nVidia GPU reccomendadtion please.
 

I'm running an ATI HD7770 (with a QX9650 CPU) but the game I play is getting
more and more complex. Also apparently it's better optimised for nVidia
cards rather than ATI / AMD.

So I need an affordable card that doesn't draw (much) more power than the
HD7770 (~120w). Obviously it should be considerably more powerful than the
now quite old HD7770. I can't afford the latest gaming cards nor can I
afford to replace my PSU. I'd even consider a second-hand card if there's
something that's likely to fit my needs and price bracket.

Thanks in advance for reccomendations. I'm quite out of touch with GPU
development lately.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

nVidia GPU reccomendadtion please.
 

misfit wrote:

I'm running an ATI HD7770 (with a QX9650 CPU) but the game I play is getting
more and more complex. Also apparently it's better optimised for nVidia
cards rather than ATI / AMD.

So I need an affordable card that doesn't draw (much) more power than the
HD7770 (~120w). Obviously it should be considerably more powerful than the
now quite old HD7770. I can't afford the latest gaming cards nor can I
afford to replace my PSU. I'd even consider a second-hand card if there's
something that's likely to fit my needs and price bracket.

Thanks in advance for reccomendations. I'm quite out of touch with GPU
development lately.

You never mentioned the game.

https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri

Enter the game to see what specs it requires. If you select a game,
there's another "Can you run it" button that downloads an inventorying
tool. It uploads what hardware you have to their site and thereafter
when you pick a game the site will tell you if your hardware meets
minimum, recommended, optimal requirements for that game on your
hardware.

nVidia GPU reccomendadtion please.
 

~misfit~ wrote:
I'm running an ATI HD7770 (with a QX9650 CPU) but the game I play is getting
more and more complex. Also apparently it's better optimised for nVidia
cards rather than ATI / AMD.

So I need an affordable card that doesn't draw (much) more power than the
HD7770 (~120w). Obviously it should be considerably more powerful than the
now quite old HD7770. I can't afford the latest gaming cards nor can I
afford to replace my PSU. I'd even consider a second-hand card if there's
something that's likely to fit my needs and price bracket.

Thanks in advance for reccomendations. I'm quite out of touch with GPU
development lately.

Coin mining (Ethereum) has wiped out both the used
market and the new market. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is
done with AntMiners (ASIC).

The computer store has poor stock levels on a number of cards.
They did have good stock on just one card... selling for $600 CDN.

And there's an additional development. Cards with VGA connectors
have disappeared. The DVI connector on the video card is
DVI-D, so there's no longer DVI-I either. To get a VGA output,
you have to buy an additional DisplayPort to VGA adapter.
Even if you were after a bargain card (a $50 card selling for
$145 CDN), you'd have the added insult of throwing an adapter
cost on top of it.

It's a *hell* of a good time to be buying a video card.

*******

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

Radeon HD 7770 2,208

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 13,774 Too much power up here... 250W
Radeon RX Vega 64 11,709 And too expensive ($1000 ???) 295W+
You can't get those anyway...
Unobtainium.

GeForce GTX 1070 11,076 150W *Wikipedia
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB 8,809 120W *Wikipedia $400CDN 3GB $530CDN 6GB
Radeon RX580 6,939 185W *Wikipedia
Radeon RX 570 6,785 150W *Wikipedia
GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 5,827

Radeon RX560 4,498 80W *Wikipedia $350 (the one for $230 unavailable)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Radeon_500_series

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_10_series

A GTX 1060 3GB isn't much good for coin mining, as the
memory footprint for Ethereum is currently 3GB. The
GTX 1060 6GB card should be in higher demand.

I have no idea what the texture memory footprint on modern
games is. I haven't played a 3D game in a couple years.

The largest memory on video cards, comes with things like
a Frontier Edition card, at around 16GB. So that's the
largest texture memory you can get. Or Coin Mining memory,
as your preferences dictate.

I bet a few people in the gaming industry are ****ed, as
it kinda puts a damper on their market. This will have the
unintended consequence of people walking away from gaming,
since they can't get a decent card.

A couple developments are on the memory front. Time was,
you put crappy (regular) DDR2 or DDR3 memory on the low end
cards. You put GDDR5 on the mid-range and up cards. Now,
the industry seems to have dumped DDR3 and the cards all
seem to have GDDR5.

