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[Gorath Alpha]

It appears to me that this is needed in this place fairly badly right now.

We seem to have a sizable influx of new arrivals who have never gamed on PCs still coming in, so a list of Video Cards by how well they will handle a shader-intensive game probably will be useful.  Technically speaking, this is not "MY" list at all.  NotTheKing started it in back in 2005, when OpenGL still had some adherents among game developers.  That is no longer true today.  I'll edit off a lot of pre-Dx9 entries, like the GF4s, FXes*, and their ilk, and add notes to the Xn00 cards that don't qualify for Dx9.0"B", which is the minimum (for ME, none of them, actually).

Since NTK seemed to stop maintaining his list, I have had to rely on Toms Hardware's VGA charts to decide where newer releases seem to fit in.  I've also chosen not to add low end cards from newer generations that aren't good enough for proper functioning. 

The list here included some of the Xn00 Radeons, from X700 to X850, that worked fro DA: O, bul only run with low textures because Dx9.0"C" is the primary shader used for higher quality textures.  ME-1 requires the full suite of SM3 pixel shader functions. 

(Starting from Fastest, through Minimum Capability)

- nVIDIA Geforce GTX 580
- ATI Radeon HD 6900 series (so far)
- ATI Radeon HD 5900 series
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480
- ATI Radeon HD 5800 series
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX275 - 280 - 285 - 295 and GTX 465
- ATI Radeon HD 5700 series
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX260
- ATI Radeon HD 4800 series
- NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250
- NVIDIA GeForce 9800 series
- NVIDIA GeForce 8800 series
- ATI Radeon HD 5600 series
- ATI Radeon HD 4700 series
- NVIDIA GeForce 9600 series
- ATI Radeon HD 3800 series
- ATI Radeon HD 4600 series
- ATI Radeon HD 2900 series
- ATI Radeon X1950 series
- ATI Radeon X1900 series
- NVIDIA GeForce 7900 series
- ATI Radeon X1800 series
- ATI Radeon X850 series    
- NVIDIA GeForce 7950
- NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2
- ATI Radeon X800 series
- ATI Radeon HD 3690  
- NVIDIA GeForce GTS 240
- NVIDIA GeForce 7800 series
- NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS
- NVIDIA GeForce GTS 220, GT 230 
- ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT
- ATI Radeon HD 3650  
- NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
- NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra
- ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 
- NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GS
- NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
- ATI Radeon X1650 XT        (This, IMO, is the practical ME-1 Minimum Radeon)
- NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT  (This, IMO, is the practical ME-1 Minimum Geforce)
- NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS
_____________________

IMO, the cards below that line aren't actually good enough to run DA: O properly.  (But we're in ME-1 now)

- NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Vanilla(PCI-e version, 256 MB) <~ This is the (nVidia)  Official Minimum (disagree)
- ATI Radeon X1650 Pro
- ATI Radeon X1600 XT
- NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 
- NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS
- NVIDIA GeForce 6800 ( AGP version, 128 MB )
- ATI Radeon X1600 Pro (256 MBs, Max usable VRAM) ( ATI Official Minimum Card )
- ATI Radeon X1300 XT (renamed X1600 Pro)
========================= 

Very Low Quality & on downward from here

- NVIDIA GeForce 6800 XT
- NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT
- NVIDIA GeForce 6600 vanilla
-
ATI Radeon X1550 (renamed X1300, slightly retuned), should not have been named as supported

Suffixes, from Good to Awful

ATI Suffixes: XTX > XT > XL > Pro >GTO > Vanilla > GT > SE > Hyper Anything

nVidia: Ultra > GTX > GT > GS > Vanilla > LE = XT  > VE > TC = TE (Turbocache, any variety)

PLEASE, take notice of the intermixed generations of cards, showing that "new" doesn't mean very much when
the card isn't the fastest and most expensive that you can buy. 

This list was originally created by NotTheKing, and maintained from 2005 to 2008.  All onboard solutions, business grade cards, and all of the atrociously bad Geforce FX cards just had to be removed! 

Many game developers have begun describing the video cards that a given game supports in terms of grouped "series" of cards from the Vanilla through the GTX or XTX, and that simplified form is what I use at the top end in order to make the listing more concise.  There is a longer, harder to use list, eventually, in the "Ladders" post (in the Dragon Age Tech forum), suitable for an informational use, but it really isn't terribly necessary. 

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/58/index/575571

It should be noted that there is now a "trio" of hardware component reference articles. with one on the Basics of gaming system performance information for the new gamer, and another article restrcted to only the video card component's basic technical information, including links to more extensive coverage.  Those two are to be found right here: 

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/58/index/509580

and here for the one on Video Graphics Adapters:

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/58/index/519461

The original DA: O version appears here:

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/58/index/128343

Gorath


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Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 28 février 2011 - 01:38 .

