A warning for people upgrading their rigs to play ETQW

(chr0nicles) #1

Videocards
I just felt i needed to say this to save you guys from alot of trouble…

If you’re going to upgrade your PC’s with a new graphics card and are thinking about a getting a 7900GT/X then make sure you’ll stress test your new card to THE MAX first days after recieving it.

There’s a major ‘error’ in some of these cards although no official statement has been released yet for obvious reasons.

Lots of users are reporting artifacts/lockups within the first 2 weeks after recieving it, i’m currently waiting for my 4th RMA. :banghead:

Apparently the cards are failing after enduring intensive HDR/SM3.0 scenes. (FEAR,Oblivion,Tombraider,BF2) you can stress test this yourself if you run 3dmark06 in the last test ‘Deep Freeze’ (snow level) a couple of times (15x)

If you’re starting to see artifacts RMA it.

(Shanks) #2

What’s the point of getting a top of the line card? You’ll just need to shell out for another card once you’re forced to use Vista…

(chr0nicles) #3

What’s the point of getting a top of the line card? You’ll just need to shell out for another card once you’re forced to use Vista…

Because i can :slight_smile: And I won’t need to shell out for another card when i will be making use of Vista.

Now for the justifying argumentation.

Some people spend their savings on clothes,cars etc… and i buy a new rig :clap:

I already skipped a few generations of videocards, it was time for a new rig, when this card is working it should keep me gaming for another 4 years, price + Item Value (performance) its a good deal. I Could ofcourse buy a mid end card each 2 years, however i did not.

I would like to hear you opinion ofcourse.
Cheers m8
:beer:

(kamikazee) #4

I hope you don’t need a new video card for Vista, but if the rumours are true…

BTW: Just tried Doom 3 on a Geforce 1… It actually runs on low quality, so don’t think ET:QW should be unplayable with a decent modern card.

(chr0nicles) #5

You don’t need a new card for Vista, it will run fine with any card capable of using DX9

D3 on a GF1 is not playable. I share your opinion about ETQW being playable on a decent videocard.

#6

lol vista… I’ll use Win XP pro as long as physically possible before vista. Or use a dual boot, with a vista only when gaming some new game that requires it. Not ever will I support vistas evilness of DRM etc :slight_smile:

Thanks for the tip chr0nicles. Will test my 7900GT to the max if I get one in 4-5 months.

(Rhoades) #7

i might switch to linux after im done with XP. screw vista.

(ouroboro) #8

Many have attempted this ancient quest and failed. Luck be upon you! :moo:

(SniperSteve) #9

i might switch to linux after im done with XP. screw vista.

If they made a Linux that gamed beter then vista and could use windows programs I’d switch tonight. However, they don’t.

I will also be dual booting my rig with vista. I already am doing it with the Vista Beta 2 and dislike it…

(Ragnar_40k) #10

Why should I upgrade? My GeForce2 still runs very well.

(B0rsuk) #11

What do you think I use to play W:ET ? Everything except hardware acceleration was detected when I installed Kubuntu. Getting accel to work was a matter of installing glx-legacy package then typing sudo nvidia-glx-config enable. I didn’t even have to reboot.
For windows programs, use wine. It runs photoshop and other crap.

(Zyklon) #12

[quote=“B0rsuk”]

What do you think I use to play W:ET ? Everything except hardware acceleration was detected when I installed Kubuntu. Getting accel to work was a matter of installing glx-legacy package then typing sudo nvidia-glx-config enable. I didn’t even have to reboot.
For windows programs, use wine. It runs photoshop and other crap.[/quote]

You also have free alternative programs for Linux, like GIMP, Firefox, Opera, foobar2000, VLC, Miranda, 7zip, etc.
And by the way, all the OpenGL games (Quake series, Wolf series, Doom series, UT series, HL1 I think too) work under Linux.

And Linux isn’t even that hard to learn if you use an easy distribution like Ubuntu, the problem is that people are so used to Windows that they have a hard time switching.
Linux is safer than Windows, and it also doesn’t support all that TCPA and DRM crap that will come with Vista.
Also, if the popularity of Linux increases, there will also be more porgrams and games developed for Linux.