On the other hand, cards like VEGA 64, have an HBM2 memory
stack, inside the GPU package. This means there are *no* memory
chips clamshelled and distributed around the GPU. The video cards
are still long, but underneath, the space is taken by power
converters. And the space above, perhaps by a vapor chamber
and multiple fans (in an attempt to keep the GPU cool). The
designs are really lunacy now. And by using HBM2, with limited
supplies of HBM2, they're shooting themselves in the foot.

So two memory developments, the concentration on GDDR5 and
the introduction of HBM2 and silicon substrates+MCM packaging,
are making a shambles out of video card production. Meanwhile,
the claim is (I don't believe it), that memory makers are
switching to making Flash. I instead believe there's a lot
of supply manipulation going on, to raise prices. Just
as local grocery stores here were caught price fixing...
bread. Of all things. Bread. Bread has been a favorite
of this kinda crap - you can find references to a hundred
years ago, to the manipulation of bread. It's a historical
tradition. If you're not manipulating the price of bread,
what the hell kind of businessman are you, anyway ? :-/

Paul

nVidia GPU reccomendadtion please.
 

Once upon a time on usenet VanguardLH wrote:
misfit wrote:

I'm running an ATI HD7770 (with a QX9650 CPU) but the game I play is
getting more and more complex. Also apparently it's better optimised
for nVidia cards rather than ATI / AMD.

So I need an affordable card that doesn't draw (much) more power
than the HD7770 (~120w). Obviously it should be considerably more
powerful than the now quite old HD7770. I can't afford the latest
gaming cards nor can I afford to replace my PSU. I'd even consider a
second-hand card if there's something that's likely to fit my needs
and price bracket.

Thanks in advance for reccomendations. I'm quite out of touch with
GPU development lately.

You never mentioned the game.

https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri

Enter the game to see what specs it requires. If you select a game,
there's another "Can you run it" button that downloads an inventorying
tool. It uploads what hardware you have to their site and thereafter
when you pick a game the site will tell you if your hardware meets
minimum, recommended, optimal requirements for that game on your
hardware.

For a reason - the developers claim it'll run on a 'potato' - which it will
if you don't mind cartoons.

It's Path of Exile, a game produced by a small New Zealand company.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

nVidia GPU reccomendadtion please.
 

Once upon a time on usenet Paul wrote:
~misfit~ wrote:
I'm running an ATI HD7770 (with a QX9650 CPU) but the game I play is
getting more and more complex. Also apparently it's better optimised
for nVidia cards rather than ATI / AMD.

So I need an affordable card that doesn't draw (much) more power
than the HD7770 (~120w). Obviously it should be considerably more
powerful than the now quite old HD7770. I can't afford the latest
gaming cards nor can I afford to replace my PSU. I'd even consider a
second-hand card if there's something that's likely to fit my needs
and price bracket. Thanks in advance for reccomendations. I'm quite out
of touch with
GPU development lately.

Coin mining (Ethereum) has wiped out both the used
market and the new market. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is
done with AntMiners (ASIC).

The computer store has poor stock levels on a number of cards.
They did have good stock on just one card... selling for $600 CDN.

And there's an additional development. Cards with VGA connectors
have disappeared. The DVI connector on the video card is
DVI-D, so there's no longer DVI-I either. To get a VGA output,
you have to buy an additional DisplayPort to VGA adapter.
Even if you were after a bargain card (a $50 card selling for
$145 CDN), you'd have the added insult of throwing an adapter
cost on top of it.

It's a *hell* of a good time to be buying a video card.

*******

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

Radeon HD 7770 2,208

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 13,774 Too much power up here... 250W
Radeon RX Vega 64 11,709 And too expensive ($1000 ???) 295W+
You can't get those anyway...
Unobtainium.

GeForce GTX 1070 11,076 150W *Wikipedia
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB 8,809 120W *Wikipedia $400CDN 3GB
$530CDN 6GB Radeon RX580 6,939 185W *Wikipedia
Radeon RX 570 6,785 150W *Wikipedia
GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 5,827

Radeon RX560 4,498 80W *Wikipedia $350 (the one for
$230 unavailable)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Radeon_500_series

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_10_series

A GTX 1060 3GB isn't much good for coin mining, as the
memory footprint for Ethereum is currently 3GB. The
GTX 1060 6GB card should be in higher demand.

