FYI Geforce4 availible in March in the U.S.

[George-III]

I havent seen anyone post this yet so here it is:

http://www.nvidia.com/ announces Geforce4 will go on sale in March

You can also pre order: http://www.bestbuy.com or http://www.gamestop.com

From what I have read in reviews this card should be perfect for Combat Mission. It has a new full-screen anti aliasing system that is quite amazing. The screen shots I have seen have been very impressive considering that it also maintains an excellent frame rate. Downside is this card is VERY expensive.

Anyway just letting you know whats coming up.

[ February 11, 2002, 02:44 PM: Message edited by: George-III ]

[Tiger]

You may want to do some extra research before running out to buy a new GF4 there are two different flavors, the ti4600 and the mx:

here's an article by John Carmack, mostly on the ATI 8500 video card; the pertinent info is at the end of it:

http://www.shacknews.com/finger/?fid=johnc@idsoftware.com

Here's the last part

On the topic of current Nvidia cards:

Do not buy a GeForce4-MX for Doom.

Nvidia has really made a mess of the naming conventions here. I always

thought it was bad enough that GF2 was just a speed bumped GF1, while GF3 had

significant architectural improvements over GF2. I expected GF4 to be the

speed bumped GF3, but calling the NV17 GF4-MX really sucks.

GF4-MX will still run Doom properly, but it will be using the NV10 codepath

with only two texture units and no vertex shaders. A GF3 or 8500 will be

much better performers. The GF4-MX may still be the card of choice for many

people depending on pricing, especially considering that many games won't use

four textures and vertex programs, but damn, I wish they had named it

something else.

As usual, there will be better cards available from both Nvidia and ATI by the

time we ship the game.

-john

[ February 11, 2002, 07:17 PM: Message edited by: Tiger ]

[Bruno Weiss]

My understanding from what I've read is that there are no architectural break thru's with the GF4, just gee whizzes. Made primarily for speed, the bench tests demonstrate it does that very well.

The MX's are 64meg versions available now, and the Ti4600 a 128 meg version is the creme de-la creme, or however them Frenchies say it, available March 5th, at least at EBX. They list it at $400 smackers.

The bench tests show it thumping the GF3 pretty good. Worth buying if, one has the money to spend just for the speed boost. For the 3D gamer it is worthy to note when comparing the GF4 Ti4600 with the GF4MX and the now "good ole" GF3, that the GF3 has one Vertex shader, the GF4 Ti4600 comes with dual Vertex shaders (Ooo dats niche and ah ooo dats good), while the GF4MX has (zero) Vertex shader. Hmmm.

A good review, bench marks and such if your into that, and a comparison with the GF3 and MX's can be found here: The Tech Report

[ February 11, 2002, 08:35 PM: Message edited by: Bruno Weiss ]

[Mattias]

Originally posted by Bruno Weiss:

My understanding from what I've read is that there are no architectural break thru's with the GF4, just gee whizzes. Made primarily for speed, the bench tests demonstrate it does that very well.

Everything is relative of course but I got the feeling from the following two articles that there was a tiny bit more to it than that...

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1583

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q1/020206/index.html

M.

[ February 11, 2002, 09:00 PM: Message edited by: Mattias ]

[Bruno Weiss]

Tom's Hardware can always be counted on for an excellant review. As you say, all things are relative and maybe in the eye of the beholder. The Light Speed Memory Architecture II and nfinateII shader engines are definate and powerful improvements. No doubt about it, this is a flagship card. I'm not sure though that I see any actual "breakthroughs" in technology but rather some very definate improvements to the GF3 architecture. Refinements abound and some tweakings along with 128 megs of memory. Nothing to complain about there.

IMO, this is my new card. My only hesitation is, do I wait for the ink to dry on the price tag or elbow my way through the nameless rabble to snatch the first one off the shelf? Probably the latter with visions of 60fps running the Accuview Anti Aliasing in high res with cranked detailing.

