Best Graphics Card for EQ2

[Fayed]

Anyone got an idea of what one would win the cookie?

I want to upgrade my graphix card so im woundering.

oh yea, dont need none of that TV-out stuff, just somewthing to plug Monitor into to play game.

[Deathbane27]

Depends on your budget. Geforce 6600 (make sure it's not 64-bit memory interface) or 9800 Pro, 6800 (128 MB), 6800 GT, 6800 Ultra or X800 XT PE, depending on what you can afford. Best-best would be the $500+ 6800 Ultra or X800 XT PE, not going to get into the endlessly retarded debate about which one's better unless somebody actually has consitent benchmarks for EQ2. (Which would be almost impossible.)

[Vampiro]

I have an Ati X800 PCIe.

1 gig of Ram and I run the game like Budder...=)

[Fayed]

Well im a Gforce Guy, i dont like ATI.

My budget is a Max of $700

Ill lookinto the ones proposed

[orion7_11]

with $700 defintley go with a 6800 ultra i have one and so far it's been great...or even a 6800 ultra OC

[Averad]

If you have the choice between the GeForce 6800 and the Ati Radion X800XT read this review

http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjkyLDM=

[skipsandwichdx]

From extensive reading, the 6800 line (either card, they're the same thing with different clock speeds) did better than the X800XT (the Ultra) or at least matched it (the GT). The X800 Pro doesn't even come close, as it has 12 pipelines, whereas both of Nvidia's cards have 16. The Ultra is just clocked faster, and you pay $100 more for that.

Plus, ATI's cards can't use Shader Model 3.0.

[Celastin]

well i am almost sure that Gforces were used in making of the game

and i am Gforce man myself they used togive me free stickers and **** casue i worked at a cyber cafe

[Numgrak]

256mb GeForce FX5950 ultra here and no probs up to this point.

[Strykr]

Well I bought Nvidia once and will never buy them again.... Oh and if you read almost every review x800 over powers the 6800 video card.... oh and its cheaper as well

for me ATI>Nvidia

[AegisThorne]

For this game Nvidia is theoretically better, since it was optimized for nvidia cards. Note the startup logo. In general I'm happy with my x800 xt platinum, and it runs the game pretty well with most of the settings maxed out at 1600x1200, and some more conservative shadow settings.

I'm sure someone without a 1600x1200 lock in lcd could run the game smoothly on this card at lower resolutions.

Likewise, the 6800 ultra should fly. For mid range cards you'll have to turn down some settings, but the game is pretty flexible as to what it will run on. I have friends who run it on 80.00 cards (5600 ultra ?) just fine.

If you're talking gaming in general the top end ATI cards tend to outperform the nvidia cards in most games. Not eq2 and not doom 3, but most other games. Unless you can go SLI with two gts, in which case your machine will be crazy fast(empirical measurement

Nvidia performance will continue to improve with new driver releases, so who knows what the future holds ? ATI is starting to become more competitive in that area as well.

Just my chunk of gold.

[Tiffny]

My system runs this game like crap.

2500+mobile
1gig ram
9800pro

and i get terrible frame rates and i have to set down the graphics so low that everything looks like ass to get anything more then a slideshow.

so in conclusion i would not recomment the 9800pro

[attreay=u]

I used to be a Nvidia guy. Actually I have 4 pcs in my home office/computer room. 3 p4 and 1 amd all over 2 g processors. 3 of them are running Nvidia cards and the other is runnning a X800 pro. As far as in-game preformance, I can set the x800 to the preset video settings for very high and run smooth. all the Nvidia's I have to set normal or lower or the game is almost unplayable.

One of the biggest difference I see though between Nvidia and Ati cards, from past to current days. If you run twin PC's with Twin monitors and a ATI card in one and a Nvidia card in the other (Comparable card), The depth and vividness of color are far different between the 2. The ATI cards are much more vivid and clear. I have played on my machine with the x800 for a few hours then logged on a machine with a 6800 and it looks so drab and bland after playing on the ATI.

Just my 2 cents but thoughout my PC'ing history, I have owned about 10 Nvidia cards and this x800 is my first ATI. I will not go back to a Nvidia card as it stands now.