Thanks for the reply Paul. It seems that the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB would be
good for my needs. However at ~NZ$480 and up it's a bit out of my reach
currently (and likely for the forseeable future). I'll have to stick with
the HD 7770 for a while longer and play with all options at minimum (or
turned off).

I was hoping that the development of technology would have made it more
affordable to get a reasonable graphics card...

I have no idea what the texture memory footprint on modern
games is. I haven't played a 3D game in a couple years.

The largest memory on video cards, comes with things like
a Frontier Edition card, at around 16GB. So that's the
largest texture memory you can get. Or Coin Mining memory,
as your preferences dictate.

I bet a few people in the gaming industry are ****ed, as
it kinda puts a damper on their market. This will have the
unintended consequence of people walking away from gaming,
since they can't get a decent card.

A couple developments are on the memory front. Time was,
you put crappy (regular) DDR2 or DDR3 memory on the low end
cards. You put GDDR5 on the mid-range and up cards. Now,
the industry seems to have dumped DDR3 and the cards all
seem to have GDDR5.

On the other hand, cards like VEGA 64, have an HBM2 memory
stack, inside the GPU package. This means there are *no* memory
chips clamshelled and distributed around the GPU. The video cards
are still long, but underneath, the space is taken by power
converters. And the space above, perhaps by a vapor chamber
and multiple fans (in an attempt to keep the GPU cool). The
designs are really lunacy now. And by using HBM2, with limited
supplies of HBM2, they're shooting themselves in the foot.

So two memory developments, the concentration on GDDR5 and
the introduction of HBM2 and silicon substrates+MCM packaging,
are making a shambles out of video card production. Meanwhile,
the claim is (I don't believe it), that memory makers are
switching to making Flash. I instead believe there's a lot
of supply manipulation going on, to raise prices. Just
as local grocery stores here were caught price fixing...
bread. Of all things. Bread. Bread has been a favorite
of this kinda crap - you can find references to a hundred
years ago, to the manipulation of bread. It's a historical
tradition. If you're not manipulating the price of bread,
what the hell kind of businessman are you, anyway ? :-/

Hehee! I couldn't agree more.

Ever since I've been messing around with computers (more than 20 years) it
seems that high-end gaming cards have been ~NZ$1,000 and up, midrange cards
have been ~NZ$500 and 'entry level gaming' cards with have been ~NZ$250.
It's almost like the sellers see no reason to reduce those price levels.

I see that the GTX 1050 is available locally for less than NZ$300 but at
4,466 passmark score it's not hugely powerful. That said it's twice the HD
7770s score and only 75w....

Thanks for giving me a headstart on the subject. Financially the GTX 1050 is
my only option now or in the near future. I'll think on it, normally I won't
upgrade unless the new card is at least twice as powerful. The 1050 just
squeaks in.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

nVidia GPU reccomendadtion please.
 

Once upon a time on usenet VanguardLH wrote:
misfit wrote:

I'm running an ATI HD7770 (with a QX9650 CPU) but the game I play is
getting more and more complex. Also apparently it's better optimised
for nVidia cards rather than ATI / AMD.

So I need an affordable card that doesn't draw (much) more power
than the HD7770 (~120w). Obviously it should be considerably more
powerful than the now quite old HD7770. I can't afford the latest
gaming cards nor can I afford to replace my PSU. I'd even consider a
second-hand card if there's something that's likely to fit my needs
and price bracket.

Thanks in advance for reccomendations. I'm quite out of touch with
GPU development lately.

You never mentioned the game.

https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri

Enter the game to see what specs it requires. If you select a game,
there's another "Can you run it" button that downloads an inventorying
tool. It uploads what hardware you have to their site and thereafter
when you pick a game the site will tell you if your hardware meets
minimum, recommended, optimal requirements for that game on your
hardware.

Path of Exile: Atlas of Worlds *min* sys req:
CPU: x86 compatible 1.4GHz
RAM: 2GB
Video Card: NVidia 7800GT

Yeah right! Maybe if you're happy with 20 fpm.

Even with everything turned down to the minimum my QX9650 w 8GB RAM / HD
7770 idles at ~30 fps but drops below 10 fps at times. If I enable shadows
and antialiasing at the lowest settings it sometimes drops to 2 fps for
short periods. Seriously.

