FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

by **mauvebic** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 16:10

I know its one of the cheapest cards i can get, but considering the P4 still uses (integrated) radeon xpress 200, would this be a step up? i know next to nothing about graphics card and drivers, i tend to avoid those discussions on linux forums, though the linux users here are friendlier, so i thought id ask :P

http://www.staples.ca/ENG/Catalog/cat_sku.asp?CatIds=65%2C69%2C3327,226&webid=321755&affixedcode=WW

by **ExcessZues** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 16:26

Isn't this a forum about Minetest? Not graphics cards?

by **mauvebic** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 16:30

can we have you on mastermind? special subject: the bleeding obvious. (theres a reason i put *offtopic* in the title...)

Im asking here because this is a forum of gamers, and i want a card thats going to make minetest look as good on my old box as it does on the new laptop.

by **VanessaE** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 16:32

To be fair, a graphics card is necessary to run minetest in some cases :-)

That said, that's a link to a site that demands a Canadian postal code, so some of us can't see what's at the other end of the link.

I use a Radeon HD6870 (1GB, PCI express) on a fairly beefy machine myself (AMD Phenom II x6 1055T, 4GB RAM, 60GB SSD)

by **Ragnarok** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 16:40

IMHO GT210 is a bad idea. 9600 GT will be better (and slightly more expensive). Even cheap Radeon 4670 will be better:

by **mauvebic** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 16:48

this one is a little more advance for a negligable price difference: http://www.staples.ca/ENG/Catalog/cat_sku.asp?CatIds=&webid=721514&affixedcode=WW

though im not sure my old tower has the right connectors. (emachines h5048A). I dont plan on trying to play WoW with it thought, its more so i can play minetest on one side of the screen while i got cheers/frasier/startrek playing on the other side of the screen. Right now my integrated graphics takes a 500mb chunk out of my 2gigs ram, and the whole system locks up sometimes :S

by **VanessaE** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 16:51

mauvebic: what postal code should one use in order to view that site?

by **mauvebic** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 16:53

J6E 2Y2

the first one is listed at 55$ canadian.
second one 79$ canadian.

though if i get the first one, ill have just enough left over to get a mouse for the laptop (minetest +trackpad = self-immolation)

by **VanessaE** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 16:57

Ragnarok: What, no minetest benchmark? ;)

by **mauvebic** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 17:05

minetest running by itself on the P4 will average 23-27 FPS lol

if im watching ST voyager (BR quality) the FPS drops to 12 :S

by **mauvebic** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 20:51

50 FPS with the cheap one aint bad :-)

by **VanessaE** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 21:47

On the aforementioned system, I'll get 55 to 60 fps (beyond that I think it's hitting an internal limiter) with the default textures, and 20-30 fps with my high-resolution ones.

by **mauvebic** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 00:14

heck i thought 30 was good until this afternoon :P i read alot of bad reviews about this card overheating, but my sensors say 52c so those reviewers were probably trying to play intensive games with a low end card (which, i wouldnt do lol) - honestly, ive played simcity 1,2,3,4 and sim societies, and i always thought 2-3 were the best. graphics got better but gameplay got so much worse. i didnt really see the point until i started watching BR videos.

by **VanessaE** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 00:36

A lot of the frame rate also depends on how much is being displayed. If you turn your viewing range up or down (+ and - on the keyboard), that will lower or raise the rate accordingly. Snap it to maximum with the 'r' key on a wide view and watch your frame rate plummet. :-)

I keep my range set at around 170, fog enabled.

by **mauvebic** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 02:22

go figure, i didnt even know you could do that -/+ thing lol

though, it was prolly watching tv and having 5-6x gimp windows open that was killing my performance lol

by **Calinou** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 08:38

Never, EVER buy an AMD card, regardless of the operating system you use, because of shitty drivers (this is not restricted to Linux, applies to Windows too).

Tip: disable fog and clouds, it slightly improves performance and helps seeing further.

EDIT: lol @ the antispam.

by **mauvebic** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 08:52

actually w/ the radeon xpress200 fog didnt affect my fps, it hovered around the same levels.

I had noticed in the last couple of weeks though my display had this yellowish tint, and i wasnt able to boot up without acpi=off for the past six months...the colors are much more defined w/ the new card, no tints, no tearing, no artifacts. Im pretty sure the old card was on it's last leg lol

by **Death Dealer** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 14:34

mauvebic wrote:actually w/ the radeon xpress200 fog didnt affect my fps, it hovered around the same levels.

I had noticed in the last couple of weeks though my display had this yellowish tint, and i wasnt able to boot up without acpi=off for the past six months...the colors are much more defined w/ the new card, no tints, no tearing, no artifacts. Im pretty sure the old card was on it's last leg lol

Have you tryed to renew the thermal paste on the GPU's heat sink? I advise you use arctic silver 5.

by **mauvebic** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 14:38

the heatsink also needs to be change, probably the last upgrade on this box, after that, theres just the casing and motherboard that are still original lol

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[offtopic] Graphics card?

[offtopic] Graphics card?

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