[ February 11, 2002, 09:25 PM: Message edited by: Bruno Weiss ]

[murpes]

*sigh* that means the GeForce 3 I bought a few months ago for $350 should be selling for $100 soon.

[Ligur]

Umm. Fast cards are great, but one thing I'm interested in: Why do you need a super fast 3d card for Combat Mission? Does it really make the game run that much smoother? My experiences with different cards has been, well, uneducational.

I've tried the game with a 1000Mhz processor and an ATI card with 16mbs of memory, basically a 2d card for office work and clean picture.

I've tried it with a 1000Mhz processor and a GeForce with 32mbs of memory.

No difference whatsover, 'cept ATI does not have the "nVIDIA bug" and a better picture.

Also have tried on several 450-800MHz systems and never noticed any performance increase if I swapped graphics cards from some office ATI for one build to run gazillion polygons really fast in Quake 3... Always about the processor speed.

What am I missing?!?

[murpes]

I've found that a good 3D card makes a world of difference with CMBO - I've played it on several machines of similar processing power, but different video cards. The difference between them being the amount of visual quality you can force onto the graphics without the choppiness when you pan around with the camera, and also the fluidity (?)and exactness in placing the waypoints.

On my GF3, I run at 1024x768 with Quincux AA and hi res textures, and I hardly get any choppiness except on the largest maps in God camera view. I also play on my work laptop which has an ATI mobility - there I play with 800x600 and low-res textures, and even then it can get pretty choppy when I pan around. My friend has an older ATI All-in-Wonder (Rage 128 chip I think)and he plays at 8x6 with a mixture of hi and lo res tiles.

My personal laptop doesn't have any 3D acceleration, and I have to play in software mode. Granted, it runs and it's still fun, but there is something more realistic and encompassing about playing on my "real" PC. You're right, CMBO's gameplay isn't an action game so a ultra-fast video card isn't necessary to play. But it does push polygons, and the fast card lets me make them look better. I just enables me to push it more from the "game" side of the scale closer to "simulation."

[ February 12, 2002, 06:43 PM: Message edited by: murpes ]

[Bruno Weiss]

I agree with the sentiment that CMBO's visual appeal is greatly improved with a good 3D card. My orginal Nvidia Geforce did well with CMBO, but studdered with large amounts of smoke, and often gave some staggered movement effects with large numbers of units on the field. When I went to the Voodoo5 5500, all that changed and I found anti-aliasing. Wow, how nice it was to see an environment that looked real world. I now have a GF3 Ti5000 and the effects on CMBO are great. CMBB will (someone with a Springfield and scope in the crowd is sure to correct me if I'm wrong), ship with a 32 bit graphic environment capability. Which, draws considerably on system resources. No doubt a GF4 Ti4600 would handle that nicely. In the end though, the gentlemen that questioned the absolute necessity of a high powered graphics card to run CMBB/CMBO is correct. It isn't necessary really, CMBO runs fine on the system specs it lists. It is just that if one is a mod slut as I am, and on top of that demands a full AA (anti-alias) environment, sharp mip-map details, ansiotropic filtering and all the eye candy in a smooth fps operation, then a high end card is indeed a good thing to have.

[ February 12, 2002, 12:54 PM: Message edited by: Bruno Weiss ]

[Commissar]

Originally posted by Ligur:

Umm. Fast cards are great, but one thing I'm interested in: Why do you need a super fast 3d card for Combat Mission? Does it really make the game run that much smoother? My experiences with different cards has been, well, uneducational.

I've tried the game with a 1000Mhz processor and an ATI card with 16mbs of memory, basically a 2d card for office work and clean picture.

I've tried it with a 1000Mhz processor and a GeForce with 32mbs of memory.

No difference whatsover, 'cept ATI does not have the "nVIDIA bug" and a better picture.