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

nVidia GPU reccomendadtion please.
 

misfit wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

misfit wrote:

I'm running an ATI HD7770 (with a QX9650 CPU) but the game I play is
getting more and more complex. Also apparently it's better optimised
for nVidia cards rather than ATI / AMD.

So I need an affordable card that doesn't draw (much) more power
than the HD7770 (~120w). Obviously it should be considerably more
powerful than the now quite old HD7770. I can't afford the latest
gaming cards nor can I afford to replace my PSU. I'd even consider a
second-hand card if there's something that's likely to fit my needs
and price bracket.

Thanks in advance for reccomendations. I'm quite out of touch with
GPU development lately.

You never mentioned the game.

https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri

Enter the game to see what specs it requires. If you select a game,
there's another "Can you run it" button that downloads an inventorying
tool. It uploads what hardware you have to their site and thereafter
when you pick a game the site will tell you if your hardware meets
minimum, recommended, optimal requirements for that game on your
hardware.

For a reason - the developers claim it'll run on a 'potato' - which it will
if you don't mind cartoons.

It's Path of Exile, a game produced by a small New Zealand company.

https://www.systemrequirementslab.co...of-exile/11575

Well, does your PC qualify? Those are minimum requirements. Since no
recommended or optimal requirements are listed, tis likely the game
author didn't specify those hardware levels. Your HD 7770 looks more
than capable enough for that game.

https://techreport.com/review/22473/...-ghz-edition/2

That's just for Path of Exile. There are 4 games with that base title
name. They didn't list the latest expansion but the one before it yet
that has requirements much lower than what you have for a video card.
You didn't mention your other hardware specs, like system RAM, mass
storage (HDD or SDD, make and model). While their minimum reqs are
lower than your CPU (QX9650), that's probably the choke point in your
hardware setup. My Q9400 2.66GHz limits me from playing some of the
latest games. Your CPU is a little faster than mine (both are quad
cores) but probably won't make much difference in gaming. Yet both CPUs
are far above what is listed as the minimum reqs for the base game and
its expansions.

So what is the maximum resolution and refresh for your monitor? The OS
is going to query the monitor (if supported) to get its specs and try to
get the video driver to use the native resolution of an LCD/LED monitor.
Maybe you've got a huge monitor and are trying to run the game at that
same resolution. Tis likely you don't need to run the game at that
large of a resolution and could go smaller which would up the FPS.
There might be other game configs that you've overdone. Maybe you went
to 4AA but maybe that's overkill for this game. If the game has a test
tool to select the optimal settings, start with those and then inch up
until you dislike the artificats in the video play quality.

nVidia GPU reccomendadtion please.
 

~misfit~ wrote:

Once upon a time on usenet VanguardLH wrote:
misfit wrote:

I'm running an ATI HD7770 (with a QX9650 CPU) but the game I play is
getting more and more complex. Also apparently it's better optimised
for nVidia cards rather than ATI / AMD.

So I need an affordable card that doesn't draw (much) more power
than the HD7770 (~120w). Obviously it should be considerably more
powerful than the now quite old HD7770. I can't afford the latest
gaming cards nor can I afford to replace my PSU. I'd even consider a
second-hand card if there's something that's likely to fit my needs
and price bracket.

Thanks in advance for reccomendations. I'm quite out of touch with
GPU development lately.

You never mentioned the game.

https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri

Enter the game to see what specs it requires. If you select a game,
there's another "Can you run it" button that downloads an inventorying
tool. It uploads what hardware you have to their site and thereafter
when you pick a game the site will tell you if your hardware meets
minimum, recommended, optimal requirements for that game on your
hardware.

Path of Exile: Atlas of Worlds *min* sys req:
CPU: x86 compatible 1.4GHz
RAM: 2GB
Video Card: NVidia 7800GT

Yeah right! Maybe if you're happy with 20 fpm.

Even with everything turned down to the minimum my QX9650 w 8GB RAM / HD
7770 idles at ~30 fps but drops below 10 fps at times. If I enable shadows
and antialiasing at the lowest settings it sometimes drops to 2 fps for
short periods. Seriously.

Cheers,

Tried booting in Windows safe mode to get rid of all the startup
programs to test the game? How much free system RAM is there before you
play the game? You certainly don't want the game thrashing to slow disk
cache (pagefile) to play the game. Make it so the OS is only playing
the game to see how the game behaves in a clean[er] environment.

nVidia GPU reccomendadtion please.
 

