How will HL2 & DOOM 3 run for me?!

[Fofo]

Ok I have a Geforce 4 4600 Ti 128MB vid card, it's a very nice card. The problem is that it is a 4X card. Based on my specs how well will these games run on my pc although they are designed for 8X cards, will the difference be big or small?

Intel D848PMBL Mobo
P4 3 GHZ 800 Mhz FSB w H/T
1 GB KINGSTON PC3200 RAM
1- 40 GB Drive
1- 200 GB Drive
XP Pro


Thanks.

[HeadBand]

Doom 3 should play fine on there....unless it really uses DX9 alot

for HL2 it all depends on when it is finally realeased...I would say it would probobly be pretty good too if it's in the next 6 Months or so

[Jeordiewhite]

It wont make a difference even if you had an 8X geforce 4 ti 4600, it is a still very nice card even tho it doesn't support DX9. It should play them just fine I am guessing, I played the beta's and alphas of doom 3 and half life 2, both played pretty well considering they weren't optimized or finished for that matter.
Tho upgrading to a better video card wouldn't be a bad idea, especially when the video cards out today will go down when the next line of video cards come out, you can get away with a great video card for cheap then.

Edit: DX9 features wont be utilized by that video card since it doesn't support DX9, so that isn't a problem.

[Fofo]

I'd like to stick with Nvidia but I hear that the FX cards are having major problems, so what is a good NVIDIA card. Ati 9800 is good too I suppose.

[originel]

only some of the FX cards have major problems. the second generation of FX cards are actually quite good (i.e. the 5900).

Here's the thing about Half-Life 2 and Doom 3. Half-life 2 is a directx game and the ATI card is better at directx. Doom 3 is an opengl and the nvidia card is better at opengl. So really it depends on which game you want to perform better.

i have an FX 5900 ultra and it is an amazing card IMO. the 9800 is also excellent from what i hear so really it's a matter of taste

[RamonGTP]

If you're looking to upgrade to a DX9 card, you cant go wrong with a Sapphire 9800 Pro which last I checked as $212 at newegg. That card IMO is the second best card you can get. The best being the 9800XT... I personally am not a fan of the FX line of cards.

[usslindstrom]

Agreed. A while ago, I bought a FX 5600... And was so disgusted with it`s performance, that I made the wife put it in her computer... And I got a 9800 Pro.

In any case, it all depends on the money you spend. Some people are die hard Nvidia fans, while others ATI... Personnaly, I think they`re equal. They both go through ups and downs.

ATI was caught cheating in benchmarking a few years back.
Nvidia just got caught not too long ago with 3DMark03.

The GeForce series couldn`t be touched in performance... UNTIL the FX card came out. The first series of FX cards BLEW CHUNKS. It seems that they resolved the performance issues in the upper levels though, with the 5800 and 5900+ cards.

I think, price for price though, is that the companies are pretty much equal. It`s always depending on how many presidents you want to fork out to em`.

[muno]

How would anyone know how some specific card will perform on a not released game.

Generically I can understand, that it's safe to say 'tnt2 will not run doom3'.
But seriously...

[Jarhead]

I really don't think you have anything to worry about. If ID released a game that only played well on extremely high-end systems, it wouldn't make any money on the deal nor would it attract as many 3rd party license buyers (where the real money is at).

The ti4600 will be perfectly fine for D3 and HL2. Valve has publicly stated the game will scale as low as a TNT2. Anything from a GeForce3 on up card will be able play the game with plenty, albeit not all, the eye candy turned up.

Regarding Doom3, if the very unoptimized alpha demo can play reasonably well on my GeForce3, the final, polished build should play even better on a ti4600.

FYI, can you guess what video card is running Doom3 here?



or this one?

[nukes]

Reckon it would work with a 128mb Radeon 9200 if I overclock it a bit?