Its not worth it! 256 meg vid-cards.

[crabcakes66]

I just want to tell everyone that there is not a noticeable increase in performance(mabey 2-4 fps in max resolution)between a card that has 128megs of ram and one that has 256.


when you look at the price differance.

about 80$ more for a 256 5900

and about 120$ for a 256 9800

for that amount of money you could upgrade something that will actaully make a differance.

there are NO games that exist or that are planned(HL2 D3) that take advantage of that much memory. In the future....yeah but not now.

Dont be fooled by the "more is better" bullshit.


Im seeing alot of people talking about buying 256 meg cards......please do some research before you waste 100$.

 

[TheRook]

while i can agree with you and say its not worth having... but then again... what on earth amkes you think that a few months after HL2 comes out a game wont come out that will take full advantage of the extra memory?

Think of it this way... for and extra 80 or 120$ you can "future proof" your graphics card (for a certain period of time)

if you dont have the extra cash dont spend it... if you do what harm does it make having that little bit more?

Whats the point in buying a graphics card which can give you 100fps in Unreal Tournament 2003 when you only really noticed about 35...

its nota case of that little bit extra makes it special... its a fact that its BETTER! and gives better performance... while games dont make use of the full 256 meg on the Gfx card they will do... so what ur gunna buy another card 3 months later when games are making use of the extra memory??

dont be silly! buy the card with more memory... because if you dont....

A Kitten will be shot...

TheRook

 

[Guest]

if you enable AA or FSAA on high resolution. it will suck around 60 MB from the graphic card and the rest on game but using 256 willl leave more space for game to take advantages while AA and fsaa IS ON. moreover 256 will give you more time till the next upgrade.

 

[Axyon]

Indeed, if you don't plan on getting another graphics card for a long time, then I'd definitely recommend getting a 256mb card.

 

[crabcakes66]

Originally posted by TheRook
while i can agree with you and say its not worth having... but then again... what on earth amkes you think that a few months after HL2 comes out a game wont come out that will take full advantage of the extra memory?

Think of it this way... for and extra 80 or 120$ you can "future proof" your graphics card (for a certain period of time)

if you dont have the extra cash dont spend it... if you do what harm does it make having that little bit more?

Whats the point in buying a graphics card which can give you 100fps in Unreal Tournament 2003 when you only really noticed about 35...

its nota case of that little bit extra makes it special... its a fact that its BETTER! and gives better performance... while games dont make use of the full 256 meg on the Gfx card they will do... so what ur gunna buy another card 3 months later when games are making use of the extra memory??

dont be silly! buy the card with more memory... because if you dont....

A Kitten will be shot...

TheRook

if i were going to buy a 256 meg card..i would wait for the next generation....as the 5900 and 9800 are just stepping stones....they are slightly improved versions of older cards.

 

[TrueWeltall]

Originally posted by crabcakes66
if i were going to buy a 256 meg card..i would wait for the next generation....as the 5900 and 9800 are just stepping stones....they are slightly improved versions of older cards.

Yeah i agree here.

 

[EnochLight]

Originally posted by TheRook
Think of it this way... for and extra 80 or 120$ you can "future proof" your graphics card (for a certain period of time)...

Heh - I remember hearing that line a couple of years ago when 128 Meg cards starting appearing more frequently. Never used that extra memory, and now I'm replacing my card. Seems to me that 256 meg cards are still over rated.

Cheers,

EnochLight

 

[Sgt.Igneri]

256mb cards will be taken advantage of in future games. Someone emailed gabe and asked about the 128 and 256 meg diff, and he answered with something like: If you have a 256mb card, we will make use of the extra memory. If a 512 meg card is released after HL2, we will make use of that memory... I dunno ill try and find the thread with it.

EDIT: its the first email in the Valve info discussion thread. Not exactly what i said, but still 256mb cards will be used in future games.

 

[SidewinderX]

Unless ypu plan on upgrading soon, i'd get the 256MB if you have the cash. They may not help now, but they will in the future. Remeber when 128MB was a new thing?

Originally posted by TheRook

Whats the point in buying a graphics card which can give you 100fps in Unreal Tournament 2003 when you only really noticed about 35...

Also, that statment is true for the average human. However, it has been proven that people easily adpat and notice frame rate higher than that, expecially gamers. Pilots are other people whonotice higher fps.

 

[reever2]

Whats the point of more texture space when the cards dont have enough power to push the amount(and if not amount,detail) of textures at an acceptable rate...