Once upon a time on usenet VanguardLH wrote:
misfit wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

misfit wrote:

I'm running an ATI HD7770 (with a QX9650 CPU) but the game I play
is getting more and more complex. Also apparently it's better
optimised for nVidia cards rather than ATI / AMD.

So I need an affordable card that doesn't draw (much) more power
than the HD7770 (~120w). Obviously it should be considerably more
powerful than the now quite old HD7770. I can't afford the latest
gaming cards nor can I afford to replace my PSU. I'd even consider
a second-hand card if there's something that's likely to fit my
needs and price bracket.

Thanks in advance for reccomendations. I'm quite out of touch with
GPU development lately.

You never mentioned the game.

https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri

Enter the game to see what specs it requires. If you select a game,
there's another "Can you run it" button that downloads an
inventorying tool. It uploads what hardware you have to their site
and thereafter when you pick a game the site will tell you if your
hardware meets minimum, recommended, optimal requirements for that
game on your hardware.

For a reason - the developers claim it'll run on a 'potato' - which
it will if you don't mind cartoons.

It's Path of Exile, a game produced by a small New Zealand company.

https://www.systemrequirementslab.co...of-exile/11575

Well, does your PC qualify?

Yes - or I wouldn't be seeking advice, I'd be doing other things first.

Those are minimum requirements. Since no
recommended or optimal requirements are listed, tis likely the game
author didn't specify those hardware levels.

I did say that the game's developers like the public to think that it will
run on a 'potato'.

Your HD 7770 looks more
than capable enough for that game.

https://techreport.com/review/22473/...-ghz-edition/2

That's just for Path of Exile. There are 4 games with that base title
name. They didn't list the latest expansion but the one before it yet
that has requirements much lower than what you have for a video card.

Those are the expansions. The latest is War for the Atlas.

You didn't mention your other hardware specs, like system RAM, mass
storage (HDD or SDD, make and model).

I mentioned most of it in another post. I'm using a Samsung 840 EVO 120GB
SSD for OS, swapfile and the game with several multi-terrabyte spinners for
storage.

While their minimum reqs are
lower than your CPU (QX9650), that's probably the choke point in your
hardware setup.

If it were I wouldn't be asking for GPU advice. (I've been building and
upgrading PCs for over 20 years and posting here intermittantly for all of
that time. I've been running hardware monitoring during game play and the
game peaks during the most intense parts at 55% CPU.

If the CPU started to become a limit I'd overclock it as I've had this CPU
as high as 4GHz stable (with a small vcore increase) without touching vcore
and it runs at either 3.66GHz when changing the multiplier from 9x to 11x or
3.6GHz just chaging the FSB to 400 and leaving the multiplier at 9x.

My Q9400 2.66GHz limits me from playing some of the
latest games. Your CPU is a little faster than mine (both are quad
cores) but probably won't make much difference in gaming.

My 12MB L2 cache helps the CPU quite a bit. Other than that and clock speed
the CPUs are almost identical.

Yet both
CPUs are far above what is listed as the minimum reqs for the base
game and its expansions.

Yep - and as I mentioned the CPU isn't a bottleneck, mostly running at
around 30% in general gameplay peaking at just over 50% for the most intense
stuff.

So what is the maximum resolution and refresh for your monitor? The
OS is going to query the monitor (if supported) to get its specs and
try to get the video driver to use the native resolution of an
LCD/LED monitor. Maybe you've got a huge monitor and are trying to
run the game at that same resolution. Tis likely you don't need to
run the game at that large of a resolution and could go smaller which
would up the FPS.

That's not an issue. This monitor's an old Acer X223W (TN / 1680 x 1050 /
16:10 / LED backlit). I'd like to upgrade in the near future. That said I
run the game windowed at 1664 x 962 so that I can see the AIDA 64 EE / GPU-Z
numbers in systray (as well as the taskbar for email notifications etc.).

There might be other game configs that you've
overdone. Maybe you went to 4AA but maybe that's overkill for this
game. If the game has a test tool to select the optimal settings,
start with those and then inch up until you dislike the artificats in
the video play quality.

