GFX card for NS2
chibimike
Join Date: 2007-09-09 Member: 62232Members
Join Date: 2007-09-09 Member: 62232Members
Comments
As of today the minimum requirements for NS2 have changed so make sure and take note! The new recommended GPU is here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130898
Most users grab two.
My true from the heart GFX advice (note it has taked nearly 70 hours of following prices, specs changes, new versions, hardware vs software etc, to accumulate this feeling) would be: Data transfer rate of the memory BUS (usually called 'memory bandwidth'), measured in bits per second, is *the deciding factor* in a GFX price vs performance optimisation. My GTX550Ti is rated at 192bits/sec, the variety of 650/660Ti's is 128bit/sec, despite having twice the memory (and at this stage I hope you are thinking 'twice the memory, more than half the BUS, must be better ... your a dk OnosF ...) I consider the cost prohibitive. Especially relative to the performance gain.
Maybe I will get lucky and a 3rd party packager will release a chopped down memory with better bus version of a GTX 650 Ti
I was actually looking at something like a 660 ti but I was wondering how it does on this game.
I have a 550 ti right now, it does good but I just want to try something a little better for once.
As I am sure many have said, CPU is the bottleneck. My i7 2600k and GTX 480 run the game at about 60 FPS with nearly everything maxed out. I step ambient occlusion down to medium and usually turn off atmospherics and bloom because it clouds my vision while playing (even though they are pretty).
The GTX 480 is a really good card, but it sucks a lot of power and produces a lot of heat and noise. I don't mind it personally, because I want a good GPU! The GTX 480 is just a bit less powerful than a GTX 580! For real! Of course, if you have the dough, a GTX 580 would be a great card because it would bring the performance but also remain fairly cool and quiet compared to the 480.
My $0.02.
I turn off ambients, bloom, and occlusion... that gets me 70+ fps in game with 110-120 in the menu screen. Smooth enough for me.
I bet your FPS won't go up with a 660 ti. The bottleneck is the CPU.
You can try this ingame for yourself. Type "r_stats" in console. The second line should tell you "waiting for GPU" as long as this value keeps sticking to 0 you can turn up your graphics without getting any hit in FPS.
I have a 660ti now, but an i5 with 2.3 GHz. I can play with at least 40 FPS all the time. But as soon as the server tick rate gets down (you can see this with "net_stats" btw.) and my CPU starts to calculate prediction steps my FPS break down even to 20 or less.
Conclusion: Don't play on 24player servers or shitty servers that can't handle the late game with many buildings and stuff going on. Or upgrade your CPU.
I can always get a better one, I've heard the i5 ivy bridge is one of the best right now until games start getting into more multi CPU support
The best way to check which is bottlenecking your performance is to turn on r_stats during a match. If the 'waiting for GPU' number is consistently 1-2ms or less, then your CPU is the bottleneck.
i5 2400 Sandy Bridge 3.1 Ghz
GTX 550 ti GPU
8GB Ram corsair DDR3 RAM
Right now I can run the game at 1080p with medium textures everything else turned off and the game runes like a charm and no FPS problems and the game runs good. But I'm wondering what all would I need to upgrade in order to be able to run everything on and AA and such with playable FPS.
I can turn more settings on and have good FPS, but when I run into certain situations or too much action it bogs down and is unreasonable to play.
If you're asking what card maintains 60+ FPS constant (assuming you have a 4GHz or higher latest gen intel CPU), I'd say a GTX 660Ti should be able to do an average of 50-60 right now maxed out at 1920x1080. It's hard to say because performance is always changing.
If you had some money to spend a GTX 670 is a great price/performance point right now IMO. It can be had at $370 brand new (maybe even less if on sale or something), and overclocked it performs about on par with a GTX 680.
The titan is good, but the price on it isn't xD ...
P.S. Derp, just saw you posted your specs above.
I wouldn't get much more than a 660Ti with your CPU. Unless you can take your CPU to 4.5GHz or beyond, it's likely that it's the bottleneck for NS2 specifically.
But yeah, a well-overclocked 3570mmmmmkay (4.2ghz or higher) with a GTX 670 will make the game extremely pleasant to play :-) ... It all comes to how much can you spend, and then you can figure out what to get.