One more note about the previous comment on the x800 only having 12 pipelines. That is incorrect, The x800 has 16 pipelines with 6 programmable vertex shader pipelines.

[attreay=u]

Ati x800 pro spec link. (Notice the 16 pipelines)
x800 pro specs

[Byrche Wroot]

Originally Posted by Tiffny

My system runs this game like crap.

2500+mobile
1gig ram
9800pro

and i get terrible frame rates and i have to set down the graphics so low that everything looks like ass to get anything more then a slideshow.

so in conclusion i would not recomment the 9800pro

I'm running 3gig P4 w/ HT
2 gig 2700 RAM
and a 9800 128 Pro on dual displays.

Except in cities on occasion, I never experience any sort of lag. I've also never had any of these issues people say is due to HT. Works pretty decent for me. If a couple hundred bucks were all you had to spend, I'd definately recommend the 9800.

[Sean]

im running a geforce 5200. amd athlon 3000+ 2.2ghz 1024mb ram

i cant run everything max settings but the video quality is excellent...fluid movement except in high population small zones like nettleville hovel it lags a little...charachter detail is excellent can see my toons features and woad marks are crisp and clear...rendering distance is excellent as well....im no computer guru but i think that with enuff ddr ram game will run smooth even on outdated vid cards (direct x9.0c supported cards of course)

[NetSapiens]

I've found that system RAM is pretty much the one thing one needs to worry about. I run EQ2 on an Athlon 2400, 1 Gb Ram, Geforce 5900FX, and I have no frame rate problems... I do turn down some settings, like pixel shader, but I still get what I like to call "nice" graphics at 1280*1024.
(Note that my fan is broken, so I actually run a reduced clock on that card btw.)

My wife on the other hand plays on my hand-me-down, which is an Athlon also, with a Geforce 4200 also with 1 Gb RAM.. her machine acts almost as well as mine, at 1024, sometimes even at 1280 resolution.

While I won't get into the ATI/NVidia debate, I always like to check out www.sharkyextreme.com for their guides on extreme gaming rig, and value gaming rig, and choose from there. I have always been satisfied with the results, using the value gaming components.

[riekl]

Uh .. who says it was optimized for Nvidia ? That Nvidia paid advertising logo at the start of the game ? Laugh The game was optimized for DX 9 thats about the limit of it.

There is simply no comparison on the X800XT vs 6800, but Nvidia fans wont face that Nvidia has been a full generation behind for 3 straight years now, much like what happened to 3dfx before them. Nvidia has a lot of work to do to recapture the 3d throne.

Originally Posted by AegisThorne

For this game Nvidia is theoretically better, since it was optimized for nvidia cards. Note the startup logo. In general I'm happy with my x800 xt platinum, and it runs the game pretty well with most of the settings maxed out at 1600x1200, and some more conservative shadow settings.

I'm sure someone without a 1600x1200 lock in lcd could run the game smoothly on this card at lower resolutions.

Likewise, the 6800 ultra should fly. For mid range cards you'll have to turn down some settings, but the game is pretty flexible as to what it will run on. I have friends who run it on 80.00 cards (5600 ultra ?) just fine.

If you're talking gaming in general the top end ATI cards tend to outperform the nvidia cards in most games. Not eq2 and not doom 3, but most other games. Unless you can go SLI with two gts, in which case your machine will be crazy fast(empirical measurement

Nvidia performance will continue to improve with new driver releases, so who knows what the future holds ? ATI is starting to become more competitive in that area as well.

Just my chunk of gold.

[Daimond]

i have 7 computers in the house, 4 i will not even state there only for apps. the other 3 computer though are good. one is my main gaming computer. till just resently when PCI-Ex came out i was just a Nvidia fan, but when they hit the market all you could get for some time was ATI and doom was coming out, al i had was a Gforce 4 Ti 4200 and when i tryed it i was getting only 10-15 FPS before i even saw an enemy. i figered i would go for ATI cuase theres no way i was going to spend 800 some bucks on a card that was the last of the AGP gen there going out of date. all i can say is i wil not goback to a Nvidia card. the smoothness and grafix comaresin to a simular Nvidia car is much better.