As mentioned in my other reply lately I've been playing with all in-game
adjustable settings at 'off' or as low as possible (AA set to off). I've
even set the game to DX9 mode (it also has DX11 mode which includes a trick
optional resolution scaling if FPS drops below a selectable minimum).
However DX9 mode is slightly better for FPS. Apparently it's possible to do
some registry tweaking to get it to run on even more basic hardware but
rather than go that far I'd prefer to get a better GPU.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

nVidia GPU reccomendadtion please.
 

Once upon a time on usenet VanguardLH wrote:
~misfit~ wrote:

Once upon a time on usenet VanguardLH wrote:
misfit wrote:

I'm running an ATI HD7770 (with a QX9650 CPU) but the game I play
is getting more and more complex. Also apparently it's better
optimised for nVidia cards rather than ATI / AMD.

So I need an affordable card that doesn't draw (much) more power
than the HD7770 (~120w). Obviously it should be considerably more
powerful than the now quite old HD7770. I can't afford the latest
gaming cards nor can I afford to replace my PSU. I'd even consider
a second-hand card if there's something that's likely to fit my
needs and price bracket.

Thanks in advance for reccomendations. I'm quite out of touch with
GPU development lately.

You never mentioned the game.

https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri

Enter the game to see what specs it requires. If you select a game,
there's another "Can you run it" button that downloads an
inventorying tool. It uploads what hardware you have to their site
and thereafter when you pick a game the site will tell you if your
hardware meets minimum, recommended, optimal requirements for that
game on your hardware.

Path of Exile: Atlas of Worlds *min* sys req:
CPU: x86 compatible 1.4GHz
RAM: 2GB
Video Card: NVidia 7800GT

Yeah right! Maybe if you're happy with 20 fpm.

Even with everything turned down to the minimum my QX9650 w 8GB RAM
/ HD 7770 idles at ~30 fps but drops below 10 fps at times. If I
enable shadows and antialiasing at the lowest settings it sometimes
drops to 2 fps for short periods. Seriously.

Cheers,

Tried booting in Windows safe mode to get rid of all the startup
programs to test the game?

I don't think I need to. (This is a hardware group yeah? g)

How much free system RAM is there before
you play the game?

Around 6GB typically.

You certainly don't want the game thrashing to
slow disk cache (pagefile) to play the game.

No I don't - though my disk cache is on an SSD.

Make it so the OS is
only playing the game to see how the game behaves in a clean[er]
environment.

There is no issue with RAM being limited as even with a few things running
in the background I have a couple GB free (and the game always uses between
1 and 3GB regardless of what may also be running).

I've checked with the games subreddit and consensus is that I need a better
GPU. However when it comes to *what* GPU would be suitable for me the signal
to noise ratio there becomes unacceptable as fan boys start pushing their
wheelbarrows and people don't seem to understand that a US$250 card (at one
of those on-line places there) would cost me over NZ$600.

Hence the post here. I already knew that I needed a new(er) GPU - and an
NVidia GPU. I just didn't know what GPU would suit my budget and wanted
advice.

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

nVidia GPU reccomendadtion please.
 

What I've noticed about GPU model numbers is you want the high-end in
each range. The low-end is equivalent to mid-range in the lower number
series. Sorry, but that card makers are going to keep upping their
prices as new games come out that require the higher end cards.

The home PC that I've had since 2013 was a salvaged unit originally
dating back to 2009 (an Acer with an uberboob BIOS so no settings of
note there). I had to replace several components that got fried,
including the video card. Got an AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB for $145 on a
big discount sale. After 4 years, Newegg (where I bought the HD 7870)
is selling another for $380. Yikes.

I suspect you could toss $1000 USD at a new video card and you'd still
be disappointed with that game. Seems something is screwed up as your
hardware far exceeds their minimum requirements. Have you ran any
benchmarks on your setup to make sure the CPU is running at expected
clock, same for GPU, memory, SSD/HDD, etc? I've seen where a user
complained about a huge drop in performance which turned out to be the
multiplier in BIOS somehow got changed.

Before tossing gobs of money at a new video card, I'd go to multibooting
(but I wouldn't use Microsoft's dual-booting and instead use a
multi-boot manager, like GAG). Create a partition on the SSD for a new
instance of Windows, install a fresh copy of Windows in that new
partition, install the game in that new Windows instance, and test the
game's performance.

