How much of gaming is the vid card?

[TennBikeBerk]

I am curious how much the video card affects gaming. Given an okay computer (say 1.5ghz processor, 512MB DDR, and 600mhz bus) with a smoking graphics card, how different would that be from a top notch system (3.4ghz, 1GB DDR, 800mhz bus) with the same video card?

Also, if somebody with an okay system wanted to upgrade to top notch stuff, what is the order in which you would go about doing so? Probably video card first, followed by... processor?

[ScurrilousPrune]

I think RAM and hard drive space along with FSB and processing power is what matters most. I ran CS and other games on just a geforce2 and it worked fine. I even tried the DOOM III demo on it and it ran, sure it was only like 5 FPS but it did run and didn't look too bad. I say memory and processor(with FSB) is what matters. I would upgrade the video card maybe second or third down the line after memory and processor.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Gaming is affected in this order:

1. Video card
2. CPU
3. RAM
4. Hard drive

[icallmedan]

Do you have say a 1.5GHz computer, 512Mb DDR, and a 600MHz bus...lol....

[Hi Ho]

The video card is one of the most if not THE most important component in a gaming system. The CPU and RAM don't have as much of an effect. Although once the CPU gets below 1ghz it will start to really slow it down. When I had my GeForce 2 in this machine it would play games like MOH just fine but now that it's in my other computer (500mhz K6, 256mb RAM) MOH is the only game that will barely run on it.

[ja83]

whoa wait a minute here. ScurrilousPrune your saying you ran the Doom 3 demo on a Geforce 2? How is that possible?

[ScurrilousPrune]

Originally posted by ja83 whoa wait a minute here. ScurrilousPrune your saying you ran the Doom 3 demo on a Geforce 2? How is that possible?

LOL come to think of it maybe it was a geforce 3 or 4. It ran fine on it, I can't remember what card it was though.

[yellohut]

the video card is one of the most crucial parts for gaming..
of course, most people here will agree when I say that the most important part of any system is the motherboard..
without a good quality mobo, the rest doesn't really matter.

tennbikeberk, if you're considering upgrading to eventually move to a better machine.. let us know what you have so we can figure out where to start.

[Jaggannath]

Prolly a GF4, I can run it off mine fine as well
And I agree with Nukes list

[wolfie]

Originally posted by Nuclear Krusader Gaming is affected in this order: 1. Video card 2. CPU 3. RAM 4. Hard drive

i agree on this but the ram is coming in at close second tho, you almost need 1 gig of memery today.



ScurrilousPrune: where did you find the doom 3 demo?

[TennBikeBerk]

Originally posted by yellohut tennbikeberk, if you're considering upgrading to eventually move to a better machine.. let us know what you have so we can figure out where to start.

Well right now my only computer is a laptop, and I can't do much gaming on it. Sometime down the road I plan on building my own computer, and am just wondering where I should put the money.

Thanks for the replies guys.

[RJ]

The video card is the most important part. That is the part that creates all the graphics, renders it all. The CPU just does the basics.
Software rendering is waaay behind hardware rendering.
My old PIII 800 was equal to a friend's AMD 1700+ machine when it came to 3D graphics. . just because I had the better graphics card.

Of course if the rest is too slow then it your graphics card will be held back, too, so all your components should be good. But the graphics card is definitely the most important factor.

It also depends on the games. CS is not a demanding game. It ran fine on first generation GeForces, and it will still run fine now. But if a game needs graphics power, then you will see how important the video card is.

RJ

[pam123]

Originally posted by Nuclear Krusader Gaming is affected in this order: 1. Video card 2. CPU 3. RAM 4. Hard drive

I agree with this though, like wolfie, I'd put the ram before the cpu.
Don't go for less that 512 mb of ram.

[lil Jimmie]

Yup Video first and CPU & Memory are very close for second then HDD

But yeah a gig of memory is becoming the minimum. I recently had to pull a 512Mb from the gig in my main rig to test another system for a few days and the slow down was nasty *shivers & shutters*

[bigandy]

Yeah, I'm beginning to think that my current 512 isn't going to cut it for much longer, and that I may have to buy another 512 to get a gig.

[ScurrilousPrune]

Originally posted by wolfie i ScurrilousPrune: where did you find the doom 3 demo?

I'm really not at liberty to discuss that, but:
Let's just say some idiot leaked it from E3 and it wasn't exactly legal. I just downloaded it to try it and see what the hype was and if it was real, and then I promptly deleted it. I do that to most game warez releases just to test them and see if I like the game, then I delete them and buy it if I do. I don't think that's wronger than keeping it on your HD. If you could only rent PC games, but then there's all the installing and uninstalling.

[CaptTuna]

Originally posted by ja83 whoa wait a minute here. ScurrilousPrune your saying you ran the Doom 3 demo on a Geforce 2? How is that possible?

Do not confuse the requirements of demos with the requirements of the actual game. My friend ran the Far Cry demo on his computer, the went out and bought the game and found out that most demos are "dumbed down" so more people can play them.

[drew.]

vid card
ram
cpu
hdd

The ram and cpu can be switched up according to different people, but vid card is by far of coarse the most important thing.

[aym]

The Doom III thing is a leaked alpha, without any optimizations, and it's quite old by now, so I'm pretty sure it misses a lot of features.

It's unfair to judge the final game by that alpha IMO.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Well, on a Pentium 4 2.4GHz system, with 512 MB in RAM and 80 GB @ 7200 rpm HD, the 3D Mark score went from 887 to 3315 just by changing the video card from a GF3 Ti200 to a Radeon 9600Pro. I think that leaves no more doubt as to what is more important.

PS: Overclocking the CPU to 2.53 GHz just upped the score 2 points.

[TennBikeBerk]

Interesting Nuculear Krusader. I really appreciate those facts to back up your statement. So it seems I will definitely get more Fbucks (Dollars per framer per second) spending money on a video card, rather than anything else.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Another update:

Aquamark scores:

With the GF3 Ti200:

General score: 10,090
fps = 10.09
tps = 3,362,531

With Radeon 9600Pro:

General score: 24,819
fps = 24.82
tps = 7,471,386

...live from the site of the testing, Nuke reporting for the PCM community.

[pam123]

Nice increase Nuke !

[TennBikeBerk]

Nuculear Krusader,

How do you find all of that out? What is TPS and how do you calculate the general score?

[wolfie]

it tells ya after the Aquamark test

[MrAustin]

Unless I'm mistaken, the benchmarking program has all of those stats available, though they might not be in the same screen as the 3dmarks or Aquamarks total score.

[Nuclear Krusader]

tps = triangles per second