14 replies to this topic

[themanwithsauce]

This is a guide that seems sorely needed on this forum. There will always be driver glitches but the sheer variety of every component means there are infinite combinations for your PC or even laptop, and the single most important component for gaming is arguably the graphics card/GPU/video card (they all mean the same).

I'm about to do a copy paste from another thread so for reference, the OP was asking about running MWO on a radeon 4250m card. He had also compared it to a geforce 8800 because they had the same memory size (512 mb) and same clock speed (~500mhz?). So this is what I said about the basics of a video card, along with a few edits and additions.

Here are the three most important numbers to look for when deciding on a card.


1) Memory bit "width" - This is expressed in terms of "bits" so you have as simple as a 32-bit width card to as high as 512 bit width card (some exceptions but this is a typical range you'd see on newegg). Consider this the pipeline for all information between the card and the computer. A higher bit width means more info can go between your card and your computer. Memory size (in GB/MB) is not a factor here. Let's imagine a filing depot with many cabinets and many workers. Say each worker can successfully use 4 cabinets at once. Any more than that and they can not do any more filing or sorting than they normally would, but any less than 4 and they will be underused. Your example card - the radeon 4250 - is a single worker in the grand scheme of cards. However, 512 mb of V-ram is 9 cabinets. The 8800 card is 4 workers, and the 512 mb is still nine cabinets. All other things being equal, the 8800 cards could see benefit from more memory. Your radeon? Gains little to nothing from having the 512 MB of "Vram" (and it is HIGHLY likely that "512 MB" is taken out of available RAM which is slower as it is like that worker going from one building to another to do the filing and then going back to the original building to report what it did)

2) Clock speed/Memory speed - Speed is speed. Everything else being equal, a faster clock (processor speed for the video card) means a faster card. Now you could have a very highly sped up 64-bit card and a slower 256 bit card, and the 256 bit card will win. The bit width is probably #1 in the "what makes my card fast" question. The memory speed is a bit different as this is dependant on the memory being used. This memory can come in GDDR3/GDDR5 variants (Some cards have normal DDR3/DDR5 labels but I'm unsure how much that matters). Obviously the GDDR5 chips are the fastest but again, putting 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 64 bit card isn't going to magically make it better than a 192 or 256 bit card with 2 GB of GDDR3.

3) Shaders/Pipelines - More shaders = more performance. Nvidia and AMD have different ways of measuring this depending on the generation (I believe Nvidia used to use two different types before switching to a "unified" shader and AMD calls them pipelines) but the typical generation upgrade involves cramming more of them onto a card than the previous gen, amongst other improvements.

Now this is NOT a hard and fast guide by any means. An old 8800GT is a 256 bit width card that will get its head kicked in by a radeon 7750 128 bit card. Simply put, the 7750 has so much more tech behind it due to the years of upgrades that the old 8800gt is just not able to handle the modern games like the 7750 can.

Time to get into some new territory! I mentioned the radeon 4250 card before, and it really isn't a "card" in the real sense. Let's break down a few terms.

Integrated graphics - These are GPUs in name only. Typically they are 'integrated' into the motherboard itself and will utilize the system's RAM to handle graphics processing. These can be found in both desktops and laptops and are a bare minimum needed to run things like HD movies and very old games.

Mobile graphics cards - Step 1) Take a desktop card. Step 2) Shrink it down to about the size of a saltine ******* Step 3) Give it a proprietary connection so a Dell GTX 660 won't work in an HP. Step 4) use the laptop's cooling system to cool the card instead of a dedicated fan/shroud. Note that in that shrinking process, performance is lost as some of the shaders or even bit width need to be reduced to make it fit. Also note that they might be named the same, but a desktop and mobile graphics card could be two different animals. Ex - My GTX 560m (mobile) is a 192 bit card. The normal GTX 560? 256 bit. A classic example was the old geforce 9600GT being a 256 bit desktop card, but was a 128 bit mobile card and wasn't much better than the old 8600GT mobile card.

