Graphics Card Options

[kermit]

Hi All

Can anyone tell me what a really good graphics card would be for BC2. Im currently running a AMD quad core 3.0ghz 8gigs of ram with a nivida 8600 card. Any useful would be great

[MonkeyFiend]

Depending on budget am fairly sure anything 8800 or above, probably worth looking at GTX260/280/285/295 for higher end graphics. Not sure of the equiv ATI cards but I have seen 8800gt's running the game on medium settings with decent framerates

[Kadey]

Yeah, from the sound of things as long as its got a reasonable amount of memory and is relatively recent the game seems to be running very well for people.

Its the CPU that has the bigger effect it seems - and you've got a quad so that'll be fine.

[Magik5]

higher end of the market id say ati 5850 - can be overclocked to be just as fast as the 5870

an in betweener id recommend an ati 4870 - ive got the 1gb version of this and its ran every game very smoothly (althought with bc2 i have to turn aa to 2x or below otherwise i get some epic black squares floating around - i assume a driver update will fix this)

and lower end id say a second hand 8800gt

* awaits the ati fanboy comments :| *

[kermit]

Thanks guys now i have a idea of what to get thanks again

[Kadey]

Just to provide a bit of balance - the GTX 260 is (still) a fantastic card, although it does vary as to whether it or the ATi equivalents are better bang/buck.

Though personally, I'd buy the 5850. In fact, I probably am going to.

[fido77]

Depending on budget am fairly sure anything 8800 or above, probably worth looking at GTX260/280/285/295 for higher end graphics. Not sure of the equiv ATI cards but I have seen 8800gt's running the game on medium settings with decent framerates

i use the GTS250 and it seems to be playing the game really well on high settings. tho i have been wondering what temp other peoples cards run while in or out of game. mine seems to be running 80 in game and 60 out of game. thats celsius because the tool i use to check it only has C

[Magik5]

sounds about right, not sure if the nvidia drivers nowadays let you set manual fan control - in which you could set the fan speed to say 60% whilst gaming if your worried about it... if not, a program called rivatuner lets you do this, it also has the ability to overclock if your that way inclined

[fido77]

i have evga, and the fan is set to always be at 100%. not sure if it should be lower or higher at certain times.

[K.]

maybe people should post cpu,eme and gfx card then your fps in multiplayer on a full server ie 32 to got a good idea of what were looking at

1 persons running fine can differ from anothers .................

c2d 3.00Ghz
4gig ram
4890 1GB

ingame at 1440x900 16bit colour all settings on low fraps gives me 30-40 low up to 50-55ish it seems pretty acceptable like this

[MonkeyFiend]

ePenis alert!

CPU: Core i7 3.0g clocked to around 3.6ghz
Mobo : Asus Rampage Gene 2
Mem: 6gb ocz ddr3
GFX: gtx295 1.8gb

On Principle, everything on high

The lowest spec I've seen the game running smoothly is a dual core AMD x6000 (essentially 2x3ghz cores) with 2gb ram on an 8800gt gfx card... judging by fps, am guessing this was the very bare minimum on the CPU front.

[Magik6]

I was trying to overclock my cpu to get a better fps but everytime the computer restarted i would get the blue screen during start up, just wondering if this is a result of having a stock fan on my mobo? I'm unsure how much of a difference this would if I replaced it or if its more about the settings I used to OC.

[MonkeyFiend]

depends on what you're clocking from/to and what cpu/mobo you've got. My first attempt at overclocking failed (as some of you may remember) as although my CPU is liquid cooled and was nice and cold, the northbridge practically melted down. Probably worth looking into hardware temp monitors too (a lot of the new mobo's have them in the bios so after a restart you can usually see if something is amiss). btw were you tinkering around with the voltages and memory too?

[Magik6]

I'm overclocking a Q6600 to 3.0ghz which I understand to be easily achieved, my mobo is an asus commando. I only changed the voltage on the cpu, changed the speed on the memory down to cope but not the voltage, left that on automatic.

[MonkeyFiend]

urggh ignore me if this becomes too nerdy... you'll be pushing it from a temperature perspective to get to 3.00ghz on a stock cooler. (the exception being if you have the G0 stepping Q6600)

If you're still wanting to try, probably just leave most settings stock and up the front side bus to 333 (mem timings etc., auto)

However I'll assume if i's crashing from cold pretty quickly, it's probably not overheating. More likely under-voltaged. Ideally you want the voltage as low as possible for it to work though

CPU FSB - 333

PLEASE CHECK THE FOLLOWING AS I'M GOING FROM MEMORY HERE AND IF WRONG COULD BURN OUT THE CPU ;D

CPU Voltage - I believe 1.325 is stock, I wouldn't go higher than 1.34 personally although I hear of people using 1.4

Dram Voltage - 2.1v standard for corsair but check with your memory supplier

If you do go down this route, I'd be very careful about frying you chips :s

mmm, chips...

[Magik6]

Yeah that is one thing I'm affraid of, not in a position to splash out on quality parts either. I figure its running atm so I would be ok leaving it, more curious than anything to see what I could get if I oc'd.

['aL]

i get pretty decent fps on my rig ( which is similar to yours kermit , apart from the gfx card) :

Phenom 2 x4 955 ( @3.8 ghz )
4 Gig DDR2 1066
EVGA GTX 260 ( the oldskool version with 196 cores not 216 )
1920 x 1080 res , all settings on high ( no AA or AF as stoopid game wont let me set any more than 1x for each )


get around 60 fps average , occasionally dips to high 30s low 40s




@ 6 , BSOD's at windows boot are unlikely to be down to overheating, it is either the cpu or the memory, most probably the memory. ( overheating tends to cause BSOD's during heavy load or extended load such as gaming, usually at the worst possible time )

you can check the temps at boot in the bios ( c2ds are good up to around 85- 90 and the stock cooler is normally pretty capable of cooling the cpu pretty well , just a bit loud )

I have always had AMD cpu's ( as they are much easier to overclock ) but the principles are the same :

i would suggest that you lower your memory divider before increasing the fsb , as increasing the fsb will automatically overclock your ram ( as ram speed is a multiple of the FSB in core 2 setups ) , so underclocking your ram before you increase the fsb gives you a bit of breathing space to oc the cpu without overclokign the ram at the same time.

if you are not playing with voltage clocking your cpu is pretty safe as they will auto shut off if they get too hot, but you would be lucky to get it from 2.4ghz to over 3 ghz without some extra juice

[Magik5]

i get about 45-50 fps at 1920x1200

Q6600 G0 @ 3.00ghz
8gb pc6400 @ 834mhz
4870 1gb - not tried overclocking it for bc2 as its smooth enough for me



as for 6 highly doubt he will fry his chip at 3.00ghz - 1.35v at 333x9 is what i recommend, but there are other factors involved as well like disabling speedstepping etc. anyway ive given him my input so just have to wait and see whether he tried it or not.

[kermit]

From what i can read that everyone post comp good and graphics card suck the bag. i guess its time to get a better one. I just better not tell the wife

[Kung]

Hi All

Can anyone tell me what a really good graphics card would be for BC2. Im currently running a AMD quad core 3.0ghz 8gigs of ram with a nivida 8600 card. Any useful would be great

Kermit , i see that you are looking for grafic card i have th ati radeon 5770 myself but the radeon 5800 and 5700 serie and more seems to have prb with grey screens, My got fixed by catalyst 10.2 but some people still got prb. Read on forums before you bye anything.