Also have tried on several 450-800MHz systems and never noticed any performance increase if I swapped graphics cards from some office ATI for one build to run gazillion polygons really fast in Quake 3... Always about the processor speed.

What am I missing?!?

Well, you don't really need a super fast card for CM or CMBB. However, the more VRAM allows you to use more hi-res graphics with less slowdown. The speed of CPU I don't think is going to make any real difference in this case. It's the speed and size of the memory in you video card that'll affect both performance and and appearance. Personally, I have an old GeForce 2 and don't see any real need for Geforce 3 much less a Geforce 4. My only desire is to increase the amount of VRAM that I have and that'll be even cheaper for me to do with Geforce 4 coming out. Much to do has been made about FSAA and it certainly does make computer graphics look nicer since you don't have the jaggies. However, to be quite frank I don't really notice the jaggies anyway when I'm actually playing games. When I'm playing a game like CM or IL-2 Sturmovik, my concentration is fully on the enemy and taking him down. When you are chasing a Bf-109G, I don't have the luxury of staring at jaggies. Pumping him full of 20mm cannon fire is taking up all my attention (that and not slamming into the ground).

Another thing about video cards, the newer ones will have all these fancy features which sound real nice but unless programmers and developers actually take advantage of them, there is little point to it. It often takes a while for the gross majority of games to catch up and use the new features and by then the next latest and greatest card has already been released making your card "obsolete". The product cycle for video cards is about every 6-8 months.

If you need to have the bragging rights, you're going to pay through the nose to have the latest card. If you have the money and are willing to dole out the cash, then definitely do so. It certainly won't hurt. However, if you have any concern about cost, it's best to stay just one generation behind. This way you get a lot of the new features that most games will actually utilize now and you can pay signficantly less. You'll most likely not miss any of the newer features of the latest cards generally speaking. Most developers have to keep the minimun specs of their games down in order to attract the widest customer base. The fact of the matter is that most people do not have gig rigs with the absolute latest video cards. Those people are very much in the minority. I think the average computer in US homes is around 400 mhz. You can play CMBB on just a 16 meg video card. That's not terribly high

[Iron Chef Sakai]

Originally posted by murpes:

*sigh* that means the GeForce 3 I bought a few months ago for $350 should be selling for $100 soon.

And thats why i would'nt but the Geforce4 until the Geforce 5 is out. The games have not kept up to speed with the video cards. Most games don't even take advantage of the Geforce3 yet besides aquanox and that game got realy crappy reviews, just looks nice.

[Schrullenhaft]

Springfield and scope trained on Bruno Weiss....

CMBB will remain a 16-bit color environment. The engine rewrite will bump that up to 24/32 bit color. If you look at some of the original (and moded) BMPs in CMBO you'll find them a bit more subtly colored than what appears in the 3D portion of the game, especially the uniforms, since I believe they are probably 24/32-bit color images.

CMBO & CMBB both probably benefit more from a fast video card than a fast CPU (though video performance is tied to CPU performance in many cases). A lot of the latest cards have concentrated on T&L (transform & lighting) performance or other features that require code in the game to support. These are features that are more often utilized in First Person Shooter/Adventure games (especially since their views/perspectives are limited and higher video quality is necessary/desired). It isn't something that either CMBO or CMBB will really benefit from most of the time (though that may change a bit with the engine rewrite). A lot of the 'straight out' video performance (polygon speed and VRAM performance) that would benefit CM the most has only increased marginally over the last year or so (especially when you're comparing the best of the last generation to the next generation).

FSAA is probably the one exception of the latest video card features that CM can actually use. Increases in speed and quality of this feature can make an appreciable difference to CM players (though that may depend on your style of play and what you're paying attention to) and it would probably be one of the best selling points for CM-heavy players regarding the purchase of a high end video card. Depending on the kind of money you have to spend on this hobby/addiction it's probably best to skip a generation of video cards before making your next upgrade in order to see a noticeable increase in speed.