Old graphics card question

[Guest]

Hey guys

I was messing around with my old system today. It is about 5 or more years old now with a GTX 550 Ti in it. I read on the net that this card wasn't really designed for 1080p gaming.

If you go to the GTX 550 Ti page - http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-550ti it says this, "Fast and affordable, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is great for enjoying DirectX 11 games at resolutions up to 1680 x 1050. It's also the quickest and most affordable way to upgrade your PC for Crysis 2."

I played some battlefield 1 on this 550Ti at 48ish fps albeit at 1024 x 768 lowest settings.

I also however, played battlefield 4 on ultra 1080p with like 30fps locked. I could easily get 60+ fps if i went to medium. 40+fps was possible on ultra with anti aliasing and ambient occlusion off.

Why is it that this card was not regarded as a 1080p card when I can play games that came out a bit after the card (battlefield 4) and have a very playable experience. I remember playing battlefield 3 way back and i believe i was playing 1080p ultra easily.

I'm just curious.

 

[constantine_99]

well i guess the terms of 1080p GPU was meant for those that can take the pressure of the new games in 1080p with good setting at decent fps (my 1050 ti for example, many benchmarks shows that it can handle witcher 3 and BF 1 at 60 fps with med / tweaked setting) so i guess these titles are given to the different cards as time passed by (what i want to say is, maybe a few years ago your card was called as a 1080p card, but now, that title had been given to the newer generation)

 

[ARICH5]

what windows platform is it?

 

[_danielpwils01]

The same reason why the RX 480 and GTX 1060 aren't really 1440p GPUs, but they can still handle it. 1080p is what they are best at. That's their sweet spot. You can play just about any game, maxed settings, with a solid 60 fps, but you can still play at 1440p just with possibly lower settings and lower frame rates. Just because the 550 Ti wasn't necessarily created with 1080p in mind, that doesn't mean it can't handle it. You will just have to lower the settings and deal with a lower fps (can still be very playable though).

 

[Guest]

well i guess the terms of 1080p GPU was meant for those that can take the pressure of the new games in 1080p with good setting at decent fps (my 1050 ti for example, many benchmarks shows that it can handle witcher 3 and BF 1 at 60 fps with med / tweaked setting) so i guess these titles are given to the different cards as time passed by (what i want to say is, maybe a few years ago your card was called as a 1080p card, but now, that title had been given to the newer generation)

yeah, weird though because it is saying it is great at resolutions up to 1680 x 1050 and then goes on to talk about it being an upgrade for Crysis 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBNdwHtJOn8

In this video the guy plays at 1080p with acceptable frames on medium I would say. So I find it bizarre that it was said to be so bad a card at the time. Is it possible that the drivers over time and the release of later versions of direct x have improved the frames THAT much?

 

[Guest]

The same reason why the RX 480 and GTX 1060 aren't really 1440p GPUs, but they can still handle it. 1080p is what they are best at. That's their sweet spot. You can play just about any game, maxed settings, with a solid 60 fps, but you can still play at 1440p just with possibly lower settings and lower frame rates. Just because the 550 Ti wasn't necessarily created with 1080p in mind, that doesn't mean it can't handle it. You will just have to lower the settings and deal with a lower fps (can still be very playable though).

Yeah, I guess so. Makes sense. I also found out that I have dx12 on my gtx 550 Ti system. I don't know how they managed to do that since originally, the 550 Ti was on the list of gpus that cannot support dx12.

 

[constantine_99]

well i guess the terms of 1080p GPU was meant for those that can take the pressure of the new games in 1080p with good setting at decent fps (my 1050 ti for example, many benchmarks shows that it can handle witcher 3 and BF 1 at 60 fps with med / tweaked setting) so i guess these titles are given to the different cards as time passed by (what i want to say is, maybe a few years ago your card was called as a 1080p card, but now, that title had been given to the newer generation)

yeah, weird though because it is saying it is great at resolutions up to 1680 x 1050 and then goes on to talk about it being an upgrade for Crysis 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBNdwHtJOn8

In this video the guy plays at 1080p with acceptable frames on medium I would say. So I find it bizarre that it was said to be so bad a card at the time. Is it possible that the drivers over time and the release of later versions of direct x have improved the frames THAT much?

driver update also gives improvements, so yes they should gives some boost. it's called bad bcz it's time is already pass by, even the 750ti (still popular old gen GPU nowdays) is on the verge of being replaced already with the coming of pascal's 1050 ti (the replacer) and after this, AMD's Vega and Nvidia's Volta will clash and the 750ti will be older and replaced since the clash would cause the other GPU's price to go down even more (probably)

 

[Guest]

what windows platform is it?

