Least expensive graphic card for Darthmod on max settings?

[Bendit]

I am looking to upgrade my graphics card in the next month or two, maybe with the coming generation of cards (ATI 7000 series or the next Nvidia series). Some of the screenshots I see of Darthmod on Ultra settings are just amazing!

My wish is to play Darthmod NTW (and maybe later Darthmod S2TW) @1080p on Ultra graphic settings, with SSAO, 4xAA, 16xAF, 2x unit sizes etc. I want to play smooth battles on Ultra, but I don't want to spend anything like $800. I am hoping it is possible. Any bargains I should look out for?

I assume my graphics card is the bottleneck. My system:
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Quad Core (3.2 Ghz)
8GB DDR3 Ram

[husserlTW]

I am fan of ATI so:

1. If you can afford it go for ATI 7950.

2. Else go to previous series for 6970 or 2 X 6950 in SLI.

3. One 6950

Personally I have one 6950 but I have different basic system (Sandy Bridge), though I do not thing that this is so important except maybe temperatures. Whatever is your choice (ATI or Nvidia) buy a model with at least 2 GB fast memory (DDR5).

[HaveFallen]

I am fan of ATI so:

1. If you can afford it go for ATI 7950.

2. Else go to previous series for 6970 or 2 X 6950 in SLI.

3. One 6950

Personally I have one 6950 but I have different basic system (Sandy Bridge), though I do not thing that this is so important except maybe temperatures. Whatever is your choice (ATI or Nvidia) buy a model with at least 2 GB fast memory (DDR5).

I too have a 6950 2GB. The OP asked for SSOA, and this card struggles with that. Without it though, it works beautifully.

[BrodY]

GTX 560Ti is a nice card for a decent price. Using SLI, although it should be more than able to handle NTW on ultra had one of those before I got SLI (obviously I have 2 now..) and everything ran smoothly on ultra. Only x4 AA, but that's enough if you ask me ^^

[Bendit]

Thanks for the ideas. But I should have mentioned no SLI/crossfire, since my mobo doesn't support it. I am hoping there is a single mid-range card in the new series that will do it, if one 6950 can't handle it (with SSAO). A couple of you have mentioned a 2GB card. Does NTW really use it?

If you can afford it go for ATI 7950.

Drools.

[Shakul]

Thanks for the ideas. But I should have mentioned no SLI/crossfire, since my mobo doesn't support it. I am hoping there is a single mid-range card in the new series that will do it, if one 6950 can't handle it (with SSAO). A couple of you have mentioned a 2GB card. Does NTW really use it?


Drools.

At 1920x1080 and 4x AA, you can probably get away with 1GB. As others have said, for a single card at a reasonable budget your best bet would probably be a 6950. Try to find one that can unlock shader cores (majority of them do, one way or another); the performance difference is significant. A 560 Ti 448 core can also be considered, don't have one myself but from what I hear these things can approach stock GTX580 levels once OCed.

[The King in the North]

I play Darthmod NTW with 2x unitsize on ultra/highest with my Nvidia GTX460, Intel dual core 2.93 Ghz and 6 gigabytes of Ram.

The card that BrodY recommends(GTX 560Ti) is far more powerful than mine and the price is not much heavier.

[Bendit]

@ Master-Krill Are you running 1080p? Do you have SSAO on as well? It is the biggest performance killer I find (40-50%), but I really like the effect.

Thanks again for the ideas. I was looking at reviews of the new ATI 7000 series and they seem quite a disappointment so far. The 7770 is more or less a rebadging of the 5770 I have now. The 7950 husserlTW mentioned would offer about 3x performance of my 5770 but @ ~$500 it's really quite expensive.

The old 5770 I have now is running a 19" monitor so it can push Dathmod 2x with everything max except SSAO OFF. If I had the money I would get a ATI 7950 and a nice 23" IPS monitor.

I am not fond of overclocking these days BTW. I suspect I have reduced the life of a couple of graphics cards OCing before. I might wait and see what happens with the new nVidia line and the ATI 78xx.

[The King in the North]

I run with 1920 x 1080 Resolution yes. And SSAO is on. I could not play without it, it makes too much difference the SSAO.

