> Jts,
> there is a lot more to the question layed out by Scott than you percieved.
> "dont need much to run that old game" is about like saying you can haul dirt
> in your station wagon, if you want to instead of having a truck.
> See there for a while if you had ATI card and your favorite game was "GPL"
> there were issues, that made things difficult... that is if I recall
> correctly, them bit of problems, which lead me to getting "GeForced"
> instead. I also dont think the 95/9600's when they were new, had anything
> but driver problems?
> I too am going to move up a notch in the next month or 2, from my ti4600, to
> what, I am not sure yet. and seeing the post about the 9800 pro at new egg,
> well that might be the bargain, but like I said if people still having
> trouble with ATI and playing GPL, then it wouldnt be worth it to Scott.
> > Not that you need much of anything to run an old game like GPL.
> >>> At the moment, my budget is allowing me either a 9600 Pro or 9800
> >>> SE, which would be best? I am also going to get a new processor
> >>> (I've got a 1800XP atm), probably a 2800 XP or similar.
> >> Strongly suggest you consider the 9800pro, which is $230 at
> >> newegg.com right now, a steal. As for the cpu, look into selling
> >> your cpu+mobo and getting a Athlon64 3000+ instead of AthlonXP.
> >> rms
I think one can say ATI and GPL are a fairly safe bet at this point.
There are a few caveats - you don't get OpenGL (which was a nice step
up in perf for me on my Ti4200), you have to change mirror rendering
to get FSAA in the last 2-3 Catalyst driver versions (which for some
people causes a drop in perf, but oddly gave me and others 2-3 *more*
FPS in BOTG tests), and you're not going to see huge FPS gains if you
want to bump detail bias, GPL features, etc - you can just run high
FSAA/Aniso with little or no performance penalty.
As an example, I have an AMD XP 2400+ oc'd to 3000+, a 9700 Pro, and
run 1152x864 4xAA,8xAniso,3.7 Omega Catalysts,Win98SE. I could go
higher, except for a few things - I can't stand FPS dropping below 28
or so anytime, I like all the eye candy in GPL on (GPL Glance, 99%
detail bias, specular highlights - rarely seen in-car, but I like them
on in replays), and I don't like messing about with different options
for different tracks. So if I can't get good performance at Monaco
Rocks hi res, back of the grid I'm not happy.
If you run primarily online or for GPLRank, worrying about the BOTG
tests are not that important. It'd be hard to justify an upgrade from
the Ti4600 to a 9600/9800 *just* for GPL - I'm not sure you'd see
enough of a perf boost in any situation in GPL. Now, if you got a
9600/9800 and started using AA and aniso in alot of other games where
the ti4600 couldn't handle it, then it would be worth it. EA
F1-2002/F1C/mods are absolutely stunning, as is NR2003 and the various
mods.
HTH,
Kendt
