Hardware Winter 2008 Graphics Performance Update

Haven't read through the whole review but the 60FPS cap you have in Fallout 3 is actually due to the fact that VSync is on even if you turn it off in-game. You can truly disable it by forcing VSynch off using driver level settings.

 

before i read this want to post this

can you put colour's on Nvidia and ATI cards so we can tell between them as you have to keep looking at what the bar is relateing to all the time its best to use vertical lines when doing this and not shift around the video cards

 

No, you can't.

 

v-sync is off in Fallout 3 and in the driver control panel... there's a 60fps cap, frame over time confirms this

 

Off in drivers and off in-game



Application preference in drivers and off in-game

 

Hmm...odd indeed. For reference I'm on XP using an 8800GT along with 180.42. Is FRAPS ( and EVGA Precision) wrong?

 

I guess Image shack is like The Eagles - Hotel California, you can put all your pictures into it but they never will show up again.

 

I think the situation between the 4850 and 9800GTX+ is the most interesting. The 9800GTX+ seems to have come on in leaps and bounds since it was released. I'm not sure whether I should go for a 1Gb 9800GTX+ or a 1Gb 4850...?

http://www.giga-byte.co.uk/Products/VGA/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2918
http://www.giga-byte.co.uk/Products/VGA/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2901

I do like the Gigabyte non-reference designs.

 

Bah, the first screenshot shows 93 FPS using fraps, the second one is at 60 at the exact same spot ( loaded from a saved game).

 

We've now got a Fallout 3 FPS fix (that isn;t forcing v-sync off - we tried this but to no avail), so we'll hopefully be updating the numbers shortly.

 

munim was correct. His FRAPS and EVGA precision are correct as well. You can force vsync off in Nvidia Forceware drivers (180.43). I don't think this is an option for ATI yet. Which means unless you really like a super laggy mouse, you'll want a Nvidia card for best Fallout 3 experience. I thought the game was a terrible console port in terms of what they did to the mouse control. Once I forced off Vsync the mouse was smooth as butter. Frames also jumped to over 130+FPS indoors on my GTX 280 (All maxed, 1680x1050, 2XAA). Outdoors is a bit different and those frames seem to be 38-85FPS roughly.

 

My 4870 1GB does great with Fallout 3 @ 1080p maxed 16xAF 8xAA.




Would be nice to see the new numbers.

 

Yeah, great idea! Would be easier to separate the cards. Also, would be nice to see the top of the chart RED! Yeah, i`m an ATI fanboy. Had been using Nvidia cards all my life, but the past year i've gone for HD2600XT, HD3650, HD4850 and HD4870 512mb (borrowed this for a short while from a friend). Waiting for Christmas to get a 4870 1G.

Back to the review: nice! Still, would've liked to see 4870 CF & 4850 CF, to see how it fares with their X2 brothers. Planning to go on this configuration, because i don't have the money atm to purchase the X2. As far as I remember for the reviews i read a while ago here at BT, the X2 scales a LOT better than the CF. Also, i`m using a P45 mobo (EP45-DS3), so i`m not sure of the impact the two HD4870 would suffer from working on PCI-E x8 in CF.

 

The graphs on the Fallout 3 page are now updated to reflect the frame rate cap removal.

 

Just got a HD4850 on eBay for $59 so it may be on the lower end of this update but price to performance ratio is really good with that price so I'm not complaining. Now I just have to overclock my e6300.

 

I am thinking of a graphics upgrade, and was originally looking at the 4850x2...but now that I think about it, I don't really want to go through the pains of dual GPUs. Now that the 4850x2 has dropped to $309.99, what graphics card would you recommend in that price range? I absolutely will NOT go any higher than that (I wanted to keep it below $300, and with the rebate, it is).
Thank you!

Edit: I have an 8800 gts 640mb, stock speeds atm.