Good luck in your card-hunt

[EnDSchultz]

SSAO really is the #1 graphical performance killer these days (Especially now that highly efficient FXAA techniques are showing up in games) and it can cause an otherwise smooth game to chug quite badly, so while it is nice, I tend to leave it off. I have a 2GB GTX 560Ti so if you're determined to have SSAO you might need something a bit more hefty.

[Bendit]

Thanks for info about your GTX 560Ti. It seems the GTX 570 is a reasonable price point for me. Does anyone use one of these with Ultra settings, SSAO, 2x unit sizes, 4xAA, 16xAF @1080p? Anyway I might wait another month to see if the new Nvidia line will offer more power for the same price.

@Master-Krill
I think you are doing very well indeed with your system.

[The King in the North]

@Master-Krill
I think you are doing very well indeed with your system.

So it seems.
Shogun 2 does not allow Ultra though. I have vegetation and shadows on high for that one. Perhaps something else aswell. And in both these games I have AA set to 2.
I am quite content with my computer, though I am slightly tiring of my CPU since it is only Dual core and that is starting to show a bit.

[Major Hogan]

Already found new graphics card Bendit? I'm shopping around too.

Currently have a HD 5670 (x4 3.2Ghz, 8 Gb RAM) and it really slows down with all the beautiful DarthMod effects, and I think the magnificent maps from NTW III take their toll too . If the muskets begin to fire I come as low as 12 fps.



I'm not gonna give up on DMN and look forward to the modded FotS too.

So I'm thinking about the HD 7870 (Asus). It has quite a price tag attached to it but I hope I will not need to worry about fps for a while! Any suggestions?

[Bendit]

Not yet Major. I have been doing a lot of research though. NTW really needs more than 1GB video ram for the best textures. I agree the new upper-mid-range ATI 7870 2GB looks great. However they are charging a premium for them as they are just coming into stock, aren't they? The Nvidia 600 series look good too, although they are in very limited supply too, at least in Australia. In a month or two I expect pricing to get a fair bit better with the healthy competition and more stock being available, so I might wait until then.

[Milkyway12]

I would like to suggest to people , when dealing with computers , i would not look for the cheapest solution. Games advance very quickly , technology advances very quickly. The card you just bought to play NTW is already outdated and there are plenty more of SEGA games to come. Youll be left in the smoke. I highly suggest you save up your money and get one of the latest and greatest because you spend more or just as much trying to keep up with the technology.

You get what you pay for , remember that. (Not always but most of the time).

I highly suggest you get one of the lastest and greatest cards. GTX 580 or a GTX 590 , these can last you a year playing on maxed out graphic settings. After about a year , you have to start sacrificing quality for performance.

However , if you dont care about graphics and visuals , then of course , get what you can.

[Bendit]

That's one approach if you have the cash. No one here has suggested getting the cheapest card, just not the most expensive ones.

Also the card we mentioned - the HD 7870 - is pretty much on a par with the GTX 580, especially in TW games.

[Major Hogan]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I feel the same as Bendit; I'm not looking for the cheapest card around but a bit over 300 Euros is about all I have to spend on a graphics card. If I got the HD 7870 I think I would notice - I hope - quite an improvement.

[Bendit]

I think you would notice a huge improvement over your HD 5670, Major Hogan. I have almost the same system as you but a HD 5770, which I think is slightly faster. I am expecting a 7870 to give roughly double the performance, and look quite a bit better as well, because the extra video ram will allow the highest resolution textures with the preference file tweek.

[Major Hogan]

preference file tweek

You mean the preferences that you can tweak in the options for the game? I have these customized ('custom'). Patricles 'ultra', trees and buildings too, but water on 'very high' or so.

By the way I think you're right: waiting a month, or two, won't hurt the pricing of the card.

[husserlTW]

Just to remind you what happened with ATI 6000 series. ATI had forgotten (or deliberately?) unlocked the chip of the 6950 so with a BIOS update you could make it 6970. This lasted only for the first month. What I mean is while waiting (which I also find it wise especially with computers products and components) keep an eye in the news...