Best Bang for your Buck PC

[AnyOldName3]

The website that told me what to do basically said that a bug in the game engine stopped the 8K and 16K textures being loaded even if there was enough headroom (everything the game would let me change was at maximum, yet my GPU was at 50% load, so there was the headroom), so I enabled the 8K textures. It also said that the 16K textures would load on a 2GB or greater card, but the difference wasn't visible in comparison with 8K textures, so there was no need to bother forcing them to be on.

Even with everything maxed out and forced 8K textures and maximum anisotropic filtering, my GPU still never reached 80% load while I had GPUz running.

So I did 'modify the game past its stock settings' but only because the adaptive 'never drop below 60FPS' code thought my GPU was worse than it was. The game even recommended I left MSAA off as it didn't think my GPU could handle it, which it did.

[rpglord]

(08-25-2012, 01:17 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote: 1GB of vram is more than enough for 2560 x 1600 on most (if not all) top of the line PC games, let alone dolphin. 2GB/3GB is really only useful for multi-monitor setups, period.

Sorry,you are incorrect here.
1gb vram is not even enough for 1080p monitors anymore.
There is a couple of games which will use more then 1gb even on 1080p resolution with settings included with game ( you dont have to modify anything )
For example,crysis 2,battlefield 3,gta iv just to name a few.
GTA IV will even tell you on a 1gb card that you dont have enough vram and wont let you max all settings unless you modify the game ( hack it )
But,all of these games will not use more then 2 gb,and question was to choose between 2gb and 3gb version,in which case you advice apply-there is no need to go for 3gb version on one 1080p monitor.

But,important thing to note is that if you card has only slightly less vram then game needs,for example game would use 1.2 gb on 2gb card but will use 1 gb on 1gb card,it doesnt mean your game will not run or that it will stutter or run very poorly.
It only means you will get sligthly less fps.
But,if difference in how much vram is needed and how much is available is too big,game will be unplayble-stuttering and severe drop in fps-up to 300-400% slower compare to maybe 10-20% slower if only little vram is needed.
Since games at 1080p resolution dont need much more then 1gb,no severe slowdowns occur,which makes a lot of people think that games dont use or need more then 1gb,which is incorrect.

[NaturalViolence]

Quote:Sorry,you are incorrect here.
1gb vram is not even enough for 1080p monitors anymore.
There is a couple of games which will use more then 1gb even on 1080p resolution with settings included with game ( you dont have to modify anything )
For example,crysis 2,battlefield 3,gta iv just to name a few.
GTA IV will even tell you on a 1gb card that you dont have enough vram and wont let you max all settings unless you modify the game ( hack it )

Here we go....

First of all I should point out that I used the word "most" on purpose. The fact that there are 2 or 3 games out there that can use more than 1GB of vram at 1920 x 1080 at max settings is not enough grounds for saying that "1gb vram is not even enough for 1080p monitors anymore".

I should also point out that benchmarks say otherwise. With the exception of GTA IV all of those game that you listed gain at most 1 fps from having more than 1GB of vram and hardly any difference in microstuttering either.

I have a GTX 260 C216 with 896MB of vram and crysis and crysis 2 don't come anywhere close to using all of my vram at max settings at 1920 x 1200, they stay under 600MB pretty much all of the time. I do not notice any stuttering whatsoever either nor do benchmark runs done with 3rd party apps show any signs of significant microstuttering. I have seen people claim that these games use over 1GB of vram on their 2GB cards so I'm guessing that the engine scales vram usage based on how much is available (likely by using different compression systems which could reduce vram usage at the expense of a slight fps hit).

I don't have BF3 but I did run the BF3 beta and at high settings at 1920 x 1200 it didn't come anywhere near using all my vram, sitting around 600-750MB, this was on high settings. Ultra settings enables 4x MSAA which combined with the G-buffer system that BF3 uses allows BF3 to exceed 1GB of vram usage. But there are no cards with 1GB of vram or less that have anywhere near enough shader throughput or memory bandwidth to run BF3 at ultra settings on 1920 x 1080 with a playable framerate so this is hardly worth noting. However I will admit you are right on this one.

GTA IV I will admit requires a 2GB card to run well at max settings. It hogs huge amount of vram and shows signs of stuttering if you don't have enough.