Note that the latest video driver may not be the best for old video
games. When I updated to later released of Catalyst, my old Thief and
other old games had problems which went away when I reverted back to an
old version of Catalyst. As I recall, I walked forward through about 17
newer versions of the video driver and then had to back off a few
versions to find a driver that gave me the best old game behavior and
performance along with what fixes the old versions (still newer than my
original old version) gave me. The newest driver isn't always the best
for your particular setup. Newer versions of drivers drop support for
older hardware and older games while adding new code for new hardware
and hew games. Right now I cannot move off of Catalyst v15 because
going forward means I loss all control of resetting the color and gamma
with an easy menu entry and would have to resort to manually making all
the adjustments. After The Dark Mod crashes, it leaves the colors and
gamma as they were in the game. With Catalyst v15, I just go into that
tool and reset color calibration back to Catalyst's defaults. Users
have complained that later versions dropped hardware and software
options that were convenient in the older versions.

nVidia GPU reccomendadtion please.
 

Once upon a time on usenet VanguardLH wrote:
What I've noticed about GPU model numbers is you want the high-end in
each range. The low-end is equivalent to mid-range in the lower
number series. Sorry, but that card makers are going to keep upping
their prices as new games come out that require the higher end cards.

The home PC that I've had since 2013 was a salvaged unit originally
dating back to 2009 (an Acer with an uberboob BIOS so no settings of
note there). I had to replace several components that got fried,
including the video card. Got an AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB for $145 on a
big discount sale. After 4 years, Newegg (where I bought the HD 7870)
is selling another for $380. Yikes.

I built this machine in 2007 / 2008 but started with a lesser CPU, 4GB of
RAM and a mechanical HDD until I could afford to upgrade. This is the third
GPU that's been in it.

I suspect you could toss $1000 USD at a new video card and you'd still
be disappointed with that game. Seems something is screwed up as your
hardware far exceeds their minimum requirements. Have you ran any
benchmarks on your setup to make sure the CPU is running at expected
clock, same for GPU, memory, SSD/HDD, etc? I've seen where a user
complained about a huge drop in performance which turned out to be the
multiplier in BIOS somehow got changed.

I have GPU-Z booting with Windows and run it with the sensors tab at the
front with "Continue refreshing while in background" ticked. It shows me the
GPU core clock, Memory clock, GPU temp, fan speed, GPU load. Memory usage
(dedicated), Memory usage (dynamic) and GPU vcore in real-time and
displaying the readings for the last three minhutes (one per second).

So yeah, the card's running as expected. When the game lags if I alt-tab to
GPU-Z the 'GPU Load' field is always pegged at 100%.

Before tossing gobs of money at a new video card, I'd go to
multibooting (but I wouldn't use Microsoft's dual-booting and instead
use a multi-boot manager, like GAG). Create a partition on the SSD
for a new instance of Windows, install a fresh copy of Windows in
that new partition, install the game in that new Windows instance,
and test the game's performance.

I'm fairly confident that the problem is the six year old mid-range card
(and the fact it's an AMD). Other people playing PoE wth the same card are
seeing the same issues since the last patch (which had quite a bit of
graphical updating as well as content).

My guest machine is a Q9550-equipped Dell Precision T3400 with an identical
SSD which also has an HD 7770 and it's performing about the same.

Note that the latest video driver may not be the best for old video
games. When I updated to later released of Catalyst, my old Thief and
other old games had problems which went away when I reverted back to
an old version of Catalyst. As I recall, I walked forward through
about 17 newer versions of the video driver and then had to back off
a few versions to find a driver that gave me the best old game
behavior and performance along with what fixes the old versions
(still newer than my original old version) gave me. The newest
driver isn't always the best for your particular setup. Newer
versions of drivers drop support for older hardware and older games
while adding new code for new hardware and hew games. Right now I
cannot move off of Catalyst v15 because going forward means I loss
all control of resetting the color and gamma with an easy menu entry
and would have to resort to manually making all the adjustments.
After The Dark Mod crashes, it leaves the colors and gamma as they
were in the game. With Catalyst v15, I just go into that tool and
reset color calibration back to Catalyst's defaults. Users have
complained that later versions dropped hardware and software options
that were convenient in the older versions.

I'm using 15.8 but don't like the 'features' one bit. I much preffered the
older interface. I've never noticed a performance drop when I've updated
drivers in the past (but decided after getting this version that I'm not
going to update again unless I absolutely have to). One thing I like about
playing PoE is that if I hit F1 I get a small overlay in the top right
showing frame time, latency and FPS so it's easy to see what's going on.

