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)