[DmxDex]

You have the 260 is the wrong place. The 4870 is the same speed as the 5770. The 260 needs to be below both.

[Gorath Alpha]

Both the HD 4870 and the Geforce GTX 260 are high end cards with 256 bits or higher for memory systems, while a 57n0 remains only a Mainline card with 128 bits.  It isn't truly equal at all, unless / until a maximum resolution is included that eliminates the need for High End graphics.  I use Toms Hardware's VGA charts when adding to the list.

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 15 juillet 2010 - 09:11 .

[DmxDex]

Bencharks show the 4870 to be equal to a 5770

Modifié par DmxDex, 15 juillet 2010 - 02:15 .

[SSV Enterprise]

Do you think a laptop graphics card list would be beneficial? If people are buying laptops with interest in games, a desktop graphics card list won't do them much good, since the desktop cards do not directly correspond to the laptop cards (for example, a Mobility Radeon HD 5770 is actually only as good as a desktop Radeon HD 5570). I can put the list together (using notebookcheck.net as a resource) if you give me the criteria, Gorath.

[Gorath Alpha]

I refer to the Toms Hardware VGA Charts (for games, not 3Dmark) to place newly added cards; if they have started including laptop video hardware, I have missed seeing that.

[Gorath Alpha]

For anyone with only Intel for video, but still able to upgrade (desktop), here's the list.

[Magraev]

Thank you for that list - I'll use it to decide wich card to buy for my next pc - I have a Geforce 7950 GT now and that is starting to suffer.
If you want to play Dragon Age: Origins with all graphics settings on high you'll have to look at the very top of this list I'm guessing?
What is the minimum card if I want it to look it's best?

(sorry - I know this isn't the right game, but surely the list still applies)

Modifié par Magraev, 23 juillet 2010 - 06:45 .

[Gorath Alpha]

AFAIK, the originator of a list with particular emphasis on shader power never played NWN2, but I did, and someone else there did what I'm doing now, used newer games than Oblivion to sort out newer video cards into respective positions in a list like mine.  NottheKing was the first author. 

When Dragon Age's System Requirements were announced, they were screwy because of driver availability, and I pointed that out, but no one at Bioware paid any attention to me.  Here is the shader performance list thread from that forum here on the Social Site: 

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/58/index/128343

The most commonly applied definition for what a "Minimum" card should be able to do is run Medium Screen Resolutions with Low Image Quality at a frame rate in the 25-30 FPS range.  "Recommended" standards are a more variable target level, but it averageds out as the same Medium Resolution, but at Medium Image Quality settings, and at 60 FPS.  Using the same video card, but running it at a Low Screen Resolution, then much higher Image Quality settings are possible. 

Being willing to accept lower frame rates adds some additional leeway.  There are current Business Graphics cards that people want to use instead of buying a Gaming card, with which it is possible to compromise on all settings, going both Low Resolution, Low Image Quality, and achingly slow frame rates, and they claim to be satisfied with that game experience.  I wouldn't be. 

By the same token, a Mainline (medium) Game card running at Lowered Resolutions and Less-optimal frame rates is capable of running mostly maxed-out Image Quality settings.  The minimum for doing that with would be either the Geforce GT240, or the Radeon HD 4670.  In order to do High Graphics settings without that much of a compromise, step up to a Geforce GT 250, or a Radeon HD 4830. 

Gorath

[Gorath Alpha]

I believe this list needs a bump in here.

[Magraev]

A delayed but heartfelt thank you for the helpful tips on videocards.



I've been trying to make the game run with my Geforce 7950 GT for about two weeks now, and it just won't run smoothly (or without horrible glitching). EA support has offered about 7-8 different solutions, but none of them have worked. I have gone from crashing frequently to just having to restart every 30-60 minutes when the glitches get too bad.

[Gorath Alpha]

In the more detailed breakout that is most closely related to NTK's original Oblivion chart, the 7950 ranked quite a few  steps below the 7900 GTX, and only somewhat above the 7900 GT.  Looking at the breakouts in GPU Review, there hardly seems to be any justification for a separately named card, rather than some sort of unused suffix such as "GTS". 

There was no AGP version of a 7800 or 7900 GT, although there was one for the 7950 GT.  I occasionally wondered what benchmarks NTK used when he ranked the 7950 where he did, and if he knew more about the firmware than seems obvious from the 3Dmark results.  I never bought one, myself, although I did have a couple of the 7800 GTs when they were relatively current (one of which died literally a few days after its warranty ended).  . 

[Gorath Alpha]

The pre-Oblivion start for NTK's rankings list went all the way back to the origins of the 3D Accelerated Graphics cards.  By the time NWN2 was released, the lists had been inverted, and changed from individual card breakouts for the High End, into "Series" blocks, arranged more or less according to the average of the cards within the series. 

