Video Card Question

[Peaches]

I now have a dual core processor, and it runs horizons awesome. Would there be any benefit at all, for me to get two video cards in this computer? Yes, it does support the use of two. just don't want to waste the cash for seoond one if its not worth it. Thanks!

[Garfonso]

I don't think that it gives much improvement to HZ... HZ was quite happy with my old video board (Geforce 4 something) and I didn't notice any changes in the performance of HZ, when I exchanged it with some GeForce 6800.

Maybe the step was to small?
But I definitively recognized the 2GB RAM..

I don't know how much a game needs to support those SLI-Grakas, I think it should not need to know about it, so HZ may profit of these cards, but it should not be really necessary.. HZ doesn't use all this nifty new features, like shaders and so on... you'd get some more texture memory, but I don't know if the communitcation between the two cards wouldn't eat up too much of the benefit...


To make it short: I would not spend the extra money

[Peaches]

I will take up your advice and save hubby the cash!

[Fratricide]

I can tell you this Peaches. When I upgraded my PC from a single processor to dual, I also upgraded my vid card (out of slot incompatability). So I put in a that dual processor and decided to use one of them FX7950GX2. OMFG... what a dramatic increase in FPS etc. Even with everything maxed, resolution, viewing distance, etc... I was able to squeeze 50+ FPS in downtown Tazoon. I actually had slightly less FPS in Bristugo, but that could be because I was working off a new installation of HZ on my PC and had to generate the info files for the terrain as well as actually rendering it.

anyway... my FPS, even in the most intense places I could find, I didnt see my FPS drop below 45. I played for nearly 4 hours with not much difference in the FPS. Of course the vid card has a great deal to do with this, but to each their own.

[Peaches]

I have a pretty decent video card, just cant see wasting the cash on a second one, and hubby did agree with not getting it. Heh, of course not! lol

[Imayo]

Plus unless your motherboard specifically supports SLI or Crossfire, all adding a second card would do, would be to add another monitor on. In SLI and Crossifre, the 2 video cards 1) must be identical type, 2) must be on a motherboard that supports it via chipset AND having the extra video slots and 3) the 2 cards must be interconnected with a kit

[Fratricide]

Crossfire doesn't actually require an Identical card, but it must be a card that supports crossfire, on a motherboard that also supports it. Kinda wacky though.. you can actually have one card (physics one) that is uber better then the one that actually sends your data to the monitor... supposedly bringing up the performance of the weaker card tremendously.

[Peaches]

Well, this morning, son installed my two video cards, and set it to sli. I can see a huge improvement in Horizons alone. Thanks for the info folks, I did manage to conive hubby into getting me two video cards.

[HAG]

... I did manage to conive hubby into getting me two video cards.

Don't woman always get what they want ...?

Personally, i just recently installed HZ on my new dualcore (AMD 4200+) PC and found a huge improvement too.

Though i tend to count that towards:
- 2 Gig of (PC800 DDR2-)RAM
- Fast HD (WD Raptor 10.000 rpm)
and
- Having the Swap-file on a second (SATA-)HD

and not to my Graphics (ATI X1650Pro, 256 DDR-3).

PS: On a sidenote, i have to approve my first feeling that HZ runs even smoother after having set affiliation to one specific core.

[Peaches]

Ahh, my son tried that with daoc, but his character stuttered a lot, so he switched it back. I havent tried that with my system yet, and probably wont, since its working fine as is. And, I finally got the new driver for my gaming keyboard too, which I am really happy about now that I can use it. RUnning dual monitors, with the earlier patch, didnt work for the keyboard.