gaming computer P4 2.8 prescot 775 socet.
2 gig's of OCZ ram
ATI x600 128mb
2 37.7 gig Rapter drives sata 10,000 RPM in raid 0 mode giving me 300mb/sec
with onboard 7.1 sound

second best comp. P4 3.4A
1 gig ram
Gforce FX 5700 128mb
80 gig 7500 RPM
onboard sound 5.1

now in looking at these rig's they run kinda equill some one, the gameing one being faster on the loading end but the grafix should be better on the second one since the X600 is acualy only a ported over 9600.

every thing run at 1280x1024

playing Planetside with the first one i was getting much better grafix and getting 200 FPS even with in a huge battle going on there being about 1000 people running aorund on the screen and who knows how mand vehicals i only got slight client side lag. where as the other comp i had to turn on anti-analisis dropoing FPS to 60 and still laged out in a little lesser battle, even traded over some ram to make sure. settings maxed out

In doom 3 though the Gforce card got little better FPS but the grafix were 3x better with the ATI x600 then the GFX5700 and the Nvidia card had some grafix tering so had to turn on the anti-analisis again, but FPS was already below 60 so didnt see a change there still better then ATI. settings Maxed out.

now in EQ2 i can have every thing turned up to high lvls with some turned to vary high on the ATI x600. water i can max out partical effects i can max out but thats it. I do not get any Client side lag, the vary vary odd time i get lag but its totaly server side, only reason i know is cuase im on Teamspeak with 6 other friends and we all get it at same time, although they get alot of PC lag and there running high end AMD 64 with high end AGP cards. Now as for the GFX 5700 most stull i need to set low the other half i can set to normal and a few odd things i can set high. like one being the Enviroment shading can turn that on when im in the open not in town. i dont do that one for the ATI since the shader is using a diff format, other shadows though ATI can handle just not Enviroment. now if i set both computers to low or even med, the ATI card looks a ton better then the GFX one. i even went over to me friends place and cheaked out his new 6600 and my lowly ATI x600 still looks better then his lol. hes pised at me hehe, 3x time hes got for better equipent then me he though and got worse grafix resalts. although he would kick my but on a FPShooter game.

in all though i will never go back to an Nvida card again. specialy since ATI cards are the best around if you want a Media center and want to run stuff on your TV and play movies Nvidia will never come close to that.

as for the next generation of cards who knows whats next. cuase all the cards out right now are just port overs from there AGP counter parts with a bit better pipline and can use there Softwear they way its meant to be. the PCI-Ex is only at the bottom of its potential and both companies could go either way, as of right now we are only getting 4gigs of pip line and the origenal tests made 3 years ago by the compainy that made PCI-Ex tested them at 16gig piplines. like back when that comany made AGP ports there estamets were for 2x and we got up to 8x

In all though you cant realy go wrong with either way. but if your looking for a card that has better over all grafix specialy for most games , and for other uses then just gaming your best bet is an ATI card.

[Tarrax Ironwolf]

Originally Posted by riekl

Uh .. who says it was optimized for Nvidia ?

Uh, John Smedley did...

John Smedley, President Sony Online Entertainment
"We've made a serious commitment to NVIDIA, and they to us, as the graphics platform choice for EverQuest II."

[dlore]

I would suggest that if anything you should not only upgrade your vid card to whatever there is out there currently but to get a board with nforce on it to boost the graphics quality without having the vid card work too hard. I run on an nforce2 board with 512 mb ram using a geforce fx 5200 128 and I get very little lag. if I had more processing speed and a lot more ram I probably wouldn't have to upgrade my vid card unless I wanted to see the ultra small detailed microscopic bug running around on the dirt while I am tanking a giant's ankle. plus compairatively I have seen how the game runs on both non-nforce and nforce boards and the nforce takes the cake for improved quality for the older vid card.

[Sir Taleisin The Seer]

WAIT
wait till mid to late 2005, I just saw a machine running a test version of Nvidia's new PCI-X2 toys. I think they are going to announce the first one "something Cache" this week

the others involved Micro$ofts new generation of DirectX called "windows graphics foundation" and as such, cannot be talked about at this time...


so.. wait.. build a new machine for what you would spend now, towards the end of next year.

[whitemt]

just a heads up ATI new card blows away everything. Unless your doing a duel video card option this is the card to get if you got the cash.