I wouldn't have come here asking advice on hardware if I wasn't sure that
was the only way to fix my issues. :-/ I'll eat dry bread and water for a
while until I can afford a GTX 1050 then see if I can hold out longer for a
1060... (I'm only half-joking, I'm disabled and have been 'living' cough
on welfare for almost a decade now.)

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

nVidia GPU reccomendadtion please.
 

It's been awhile but I recall long ago that video games were sometimes
skewed to a particular hardware and driver feature set. Back then,
video card had to come with games to lure buyers to the overpriced
hardware. Some games were meant to play on a particular brand: either
nVidia or ATI (which got acquired by AMD - probably when they thought
they were going to build the CPU into the GPU). The specs on Path To
Exile don't mention it is skewed toward one brand but they could be,
especially if all AMD users are complaining but no nVidia users are
complaining.

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare...70/3649vsm7710

That shows some benchmarks between the nVideo GTX 1050 (Ti model) and
the AMD HD 7770. The GTX 1080 is outside your price range.

http://www.hwcompare.com/33002/gefor...adeon-hd-7770/

That compares the non-Ti GTX 1050 model to the HD 7770.

http://www.hwcompare.com/33000/gefor...adeon-hd-7870/

That compares the GTX 1050 (non-Ti) against my AMD HD 7870. I didn't
bother searching for game benchmarks to see how the cards fared against
each other in actual use.

Seems a lot of money to throw at just one game, especially a 2D game.

nVidia GPU reccomendadtion please.
 

Once upon a time on usenet VanguardLH wrote:
It's been awhile but I recall long ago that video games were sometimes
skewed to a particular hardware and driver feature set. Back then,
video card had to come with games to lure buyers to the overpriced
hardware. Some games were meant to play on a particular brand: either
nVidia or ATI

Yes, the 'bad old days' when the two main GPU makers optimised for different
APIs, I remember them well. However since the early part of this century,
the rise of the Direct X API and the obsolescence (at least in the gaming
world) of APIs like OpenGL and Direct3D that's not the usual case.

(which got acquired by AMD - probably when they thought
they were going to build the CPU into the GPU). The specs on Path To
Exile don't mention it is skewed toward one brand but they could be,
especially if all AMD users are complaining but no nVidia users are
complaining.

They are. A quick Google on the subject will confirm it. All of the major
streamers are using NVidia too (I've asked a few f them).

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare...70/3649vsm7710

That shows some benchmarks between the nVideo GTX 1050 (Ti model) and
the AMD HD 7770. The GTX 1080 is outside your price range.

It sure is!

http://www.hwcompare.com/33002/gefor...adeon-hd-7770/

That compares the non-Ti GTX 1050 model to the HD 7770.

http://www.hwcompare.com/33000/gefor...adeon-hd-7870/

That compares the GTX 1050 (non-Ti) against my AMD HD 7870.


That AMD 7870 was quite a medium/high-end card in it's day (as evidenced by
it's 256-bit bus and its power consumption).

I didn't
bother searching for game benchmarks to see how the cards fared
against each other in actual use.

Neither did I. I just used a few sites to compare things like Texel rate,
Pixel rate, Memory bandwidth and power consumption between the HD 7770 and
the GTX 1050 and 1060.

Seems a lot of money to throw at just one game, especially a 2D game.

Is that a bit of 3D snobbery? The developers are making the game prettier
and prettier (with water effects etc.) which isn't really a priority for me
and sucks the GPU cycles.

Remember when I mentioned that I'm an invalid? Well I need something to
occupy my mind (rather than passively consuming TV drek or shooting pixels).
Path of Exile is a very challenging game mentally. The way skills, passive
choices and gear interact require either a lot of thought, a lot of research
or both if you want to do well.

I''ve been playing PoE daily since it was in beta 7 years ago and in that
time I haven't found another game that challenges me so much (intellectually
rather than how quickly I can shoot somewhing - though you still need to be
well-co-ordinated and have good reflexes). I've tried a few other games in
that time and I played WoW and Diablo 3 for a while but the thought required
for PoE makes those look like a childrens games.

Also diring times when I'm drained mentally I can play my character in less
challenging areas and I still much prefer that to other less in-depth games.

I might hold off a while and see if I can swing a GTX 1060 - it all depends
on what rate the developers keep introducing more graphical load.

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)