Desktop Graphics Cards - The holy grail of power is had in these hallowed lands. Dedicated cooling systems, upgradeable, chainable in SLi or Crossfire, repositionable, and able to crank out the most performance per $ spent. A 128 bit, radeon 7750 can be had for 100$ or less on newegg right now. I guarantee you it will run as good as most 192 bit cards in the mobile camp. The difference is the premium a mobile user would typically pay is MUCH higher. A simple desktop could be built around that card for 500-600$ and would be no worse than a gaming laptop costing around 1000$ or more. The ceiling of performance is much higher on a desktop and you can always upgrade just that part if you don't like it. This is very difficult and very expensive to do on the few laptops that support upgrading their GPU.

Now that you have a decent idea as to what a graphics card is, here is the bare minimum you should be looking for

Low end - mobile
- Newest generation 128 bit or older 192/256 bit card only.
- 1GB of GDDR3 vram
- For a radeon, you want cards that start with 57XX, 67XX, or 77XX. Preferably they'd be 78XX or 79XX but those are higher end.
- For an Nvidia you want the card to have GTX or GT in the name and you want the second digit to be a 5 or higher. These designate their gaming quality mid range cards

Low end - Desktop
- 128 bit cards from the past two generations will work fine for a start
- Again, 1GB of Vram is necessary
- Require no additional power from the power supply, just uses what the PCI-E slot can give. This will save you $ on needing to upgrade to a heavier duty power supply if you're on a tight budget. Use a decent quality branded 400-450W PSU and you'll be golden
- Able to utilize SLi/Crossfire. It will probably be easier to just buy a second one if it goes on sale than it will be to replace this card with a more expensive, better one. And if you bought a decent power supply, you won't need much else

Can you play MWO on a lower card than these? Yes. Will you enjoy it? Probably not. And again, old cards are still old. An 8800GT desktop card is a 256 bit card. Guess what? That 7750 I talked about earlier can beat up on two of them. Do some research, shop around, and in general educate yourself about this part if you're a gamer. It is a very expensive component that will likely make up 25% or more of your computer's cost. Even in laptops, the price starts to go up real fast when you stick in a decent GPU. But if you know what you're looking for, you can get a good deal on what you need.

[Summon3r]

Hullo, i am not very tech savvy so to speak when it comes to all this grfx card talk but i did understand enough i think of to realize my nvidia Geforce 8800gts is not enough to play this game with any joy at all?

my system:
core i5-3470 3.20 ghz
12g RAM
WIN 7, 64 bit operating system
Nvidia GeForce 8800GTS

I am currently running the game on LOW settings and when things get hairy FPS drops to 7-10 is this solely due to my old vid card? I believe i have more then enough in cpu and ram?

Thx for any help!! ive been waiting for mechwarrior to resurface since the down fall of mw4 :'(

[themanwithsauce]

You have plenty of CPU and ram. Your 8800GTS is probably over 5 years old by now, right? Not a bad run for a video card but upgrading would be wise.

You really only need to spend about 100$ to get a playable level of performance on low to medium graphics settings. I've talked about this card a lot, but a radeon 7750 such as this one - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814161427 gives a good balance of performance and cost.

If you prefer Nvidia, do not worry my friend! The GTX 650 can now be had for 100$ as well, and the GTX 650 is slightly faster than a radeon 7750 - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814187201


Those two cards are about equal in performance but the 650 is slightly faster. However, it is usually more expensive. That sale price does make it the better buy. Keep the resolution on the lower side and that GTX 650 should be able to handle medium settings with ease. In any case it will be much faster than the old 8800GTS and for only 100$. Not a bad upgrade for that system you have. The core i5 is a great processor for gaming - plenty of power, but not wasting as much as a core i7 would under load. 12 GB of ram is plenty as well.

Edited by themanwithsauce, 11 April 2013 - 09:23 PM.