(Joe999) #13

MacOS 4 ze vin! (although i only know it from seeing, don’t have it though)

linux is unusable for the average user. this begins at the app installer.

vista is just another makeup of xp, and M$ was again successful in hiding the absolutely same programs of the previous OS at different places where you can’t find them. and who needs the aero crap? anyone seen it? it’s all that glitter n stuff, eg the close button on a window is shining like a crystal when you mouse-over it. what for? the main focus should be on the client window area, not on the window itself.

this is the same crap ever since ballmer sold windows 1.0:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1769003739231727974

OMG, >>> REVERSI !!! <<<

who tf cares if you get reversi or solitaire or whatever with the OS? i want a working and usable OS, not a game or desktop gadgets which you usually can have as freeware.

i’ve said it before: vista is the windows millennium of 2007. the OS that nobody needs nor wants.

i’ve tried the beta. my opinion: vista is the eye candy that the average joe (not me) wants to show to some neighbour who drops by in order to impress him. but that’s it. using it is a totally different thing.

speaking of gadgets n stuff, forget about that vista things, instead check out what a macbook has to offer:

http://www.youtube.com/v/KkAtRfA1UXc

http://www.youtube.com/v/6uvQTTPr9Rw

now THAT’s awesome stuff (which hardly anyone needs), but still: it blows vista away easily.

(kamikazee) #14

Unplayable is not the word - rather tiring for your eyes.
I was still able to shoot imps with the shotgun, so it’s not impossible. It went rather well for an average of 10-20 FPS… :drink:
(I think I should post this when some new guy comes around and says “can I run ET:QW?”. They 'd better try.)

@Joe999: Agreed that MacOS is on of the best unix clones out there in terms of user-friendlyness AND power. The only downside is it’s prize. (due to Mac hardware)

Still, I love my Gentoo. Although Suse would have run fine too.

(B0rsuk) #15

Zyklon: I know these programs, I’m a GIMP addict, for example. That’s why I said “photoshop and other crap”. I dumped photoshop several years ago because I couldn’t stand the interface.

I can’t comprehend how people who didn’t use any Debian-based distro (like Ubuntu, Mepis, Knoppix etc) can say Linux is unusable. I can’t stand windows way of installing software anymore, all this bothering with downloading installers, searching for the directory, 20 clicks Wizards. I just do

sudo apt-get install program_name

and it works. It searches for the closest mirror, solves dependencies, downloads, installs, configures extra needed packages.
Illiterate people can use graphical installer like Synaptic, instead. Note the number of available packages, and that’s without all repositories enabled.
I don’t install anything manually, anymore, unless it’s something VERY shiny.
We don’t use windows on our university ( I study IT), and only people who haven’t switched to Linux already are those who don’t want to even try.

Back to topic:

and in particular
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportComponentsVideoCards

This is for Ubuntu, but also mostly true for other distributions. It’s perhaps somewhat outdated (nvidia drivers support 7xxx cards, for example, but it’s not yet documented in the wiki), but gives you an idea. For instance, compare ‘ati’ and ‘nvidia’ columns. In vast majority of cases instaling glx is all you

(ParanoiD) #16

Ive trieed Kubuntu and it worked well a few weeks (used it as main OS on 250 MHz PC in which linux was working faster then xp. Later I had to say goodbye as internet didnt work anymore and couldnt get it fixed in linux. Now i had teh same problem and it seemed that i needed to use an IP set myself (while i have an router…).

Never tested/seen/used an backup tool for linux but it would be needed.
In my eyes Linux only needs 1 more thing added before it can really fight MS. What I really missed in Linux is the easy Windows way to install stuff by just opening exe files. Sometimes you need to re-compile (which I cant (yet)). Ubuntu/kubuntu etc have adept but not all software is included to install. For example i couldn’t get Firefox 1.5 and some other apps. So if they make a new universal app for all distributions to easy update/install any file linux will be ready. Even in my eyes it could be downloading a tarball, put the files in a folder and have an exe like file to just launch the program and it will do what it needs, run the program.

If teh ppl after Linux can make this possible (in probably next linux kernel 3.x) release linux is ready to fight MS. It makes linux easier for ppl to use. When more ppl step over more apps will be available for linux as well in teh future. Many other ppl would also try linux when Windows goes on with their WGA. There are many illegal users and when they have to crack/update keys etc all teh time, many users will step over in my eyes.

Ill be buying a laptop soon and it will be first: Windows XP x86 and Windows Vista x86-64 Beta. After Vista has gone gold I probably switch to Windows Vista x68-64 and a linux distro dualboot.

(kamikazee) #17

There are installers for Linux. It’s not that it’s not supported by the OS, people just don’t use one standard way of installing.

(B0rsuk) #18

My point was that using a wizard-like installer looks retarded when compared to apt-get, synaptic, adept and so on.

(DG) #19

Vista lets you turn off the aesphetics, and the thing really eating video cards is Aero, which is just a theme. You’ll still be able to run Vista with a special-offer DELL complete with “shares 32mb of system ram” style video ‘card’.

What is interesting involving Vista and graphics is Direct X 10, which may require a new video card for a few features :slight_smile:

(ouroboro) #20

Rofl, they need that motion blur to mask the 5 fps. :stuck_out_tongue:

I must admit though, that looks goddamned beautiful. I can almost hear the howler monkeys.