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Jigar
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Re: Shopping for a new graphics card.

Thu Feb 28, 2013 3:30 am

auxy wrote:
cynan wrote:
As others have said, even the 660 is a bit overkill, but it may come in handy for running games like Crysis 3 or Metro 2033 with all the eye candy on.
Note: neither the GTX660 nor 660Ti will play Crysis 3 or Metro 2033 with all the eye candy on at resolutions above 720p.
\( `.∀´)/


For Crysis 3 you are correct, but for Metro 2033 you are wrong.
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auxy
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Re: Shopping for a new graphics card.

Thu Feb 28, 2013 3:56 am

Jigar wrote:
For Crysis 3 you are correct, but for Metro 2033 you are wrong.
Ehh, ehh, 41.5 average FPS is "playable" I guess. I wouldn't want to, tho!
 
Jigar
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Re: Shopping for a new graphics card.

Fri Mar 01, 2013 3:34 am

auxy wrote:
Jigar wrote:
For Crysis 3 you are correct, but for Metro 2033 you are wrong.
Ehh, ehh, 41.5 average FPS is "playable" I guess. I wouldn't want to, tho!


I am not sure which reference you are using regarding 41.5 average FPS, but when i use to use HD 5850 at 1080 resolution, some tweaking without losing the eyecandy would generate 50 FPS average. Its needless to say 660 destroys my faithful HD HD 5850.
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kumori
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Re: Shopping for a new graphics card.

Fri Mar 01, 2013 4:35 am

auxy wrote:
Jigar wrote:
For Crysis 3 you are correct, but for Metro 2033 you are wrong.
Ehh, ehh, 41.5 average FPS is "playable" I guess. I wouldn't want to, tho!


And to think a PS3/XBox maxes out at 30fps.
 
Chrispy_
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Re: Shopping for a new graphics card.

Fri Mar 01, 2013 9:07 am

Only an idiot actually uses benchmark "ultra" settings IRL. Even if I had a GTX Titan SLI setup, I'm pretty sure I'd drop down some of the postprocessing.

For everyone else, you can normally double the average frame rate just by dialing back a couple of settings like shadow filtering and AA.
Shadow detail lowered from "ULTRA-RIDICULOUSLY HIGH" to just "RIDICULOUSLY HIGH" is often enough.
Similarly SSAA is very GPU-intensive and when scenery is whizzing past at 60 frames a second, it's quite okay to only have 4x MSAA turned on (Oh no, the horror! How will you cope?!?!!11)

What this translates to in actually gameplay is that the shadow of that tree starts to blur 80 game-yards away from the camera, instead of 90 game-yards, and the roof of that hut looks slightly more jagged if you printscreen and fire up photoshop to compare side-by-side samples of SSAA and MSAA with an XOR filter ;)

I'm even fussier; I hate artificial motion blur and I'm not happy with SSAO in most implementations, so I actually think the game looks better with them off.
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steelcity_ballin
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Re: Shopping for a new graphics card.

Fri Mar 01, 2013 9:20 am

It's been a while since I loaded Metro 2033 up but I'm pretty sure I ran it at max settings on my 560Ti. I can verify later, never did finish it. What's amusing to me is how obsessed we are over eye candy when most of my time is spent *play*ing LoL and Torchlight II, BL2 as well. These games have excellent game play. I still play and greatly enjoy PS1 games. Gameplay!
 
JohnC
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Re: Shopping for a new graphics card.

Fri Mar 01, 2013 4:23 pm

Chrispy_ wrote:
Only an idiot actually uses benchmark "ultra" settings IRL.

:lol: Very kind of you to call all of the people with different preferences "an idiot" :wink:
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auxy
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Re: Shopping for a new graphics card.

Fri Mar 01, 2013 4:47 pm

Jigar wrote:
I am not sure which reference you are using regarding 41.5 average FPS, but when i use to use HD 5850 at 1080 resolution, some tweaking without losing the eyecandy would generate 50 FPS average. Its needless to say 660 destroys my faithful HD HD 5850.
"Some tweaking without losing the eyecandy?" Is that like "A Big Mac without the fat?" or "Club sandwich, hold the turkey, lettuce, tomato, and bacon?" You can't "tweak" without losing the eyecandy; max settings is max settings! I will slap you. (・`ェ´・)つ
kumori wrote:
And to think a PS3/XBox maxes out at 30fps.
(see below)
Chrispy_ wrote:
Only an idiot actually uses benchmark "ultra" settings IRL. Even if I had a GTX Titan SLI setup, I'm pretty sure I'd drop down some of the postprocessing.
You just called me an idiot! (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ The first one who says idiot is the idiot! ヽ(≧Д≦)ノ
Besides, running Titan SLI you'd still drop settings? I think YOU'RE the idiot!
Chrispy_ wrote:
For everyone else, you can normally double the average frame rate just by dialing back a couple of settings like shadow filtering and AA.
Disgusting!
Chrispy_ wrote:
Similarly SSAA is very GPU-intensive and when scenery is whizzing past at 60 frames a second, it's quite okay to only have 4x MSAA turned on (Oh no, the horror! How will you cope?!?!!11)
I realize you're being facetious here, but I'm totally serious when I say that this is wholly your opinion and not applicable to other people. I can absolutely tell the difference between SSAA and MSAA in any given game scene regardless of what's happening.
Chrispy_ wrote:
What this translates to in actually gameplay is that the shadow of that tree starts to blur 80 game-yards away from the camera, instead of 90 game-yards, and the roof of that hut looks slightly more jagged if you printscreen and fire up photoshop to compare side-by-side samples of SSAA and MSAA with an XOR filter ;)
Or, you know, when you get killed because you were distracted by a nasty shimmer effect on said roof. Or because shadows popping in looked like another enemy. Or because you couldn't tell if that was a guy with a sniper rifle or a chicken. Et cetera.