[Summon3r]

Thanks a millions man you have no idea how much i appreciate the help!! can you tell me if this card http://www.newegg.ca...N82E16814500277 would do well for me? i would really like to play the game on atleast high settings and i can justify the extra 69$ if the card is worth it.

i think ive actually gotten just over 6 years out of that 8800gts lol

[themanwithsauce]

This is going to be what you want - http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125457

The card you had is a 128-bit card. This one is a 192-bit. It will be much faster and should do high settings just fine. This card also costs the same. I'm not sure why this 650 ti is 192 bit and the other is 128 bit but sometimes naming gets crazy.

[ArmageddonKnight]

For a desktop the lowest GPU you should look at is the AMD 7770 or the Nvidia 650ti. Anything below them isnt really worth it as it would usualy only take £/$10 or £/$20 to get somthing much better.

Best bang for buck card atm is the AMD Sapphire 7870XT.

For laptops nowerdays for proper gaming u want to be looking at a 660m atleast for medium settings at high fps, or high setitngs at lower fps. Crysis 3 at High settings @ 768p with a 660m should net u between 30 and 45 fps, so a more playable setting would be Medium.
You could go as low as a 650m if ur ok with low settings, or lower fps on medium settings.

CPU is starting to get more important nowerdays, so try to keep that in mind. Dont cheap out on the CPU, it can bottleneck ur games.

The Op was a nice idea but in most casses its usualy just best to post a list of GPU's good for certain settings in an average modern day game, or for MWO specificaly.

Edited by ArmageddonKnight, 12 April 2013 - 08:21 AM.

[Summon3r]

thanks again guys, 1 more question to clarify here lol. If I understand this correctly.... 192 bit is better then 128 bit, is 256 bit better then 192 bit?

[ArmageddonKnight]

Ill make things simple for ya. Here is a list for u to choose from. They are all gaming cards starting from low end ot high end.

6850 / 7770
460 / 650ti
560ti / 650ti boost
6970 / 7850 / 570
580 / 660ti / 7870 / 7870XT
670 / 7950
680 / 7970
GTX Titan

Edited by ArmageddonKnight, 12 April 2013 - 02:18 PM.

[Summon3r]

thx, tossed up between 660ti and 7870xt and figures the 7870xt is out of stock at newegg

[ArmageddonKnight]

Ifu can .get the 7870XT , better value for money imo.

There are 3 types availabel atm.

The Sapphire 7870XT
The Club 3D 7870 Joker XT
The PowerColor 7870 Myst

The Sapphire is the better one as it has a good dual fan cooler ..but if u find it hard to find then the other 2 are the same though maybe a little louder/hotter runing.

to doulbe check ur getitng a Tahiti card, check the numbero f cores it hasi n the description ..it should have 1536

EDIT: I actualy just found another. The VTX3d 7870 Black Edition.

Edited by ArmageddonKnight, 12 April 2013 - 02:38 PM.

[Summon3r]

wow cannot find any of these in stock anywhere at least that are legit "Tahiti" gpu's with the 1536 cores ... :/ .... if anyone has a line on a place to order that would be great as it would seem this card is unbeatable in its category.

[ArmageddonKnight]

Think u can get the powercolor one.

http://www.superbiiz...-787_2V3&show=p#

http://www.amazon.co.../?tag=pcpapi-20

http://us.ncix.com/p...ture=PowerColor

The Sapphire ones seem to be out of stock and i know of no other places to look for the other ones in the US (im from the UK)

[Summon3r]

Thx. I actually ended up going with a 660 ti.

[Summon3r]

just installed evga 660TI, performance = epic, 80+ fps on high to very high settings

[Bad Karma 308]

TheManWithSauce,

Someone here recently referenced this link for checking whether your GPU will work against "XYZ" game.

http://www.systemreq...ntslab.com/cyri

Although I had not heard of it before it has been around for quite awhile, and is licensed to many big names in the GPU & gaming industries.