The diferences between 128 and 256 meg as it stands right now is <10fps difference, the difference is usually when the actual framerate is <10 fps, i see no point in that

 

[PSX]

Also, that statment is true for the average human. However, it has been proven that people easily adpat and notice frame rate higher than that, expecially gamers. Pilots are other people whonotice higher fps.
lol, I just had to notice "pilots..." welp, I guess that could be true

I think everything has been said... for today's games, most likely you will only take advantage of double the ram with very high aa/rez levels; if I remember correctly Doom3 will use almost 128mb of vram at high settings without aa at all, so what if you crank it up? you'd be all set with a 256mb card; just to note something that I also said in another thread: the 9600 is a relatively low-end DX9 part and gets beat by even a 9500; don't be fooled if you see a 9600 256mb non-pro for $150.. in this case it's not worth it.. however, a 256mb 9500pro or 9700, etc. is well worth the $$$... just so we don't get the names confused, marketing tactics claim victims every day... also, like I listed in another thread:

Name Performance
8500 9200SE
9000 9000
9000 Pro 9000 Pro
9100 9200
9200 SE 9200 Pro
9200 9100
9200 Pro 8500
9500 9600
9500 Pro (v1 & v2) 9600 Pro
9600 9500
9600 Pro 9500 Pro (v1 & v2)
9700 TX 9700 TX
9700 9700
9700 Pro 9800 SE
9800 SE 9700 Pro
9800 (128MB) 9800 (128MB)
9800 Pro (128MB) 9800 Pro (128)
9800 Pro (256MB) 9800 Pro (256)

Name Performance
4200_____5200
4400_____5200U
4600_____5600
4800SE___4200
4800_____4400
5200_____4800SE
5200U____5600U
5600_____4600
5600U____4800
5800_____5800
5800U____5800U
5900_____5900
5900U____5900U

Geforce 256
Geforce 256DDR
Geforce 2 MX
Geforce 2 MX-200
Geforce 2 MX-400
Geforce 2 GTS
Geforce 2 Pro
Geforce 2 Ultra
Geforce 2 Ti
Geforce 3 Ti200
Geforce 3 Ti500
Geforce 3
Geforce 4 MX-420
Geforce 4 MX 440 SE
Geforce 4 MX-440
Geforce 4 MX-440-8X
Geforce 4 MX-460

don't let this fool you... always do your research first... tomshardware.com, firingsquad.com, ve3d.com, hardocp.com, etc., etc.

edit:

Whats the point of more texture space when the cards dont have enough power to push the amount(and if not amount,detail) of textures at an acceptable rate...

The diferences between 128 and 256 meg as it stands right now is <10fps difference, the difference is usually when the actual framerate is <10 fps, i see no point in that
I kinda hinted at this above... only buy a 256mb card that is a medium-high-end DX9 part, as a 9600 is not worth it, even though their clocks are higher than a 9500, the 9600 only has four pipelines with 1 texture unit each, but it does have a slightly higher single-textured fill rate than the eight-pipe 9500 pro... however, it doesn't make up for its lack of bandwidth features

 

[reever2]

Even the 9800 pro is still slow when it comes to making use of >128mb of textures. The only program as of now that can really push the >128mb limit is 3dmark03 and the fps difference between the 2 versions was negligible and NEITHER were playable. Even if doom3 uses >128mb of textures it will mostly be because the textures are extremely high detail, not that there is simply that many textures needed to be loaded into memory at once, and still, cards today cannot handle that amount of really highly detailed textures at an aceptable rate

 

[hentaijeff]

I read an interview with Gabe Newell a month or so ago, and he said that HL2 scales down in detail for older systems and also upward for newer systems. He stated that you would see an improvement in detail with a 256 MB card and even a 512 MB card. I'll try to find the article and post a link.

 

[SpuD]

Im getting the 128 meg version, the other one is just too much.

 

[cpowpro]

if u thinkg about it now.. 256mb cards are useless.. u wont notice it.. until they make better games then hl2 .. then u will really want a 256 card.. 128 will be like an 8 mb card now

 

[Arrowhead]

buy that top of the line/overkill stuff if you don't mind throwing your money away. but keep in mind, next year you'd be lucky if your card is even worth $100.

 

[Ridic]

well who ever gets a 9800 pro or 5900 ultra should be set for 2-3 years, depending on how long you keep a video card. I think ill keep my 9800 untill 2 years from now.

 

[EclipseRS]

I’m telling you its all a conspiracy, the game designers design games that need this hardware then the hardware produce the video card needed, everyone wins, except you who was to buy 500$ worth of computer equipment every 2 months.

Just Kidding

-Eclipse