Quote:But,important thing to note is that if you card has only slightly less vram then game needs,for example game would use 1.2 gb on 2gb card but will use 1 gb on 1gb card,it doesnt mean your game will not run or that it will stutter or run very poorly.
It only means you will get sligthly less fps.
But,if difference in how much vram is needed and how much is available is too big,game will be unplayble-stuttering and severe drop in fps-up to 300-400% slower compare to maybe 10-20% slower if only little vram is needed.
Since games at 1080p resolution dont need much more then 1gb,no severe slowdowns occur,which makes a lot of people think that games dont use or need more then 1gb,which is incorrect.

Perhaps. But if there is no significant difference in framerate or stuttering what's the big deal?

The fact of the matter is there are very few games/situations where more than 1GB of vram can be used at 1920 x 1080 resolution. According to steam most high end gaming systems are still using cards with 1GB of vram or less and are running modern AAA titles just fine. I certainly have not had any problems with my 896MB card running cutting edge titles.

[WarWeeny]

here is my build i would reccomend you:


MS-TECH X3 Crow¹
LG GH24NS70 (dvd drive/burner)
i5 3750k
Cooler Master Hyper212 Evo
MSI Z77A-G43
GeIL 8 GB DDR3-1333 Kit black dragon
EVGA GeForce GTX 570 HD Superclocked
Western Digital WD10EALX 1tb
OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W

total is 911 euro exlcl building/shippings

runs every game out there and max pcsx2 anbd dolphin, i guarantee you that ;D

also enough headroom for overclocking

[AnyOldName3]

Quote:But there are no cards with 1GB of vram or less that have anywhere near enough shader throughput or memory bandwidth to run BF3 at ultra settings on 1920 x 1080 with a playable framerate

Except the 1GB GTX 560Ti, the 1GB HD6950, and probably the GTX 650 (and AMD equivalent), once it is released. They can all run BF3 on ultra at playable framerates (although not perfect framerates: in demanding situations there will be a slight FPS drop).

[lightskintwin]

Ok, before I make a purchase; I just wanted to know if there was a CPU/GPU configuration where I could play most if not all games using PCSX2 and Dolphin at it's highest settings WITHOUT having to overclock it?

[admin89]

Even the most powerful GPU - Nvidia GTX 690 can not max out everything...(4xIR , 9x SSAA)
Highest Settings on Dolphin is impossible atm
About the CPU - i5 3570k is built for overclocker (you have to pay for that feature) , i5 3570 is not
Price (newegg) :
_i5 3570k : 230$
_i5 3570 : 215$
_i5 3450 : 195$
Without OC , most games will run well . However , demanding games like The Last Story , SMG + LLE ... won't run fullspeed all the time .
OC is total safe as long as you know what you're doing
You could still oc i5 3450 or i5 3570 if you bought Asrock Z77 mobo

[rpglord]

(08-31-2012, 07:28 PM)lightskintwin Wrote: Ok, before I make a purchase; I just wanted to know if there was a CPU/GPU configuration where I could play most if not all games using PCSX2 and Dolphin at it's highest settings WITHOUT having to overclock it?

You cant use ALL the highest settings in emulators because they go too far especially ragerding internal resolution and AA.
For example in pcsx2 internal resoultion go up to 6x and in dolphin you can use 9xAA which is too much.
Other then that,yes you can play pretty much all games with highest normal settings with 660 ti and i5 3570k or 3570 if you dont want to overclock.
But if you dont overclock a few games wont run fullspeed.
There is no reason not to because its so simple in these latest cpu.

[lightskintwin]

(08-31-2012, 08:00 PM)rpglord Wrote:

(08-31-2012, 07:28 PM)lightskintwin Wrote: Ok, before I make a purchase; I just wanted to know if there was a CPU/GPU configuration where I could play most if not all games using PCSX2 and Dolphin at it's highest settings WITHOUT having to overclock it?

You cant use ALL the highest settings in emulators because they go too far especially ragerding internal resolution and AA.
For example in pcsx2 internal resoultion go up to 6x and in dolphin you can use 9xAA which is too much.
Other then that,yes you can play pretty much all games with highest normal settings with 660 ti and i5 3570k or 3570 if you dont want to overclock.
But if you dont overclock a few games wont run fullspeed.
There is no reason not to because its so simple in these latest cpu.

Thank you so much. Yeah, I figured I could read or easily watch a youtube video and figure out how to overclock.