Gud PCS r foor stoopid hedz

[fragglefart]

I heard a silly arguement today from a collegue of mine that anything above a XP1700/GF4Ti4200 is a complete waste of time and money, as there are no noticable differences in graphics.
And apparently anything over 800x600 is a waste of time too.(yeah, i mean that resolution looks just dandy on my 22" iiyama >:[ )
The initial arguement was about the future for low poly modelling. I stated i am not too bothered about high poly, and far more enamoured by the idea of increasing beautiful and complex shaders/ dynamic shadows/ high dynamic range lighting/ massive resolutions with full AA + AF.... i could go on...
but apparently games companies wont cater for these standards of visual quality because they must sell titles to owners of slow machines.
I mentioned scalable graphics/ scalable shaders but had kinda given up hope by that point.

What is sad is the dude does 3D graphics and really loves his games. I am befuzzled.

Any thoughts? (me goes to run some DX9 stuff to look at the candy)


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Render times? You'll find me down the pub...

 

[jihiggs]

that kind of setup will run any game out there today just fine. as for 800x600 of course it looks bad on a 22 inch iiyama. but only about 1% of gamers have a monitor that nice. i play on a system very close to that (xp1700 and radeon 9500pro.) it plays everything i have thrown at it. maybe not at 1600x1200 but your retarded if you need that kind of res on a 17 inch viewsonic. my monitor doesnt even support that res.

wpdclan.com cs game server - 69.12.5.119:27015

 

[cleeve]

Your colleague is arguing for the sake of argument, either that or he is an idiot.

I've tried playing at 800*600 and let me assure you, there is a massive difference between that and 1024*768.

There is also a massive difference when running 1024*768 on a Geforce4 or a Radeon 9700 PRO at 4x FSAA. Quite noticable.

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Radeon 9500 (hardmodded to PRO, o/c to 322/322)
AMD AthlonXP 2400+ (o/c to 2600+ with 143 fsb)
3dMark03: 4055

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I think your post is the epitome of the Enthusiast versus Casual [insert focus/interest of choice here] argument.

The majority of people didn't care that they bought a GF4MX 64mb for nearly the same price as a GF4ti 64mb because they would never know that they were taken.

Many of us prefer the extras, but most people just want it to look better than 256 colour and 640x480 which is their frame of reference for gaming. So the diff. between 16bit and 32 bit is irrelevant, and difference between DX8 and DX8.1 water effects is lost on them, let alone DX9.

Their focus is how quickly their dude runs across their 8x600 13" monitor when they are trying to blast away. These are the people who would turn HALO down to 640x480 with all the sliders on low so that they can play it on their RageFury PRO or GF2MX because it has the required (ahem BARE F'in minimum) 32mb needed to play this game.

It's like the argument behind the push for HDTV. It's only now that the deadline approaches that we are actually getting programing for HDTV, and that's because the broadcasters are being forced to switch.

You will always have these dichotomies between the early adopters/enthusiats and those who really could take it or leave it. The reality is that we are the minority, and they have more than 4 times our numbers. Just look at the Futuremark results of what cards their benchmarkers are running and realize how many MX/FX5200 suers are out there. I think even still to this day the #1 Radeon card is the R8500 series, although I'm not sure if the Rage 128 is still in second place anymore.

If you look at Caimbeul's thread it's almost the same idea, but he's someone who more closely reflects the enthusiast side of things. It may be a while before we get a truely 'killer app.' that brings forth the 'Hey! Look THIS is what I mean by DX9/OGL2.0!' Perhaps D]|[ will be that title. But for now I don't think we have much to show for it except some exceptional demos (like RTHDRIBL).
Hopefully that will change.

As for Programers, depending on the type of person this guy is, it may just be that he doesn't want the extra burden for what he may perceive as limited return. Some people still think in wireframe with 16 colours, and don't see the need for much more.

Anywhoo, that's my take on it. Doesn't surprise me, but is does depress me soewhat, especially since the Technology I'm looking forward to seems linked to those next generation cards/VPUs.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <b>RED GREEN</b> GA to SK

<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/" target="_new">-NEW PIC IN THGC ALBUM-</A>

 

[fragglefart]

RTHDRIBL- sweet!
Thing is though, this guy is NOT a casual, hes had pcs forever, and works with 3D! Thats why i was confused.
I have run Halo on my old 1700XP GF2Ti rig, it runs so so so so smooth. But the quality of the visuals (even on high) are murky, nasty and stinky.

On a side note- sometimes Dawn does the trick to show off a machine to the less-informed ;oD

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Render times? You'll find me down the pub...

 

[flamethrower205]

For right now I'd say that's fine. However, in the future (and even w/ DX2) HELL NO.

The one and only "Monstrous BULLgarian!"

 

[fragglefart]

Ha, no thats the old box.
My new one is a lot bigger than that lil' baby. 😉

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Render times? You'll find me down the pub...