The very bottom end includes no "supported" hardware, so those were omitted entirely.  Currently, the bottom consists of older cards that previously were in the Mainline ranks, and now no longer can make that claim.  The X550 and X600 Pro, similar to the AGP Radeon 9600 cards, were "borderline", not truly Mainline at all, and none of the "sub-700" Xn00 cards had the SM-3 pixel shaders (Dx9.0"b' and "c").  

Here is a fast little Subminimum list: 

(Low quality semi-garbage video cards.  Here's the lineup of those "No-Go" parts {ranked in reverse order of ineptitude - best is first, worst is last, and Intel, naturally, isn't in the running at all}):

HD 3470 > 9400 GT > 8500 GT > HD 2400XT > X1300 Pro > HD 4350 > X1550 > 7300 GT > 6600 Vanilla > HD 3450 > 9300 GS > 8400 GS > 7300 GS > HD 2400Pro > 8300 GS > X1300 > 7300 LE > X550 > X1050 > 7200 GS > X300 > 9550 > X300 SE > Xpress200 (IGP) > 7100 GS > 6200A.

I am adding this because of the X1050, which was not better than an X550, no matter what number it seemed to carry. 

The Radeon 9600 was the last of its generation, back in late 2003, actually, and probably would have carried a lower number, because it was less powerful than the 9500, but it was replacing that card, and newer, so they misnamed it to avoid making it seem less desireable.  The Radeon 9600 "XT" was the only one equal to a Vanilla 9500, but the 9600 "SE" was no faster than the year- older 9200, in spite of having pixel shader SM-2, while the 9200 only had SM-1.4.

The same design in the 9600 Vanilla became the X300 six months later, with the addition of native PCI-e, and when the demand for AGP didn't fall off, and with no more 9600s available, the X300 was modified backward into the 9550, with AGP again (but for some reason, it was detuned downward to the old 9600 SE's performance level).   And the story of the 9600 wasn't over with.  The X300 had been replaced in its own turn by the X1300 (both as AGP and PCI-e versions), but that card was "too good" to sell for less than about $45 fior the PCI-e version (in fact, it is/was much closer in performance to the the X1600 than the X300 had been to the X600, and probably deserved to have the "X1450" performance numbering).

By the same token, the X550 and the X600 cards weren't honestly in the Mainline ranks at all, and probably should have been named the X450 and X500.

nVIDIA had continued producing its extra low end 6200, renaming it to 7100 and 7200, and offering it for $30 (about $5 in bulk quantity to OEM brand PC producers).  In order to have a $30 card, ATI had quite a few X300s that had failed to pass the 128 bit memory bandwidth requirement, and were set aside.  Those were reflashed as X300 SE cards, while the X550 was recycled / modified onto a new die, and eventually reached the market as the X1050 for PCI-e, while the 9550 got a second year of life, so that descendents of the next-slowest Radeon 9600 had been produced into 2005/ 2006.  The X1050 wasn't actually equivalent to an X550, since it only had the narrow 64 bit memory system of the X300 SE and 9600 SE. 

Gorath           

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 11 août 2010 - 09:56 .

[Recnamoken]

Where does the Radeon HD4200 rank? It's the onboard videochip of the AMD 785G chipset. Just out of curiosity.

[Gorath Alpha]

TTBOMK, it shares the silicon with the HD 3450, which made it initially the top- performing IGP available. The 8200 and 9200 IGPs from nVIDIA are related to their 8400 GS, but not its equal. There are now both 9300 onboard chipset chips, and some (OEM) Geforce 9300 cards, and both are the equal of the HD 4250, which isn't saying much.  The top two IGPs named will outperform the best that Intel offers, which is its Sandy Bridge (yes, I am editing this months later). 

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 20 mai 2011 - 07:23 .

[Recnamoken]

Thank you, that information is pretty useful.

[Gorath Alpha]

One of the better places to look up IGP data is NotebookCheck.  I was there a little while ago, and according to their information, the HD 4200 used for laptops isn't a direct conversion of the desktop GPU to an integrated segment of an ASIC.  Their report says that it was based on the Mobility HD 3450 instead, so I wonder now whether there might be much of a difference between IGPs used in desktop chipset ASICs versus those for laptops. 

www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Radeon-HD-4200.20493.0.html

I have more or less "always" known that mobile graphics is watered down seriously from desktop versions, but that happens to be what an IGP *IS*, after all, a watered down part of a minimalist level.  I never thought about there being "worse" IGPs that had the same names, but were mobile instead of intended for a backup option in a desktop. 

Anyway, my general advice about laptops has now been added to this forum (summary = "don't"). 

The next generation of Radeons was already in the wings in late October, 2010, and nVIDIA has only now completed the long-delayed range of desktop cards in their Fermi generation, taking eight months to spread the follow-on cards out as they progressively released lesser and lesser powerful members.  