Obviously framerate (or smoothness, since this is TR after all) is king and I would never suggest someone play with an awful framerate to play with good visual settings, but if you can maintain fluidity with high visual settings...
Chrispy_ wrote:
I'm even fussier; I hate artificial motion blur and I'm not happy with SSAO in most implementations, so I actually think the game looks better with them off.
That's great for you! Nobody cares! ᶘ ᵒᴥᵒᶅ
steelcity_ballin wrote:
It's been a while since I loaded Metro 2033 up but I'm pretty sure I ran it at max settings on my 560Ti.
Yah, probly -- at ~30fps average maybe. I guess if you're okay with that it's fine? ( `ー´)
steelcity_ballin wrote:
What's amusing to me is how obsessed we are over eye candy when most of my time is spent *play*ing LoL and Torchlight II, BL2 as well. These games have excellent game play. I still play and greatly enjoy PS1 games. Gameplay!
LoL and TLII are pretty good games (BL2 I'm less fond of.) Most of my time is spent playing Blacklight: Retribution and my 19GB Skyrim install. Isn't it weird how people have different tastes? (•‿•)
My reference was Anandtech Bench, which shows 41.5 average FPS for the GTX660 in Metro2033 1900x1200 VHQ with AAA and 16x AF. Average FPS. That means on the low end it probably drops to 20fps or possibly even less. There's no way I'd play a game like that. (◞‸◟;) I play my games on PC for a reason!
That said, console games usually run with very little distribution; they hover right around 30fps most of the time (exceptions like Dark Souls notwithstanding.) That's a lot more tolerable than "30 average fps" in an PC game, which usually means it runs at 60fps sometimes and 15fps other times. That's awful.

The GTX660Ti manages a more respectable framerate and that's probably okay. I did include it in my original remark (which was really facetious anyway), so I apologize for that. I really wouldn't want to play Metro on a GTX660 tho.
Last edited by auxy on Fri Mar 01, 2013 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
Voldenuit
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Re: Shopping for a new graphics card.

Fri Mar 01, 2013 4:56 pm

auxy wrote:
Jigar wrote:
I am not sure which reference you are using regarding 41.5 average FPS, but when i use to use HD 5850 at 1080 resolution, some tweaking without losing the eyecandy would generate 50 FPS average. Its needless to say 660 destroys my faithful HD HD 5850.
"Some tweaking without losing the eyecandy?" Is that like "A Big Mac without the fat?" or "Club sandwich, hold the turkey, lettuce, tomato, and bacon?" You can't "tweak" without losing the eyecandy; max settings is max settings! I will slap you. (・`ェ´・)つ


The point is that there are diminishing returns on visual fidelity for many of the IQ settings.

You can't get all of the eyecandy, but you can get most (if not nearly all) of the effect without sacrificing all the performance in many games. For most users, that's an ideal trade.
Wind, Sand and Stars.
 
auxy
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Re: Shopping for a new graphics card.

Fri Mar 01, 2013 5:01 pm

Voldenuit wrote:
The point is that there are diminishing returns on visual fidelity for many of the IQ settings.
Well...

It's true that some games do have relentlessly silly "ultra" settings that add nothing to the graphics (e.g. Doom 3's "ultra" texture mode which uses completely uncompressed textures versus "high" which uses the same textures losslessly compressed). Aside from those sorts of things I can't think of much I would want to turn down or disable in games, though. Chrispy mentioned shadow detail and AA, and while shadows are kind of hit-or-miss, turning down AA is like a death sentence for your retinas. (;゙°´ω°´)
 
cynan
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Re: Shopping for a new graphics card.

Fri Mar 01, 2013 6:13 pm

steelcity_ballin wrote:
It's been a while since I loaded Metro 2033 up but I'm pretty sure I ran it at max settings on my 560Ti. I can verify later, never did finish it. What's amusing to me is how obsessed we are over eye candy when most of my time is spent *play*ing LoL and Torchlight II, BL2 as well. These games have excellent game play. I still play and greatly enjoy PS1 games. Gameplay!


Not at resolutions of 1080p or above.

This benchmark reports avg FPS of 50, but min of 29 with a 560Ti, and that's for 1680x1050 with tesselation disabled. I know I get noticeable slow downs trying to run it with everything turned on with an overclocked HD 7970 at 2560x1600.

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