I have an extra copy of Far Cry 2 for PC - anyone want it?

[Dweller_Benthos]

Just took delivery of my new Geforce GTX285 card - dang what a brick the thing is. Anyway, looking through the discs, there's one for FC2, if anyone wants, let me know. Postage should be minimal, maybe a buck or two. I'm in the USA.

[PZ]

Man, I just bought the PC version a week or so ago!

[spaceboy]

hey D_B,  that's very nice of you.  Can you post the system requirements?

[JRD]

here you go spaceboy

      Minimum requirements
          o CPU:
            Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz, Pentium D 2.66 Ghz
            AMD Athlon 64 3500+ or better
          o Video card:
            NVIDIA 6800 or ATIX1650 or better
            Shader Model 3 required
            256 Mb of graphic memory
          o Memory:
            1 GB
          o Media reader:
            DVD-ROM
          o Hard drive space:
            ~12 Gig or HD space. (tbd)
      Recommended
          o CPU:
            Intel Core 2 Duo Family
            AMD64 X2 5200+, AMD Phenom or better
          o Video card:
            NVIDIA 8600 GTS or better
            ATIX1900 or better
            512 Mb of graphic memory
          o Memory:
            2 GB
          o Sound:
            5.1 sound card recommended
          o Media reader:
            DVD-ROM
          o Supported Video cards
            NVIDIA 6800, NVIDIA 7000 series, 8000 series, 9000 series, 200 series. 8800M and 8700M supported for laptops.
            ATI X1650-1950 series , HD2000 series , HD3000 series , HD4000 series.

Not from the game box or the official site, but its correct

I use a Dual core processor and a GeForce 9800GTX 1GB graphics card. 2GB RAM.
It runs on ultra high settings smoothly with 60 frames per second.
A powerfull graphic card with a simple 2 core processor will be enough.
Energy consumption is quite high though, so you better have a good power source (mine is 550 W) and a decent cooler.

[PZ]

Hey guys,
Any recommendations on where to get the best bang for the buck on a gaming PC?  I've been looking at Dell and came up with the following:

Dell XPS 730X
Intel® Core™ i7-965 Extreme - Level 2 (Factory O/C'd to 3.73GHz)
3GB* Tri-Channel DDR3 at 1066MHZ (3x1GB DIMM)
nVidia GeForce 9800GT 512MB

That is the base model, and I can customize it.  What do you guys think?

[JRD]

I think that the i7 is much more than a game or even most softwares demands these days.
Its a processor for the future. Maybe its too expansive and you won't use its full capacity of processing. Games today require a 2-core processor to run in high settings. A normal (cheap) 4-core should be more than enough.
To use the full capacity of such processor you would need a 64 bits OS, and THERE ARE LOTS OF ISSUES ON THOSE... believe me, we just moved to quad core, 64 bits in the office and its a headache
Your video card, on the other hand, can be cutomized to something higher that 512 MB. Although games today require 512 as recomended config, in the future, it will be a minimum requirement, so if you get a 1 GB graphic card, you will be ready to play full settings a few years from now!
Don't forget your power supply... make sure you get at least 500 W or your performance will be lower, no matter what is you GC or pocessor!!!!

[DKM2]

I'd trade off the OC for a regular i7 and a better video card, GTX280 at least. that should keep you on budget.
I have a Q9550 and a GTX280, it'll play anything on all high settings.

The advantage of the i7 over previous quads is the increased bandwidth and
putting the memory controller directly on the processor. That was the biggest
system bottle neck in the previous quads.
That's why you don't see much difference in benchmarks between quad vs dual, still feels smoother to me thou.

Old:     CPU ---->NB----->video
                              |-->memory

New:   CPU--------------->memory
            |-------->NB ---->video

crude but, video and memory no longer fight for system resources via the NB (northbridge)

[Dweller_Benthos]

That's my problem I'm finding out - power supply. Went to hook up the card last night and I see I don't have enough power connectors for it, the thing takes two 6 pin connectors! Dang. Gotta stop at Best Buy tonight and see what I can find for power supplies there, about the only place around that still sells components.

Not to mention I have to move my hard rives around just to get room to fit it in the case.

IRT PZ: yeah, I would think you can cut back on the processor and boost the video card a lot, especially if you're going to be using this as a game system.

[PZ]

You guys are worth your weight in gold - I really appreciate your input and now have a good sense as to how to go. 

[PZ]

Hey D_B,  did you get that GTX285 running and if so, how does it compare to what you had?

[Dweller_Benthos]

Oh yeah, it's in there, running smooth. Got a BFG 550w power supply to run it, would have liked to had a 650 or 700w power supply, but Best Buy only had the 550 for $100 or a 850 for $190. The 550 had all the connectors I needed so I went with that. Dropped the old vid card (a geforce 8800) and the old power supply and another vid card I had laying around, at a used computer parts dealer, to see what I could get for them. They have to test them, make sure they all w@&k, and will let me know. I hope to get $50 out of the deal, to offset that new power supply I didn't plan for.

Anyway, yeah, it's sweet. I used to run FC2 with most everything on high, nothing on ultra, and no anti-aliasing, at my monitor's native resolution of 1680x1050. That would get me maybe 30fps at best, unless I was looking up at a blank sky. If I turned on AA, the rate dropped to maybe 15fps if I was lucky. Then, I had to use the console command evict_resources now and then to unclog the memory (the old card had 300MB or something like that) to get it back to around 30fps.

With the new card, I have everything on the max setting, high or ultra, and anti-aliasing on 2x. That gets me 30-45fps mostly, with a drop to 25fps if there's a lot of fire and stuff going on. On simple stuff it maxes out at 60fps which is my vsync speed. If I turn off vsync, it goes up to about 70-80 or so, but only on simple scenes. I leave vsync on though, since I think otherwise, the effort is wasted since the screen can only refresh so fast, why have the card refresh frames the monitor can't display anyway? Think that's how it works, not really sure.

Anyway, bumping the AA up to 4x or 8x drops frame rate down to around 28 which still isn't too bad, and it hardly drops below that, but it didn't look that much different from the 2x setting. I still have to grab some screen shots to compare what the AA settings look like and decide.

[PZ]

... looking forward to your recommendations.  Is the GTX285 the best graphics card you can get these days?

[Dweller_Benthos]

No, the 295 is, but it's twice as much..... Nvidia.com, and drool. Or, if you want Radeon, ummmm... ati.com I guess, but I've been an nvidia man for quite some time now. Of course, back in the day, it was diamond, and 3dfx glide. Yeah, I had two vid cards at one time back then, the diamond monster for normal stuff and the 3dfx glide for 3d stuff, you had a short video cable that you ran from the output of the diamond to the input of the the glide and then connected your monitor to that. Insane stuff. The whole setup cost me about $500 back in the late 90s, just for video cards. Now, $400 gets you something 100x better. Of course, it's a brick that takes up half the space in your cabinet, but hey.

[PZ]

I remember using the diamond video cards!  Man, that was some time ago...

I don't suppose that anyone knows of a computer that has the GTX295 already installed... might as well opt for a higher end solution right from the start.