk i just had to stick my nose in ,..heh

if your 7800gtx('s) are hotter than your 6800's somethin is wrong and i garunty that ;),..my 6800gt runs 55c idle and up to 72 full load,....the 7800gtx with 3 less case fans than with the 6800gt(normally 7 only running 4 now at cooler temps) runs at 46c idle and 62c full load,...and it also consumes alot less power ,..hence why its cooler,and since 1 7800gtx is cpu limited by a 4000+ why did you buy 2 instead of taking that extra 500(or in the bfg's case about 560 or so) and putting it towards maybe a 4800+ dual core or an fx series with full multiplier adjustment,and oc the **** out of it if youve got a good cpu cooler?,....i may have kept my 3400+and got a 7800gtx(which i got for the price of an oem x850xt btw) but its(the 3400+)also clocked at 248x11@2.72ghz on a 166 divider making the memory run at 215(ddr430 whatever you wanna call it)to pick up the slack,...what kind of cooling are you using in the case,cuz 460/1300 is stock for the bfg cards