I'm on windows 10 with it right now. However, it used to perform well on win7.

 

[constantine_99]

what windows platform is it?

I'm on windows 10 with it right now. However, it used to perform well on win7.

perhaps the GPU is not optimised for win 10? i mean, the card is already 5 years old right?

 

[Guest]

what windows platform is it?

I'm on windows 10 with it right now. However, it used to perform well on win7.

perhaps the GPU is not optimised for win 10? i mean, the card is already 5 years old right?

I think you misunderstand me. I mean to say that the card is performing ahead of its time lol. I just played battlefield 1 @1080p lowest settings with 28-30fps and it felt playable whilst not as good as on my main system ofc.

 

[constantine_99]

what windows platform is it?

I'm on windows 10 with it right now. However, it used to perform well on win7.

perhaps the GPU is not optimised for win 10? i mean, the card is already 5 years old right?

I think you misunderstand me. I mean to say that the card is performing ahead of its time lol. I just played battlefield 1 @1080p lowest settings with 28-30fps and it felt playable whilst not as good as on my main system ofc.

well if a card can play at that kind of setting, it doesn't mean the card was meant for that setting...
just like how a RX 580 can play at 4k@20 fps

 

[Guest]

what windows platform is it?

I'm on windows 10 with it right now. However, it used to perform well on win7.

perhaps the GPU is not optimised for win 10? i mean, the card is already 5 years old right?

I think you misunderstand me. I mean to say that the card is performing ahead of its time lol. I just played battlefield 1 @1080p lowest settings with 28-30fps and it felt playable whilst not as good as on my main system ofc.

well if a card can play at that kind of setting, it doesn't mean the card was meant for that setting...
just like how a RX 580 can play at 4k@20 fps

But the RX 580 isn't 5 or so years old.

 

[razamatraz]

This isn't set in stone by any means but a 1080p gaming card means a card that can play at 1 preset below max and maintain 60FPS almost all of the time. A 550Ti couldn't do that even on launch. It was literally half the GPU that the 560Ti was and a 560Ti could just hold 60 on BF3. BF4 was actually a fair bit more optimized and ran better on some cards than 3 did.

Basically a 1080p card is not a card that can play 1080p on low, it has to be able to do it on high, or very high.

 

[dontlistentome]

I think it's a combination of things. One, you might be pairing the card with a more powerful CPU then was commonly used back then. Two, you might be using it on games that use the CPU more than games back then. Three, that page references 1gb models, you might be using a 2gb model. Four, 60fps is generally what gets referenced in marketing. So they aren't going to sell a card based on "You can get 40fps at 1080p" but they will sell a card based on "Playable at 1680x1050" when everyone knows that means ~60fps.

 

[Guest]

This isn't set in stone by any means but a 1080p gaming card means a card that can play at 1 preset below max and maintain 60FPS almost all of the time. A 550Ti couldn't do that even on launch. It was literally half the GPU that the 560Ti was and a 560Ti could just hold 60 on BF3. BF4 was actually a fair bit more optimized and ran better on some cards than 3 did.

Basically a 1080p card is not a card that can play 1080p on low, it has to be able to do it on high, or very high.

I used to play bf3 on this card on highest settings with very reasonable frame rates i seem to remember.

 

[Guest]

I think it's a combination of things. One, you might be pairing the card with a more powerful CPU then was commonly used back then. Two, you might be using it on games that use the CPU more than games back then. Three, that page references 1gb models, you might be using a 2gb model. Four, 60fps is generally what gets referenced in marketing. So they aren't going to sell a card based on "You can get 40fps at 1080p" but they will sell a card based on "Playable at 1680x1050" when everyone knows that means ~60fps.

It is a 1GB Asus model. Intel i5 650.