(Edit here) The first four releases of HD 6n00 cards are already here (6850, 6870, 6950, 6970), and there has now been something new fron nVIDIA as well, an improved GTX 480, named the GTX 580.  The last news on the AMD Fusion line had been that the Mobile versions would actually be ready to sell some time next week.  We can expect to see what the Mobile Fusion products will look like at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2011, which opens on January 6th in Las Vegas.  Until mid-December, it had been my understanding that products would actually be shipping by January 6th.

The current expectations put the shipping date closer to the end of January, 2011.  (Added in Edit Jan 3rd:  Previews of the Intel Sandy Bridge are appearing now, and the mobile versions (of the integrated graphics) are being compared to the ATI HD 4200 and 4250, and it's supposed to be better than those.  According to Anand Tech's reviewer, one of the Sandy Bridge laptops was even able to run Mass Effect 2 as well as the Mobile HD 5450, which surprises me, given the disparity in shader processor counts.)

Right now, Microsoft and Sony are holding back on updating their game consoles and the game developers are going along with the lack of progress that entails. (I don't know that any other console system has any major influence on PC gemes, but I've never had a moment's interest in any console.) The current pair of consoles (above) are still at Direct3d's Dx9 level, not Dx10.

Very little is being developed stricty for PCs, so Dx9 still rules, and the top end video cards from three years ago can still hang in there, with today's better Mainline graphics, or close to it, at least (HD 3870, 8800GTX, although the Geforce 8800 was still just Dx9). The imminent release of the Radeon HD 6n00 generation's Mainline cards will likely leave those two behind, of course.

Crytek will push the PC envelope, I imagine, with Crysis 2, but they are a rarity as a PC-only developer.  Dx10 will probably carry at least two years forward from now before any of the few PC-only game releases start really pushing Dx11. 

nVIDIA's 8n00 generation was their first entry to Dx10 (edited, so it doesn't quite make good sense yet right here), and instead of the 8800, we'll match the HD 3870 to the 9800GT:

http://www.gpureview...1=549&card2=575

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 03 janvier 2011 - 08:18 .

[Saremei]

Just a note to anyone out there interested in gaming on a laptop... Don't. That is all.



No seriously. Laptops are not gaming devices. There are exceptions, but most if not all gaming laptops have minimal battery life and severe heat issues. Gaming experience on a laptop is always far worse than playing on a capable desktop.



And as you said Gorath Alpha, laptop graphics solutions are never equal to their desktop brethren. All are detuned and tweaked to conserve power and reduce heat as much as possible at the detriment to performance. A single modern desktop graphics card would deplete any laptop battery in a few minutes under full load. It would also generate enough heat to burn up due to the lack of heat dissipation capability inherent with the small form factor of laptop computers. If you want to game shackled with a power cord all the time, why not just get a desktop? Cheaper for equal or better performance.

[SSV Enterprise]

In my case, I need a portable computing solution around a college campus, and don't have enough money for two machines.<_<

[Gorath Alpha]

SSV Enterprise wrote...

In my case, I need a portable computing solution around a college campus, and don't have enough money for two machines.<_<

My advice is always to choose the least expensive mobile device, maybe even just a Netbook, and put most of your money into a desktop, although in your case, I'd suggest to start out by taking advantage of the very dumb trend of getting rid of perfectly usable desktops in favor of pretty-looking laptops that have zip for video.  You can find desktops with quite good components in them in the Thrift Shops stateside, in the $75 to $150 range, complete, although they will have CRTs, not LCDs, for displays, and corded keyboards, corded mice, not wireless. 

Then, get a Mainline graphics card from a couple of years ago, such as an HD 4670, and you'll be fixed up for a couple of years.  (And, yes, I know I am answering an elderly post, but it was time to recycle the thread.  Nothing really pressing has come up the past two-three months in this forum, and I've edited the comments in this thread about the graphics changes happening among AMD - Intel - and nVIDIA several times lately, including today.) 

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 04 janvier 2011 - 12:31 .

[Gorath Alpha]

The recent thread about a very elderly laptop with an X1400 Mobile Radeon caused me to look for this reference article to remind everyone of its existence, and yes, I noticed that it's about three months out of date already.  I'll try to remember I need to take care of that . .

(P. S. Performed in an edit a week later.  So far, the right kinds of benchmarks don't exist for all of the relatively recent graphics card releases.  I did add a couple of the High End cards.)

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 28 février 2011 - 01:42 .

[Gorath Alpha]

The rankings still apply, and still differ from generic (synthetic) benchmarks.

Don't forget this:

           Laptop or mobile versions of the above supported video cards
           have not had extensive testing and may have driver or other
           performance issues. As such, they are not officially
           supported in Mass Effect.

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 21 mai 2011 - 05:20 .