Which cheap video card to play Spring

AF · Post by AF » 11 Mar 2005, 20:13

Well, I got 256 DDR, 2.4ghzceleron D, Geforce FX 5200 ultra on XP home, and directx9 compat integrated but ti wont play hw2.
Of course if I was given the money to buy a computer instead of havign ti bought for me I'd have a nice flatscreen and an AMD 64 and dual geforce graphics cards on a nice new pci express compat motherboard.
But I aint too bothered about upgrading, I have my eyes set on a nice new laptop that makes the one I ahve now look skimpy

Cheesecan · Post by **Cheesecan** » 12 Mar 2005, 11:42

If you want a "speedy" game, meaning fast loading times and non-choppy battles you need a fast CPU and a lot of RAM. The graphics itself isn't that demanding so don't worry as much about that, especially if you have a 17" screen or smaller you won't be needing your Geforce 4 MX or similar to run above 800x600 anyway.

aGorm · Post by **aGorm** » 12 Mar 2005, 11:59

Sorry, that sounds like a quote from TA, which btw had no hardware excleration. Which ment yes it didn't need a good graphics card. For spirng However, one of teh makers (bow down bow down) has already said somewhere (thats probablie lost in the great hack), that shadows didn't work cause his card ws to old to be able to do them. So infact you will need a resonable 3D card, a geforce 4 (not mx) is prob the minimum. (they said a geforce 3 ti, but that was befor shadows, and whod wanna play without them?)

aGorm

Redfish · Post by **Redfish** » 12 Mar 2005, 19:18

Maybe we could make this a general discussion about video cards supported by spring. My friend's cpu(the person who needs the upgrade but doesn't want to spend) has an 1800+ amd.

jouninkomiko · Post by **jouninkomiko** » 12 Mar 2005, 19:57

We really don't know which cards are supported, since we dont have the cards to test. I personally run it on my fx5200 ultra/3.0 ghz p4/1.5 gb ram to no problem. So checkmark that one.

Cheesecan · Post by **Cheesecan** » 12 Mar 2005, 20:12

aGorm wrote:Sorry, that sounds like a quote from TA, which btw had no hardware excleration. Which ment yes it didn't need a good graphics card. For spirng However, one of teh makers (bow down bow down) has already said somewhere (thats probablie lost in the great hack), that shadows didn't work cause his card ws to old to be able to do them. So infact you will need a resonable 3D card, a geforce 4 (not mx) is prob the minimum. (they said a geforce 3 ti, but that was befor shadows, and whod wanna play without them?)

aGorm

Although TA wasn't Hardware Accelerated, it still functioned much like Spring will in the aspect that faster CPU and lots of RAM still will improve gameplay more than upgrading from an already sufficient graphics card(eg. FX5200) to say an X950 XT PE.
Spring is still quite tame compared to say Doom3 and Half-life 2, so it doesn't require as much raw power from the graphics card to run well.
Feature-wise, the GF4MX would of course be missing some nice things but it would be able to run it with unsupported features disabled quite decently still.
So in the end you'll still benefit from speeding up your loading times(fast cpu) and increasing the size of maps and being able to host large games(ram) than you will from upping your resolution a notch.

AF · Post by AF » 12 Mar 2005, 22:02

The Geforce 3 was faster than the Geforce 4 MX fgs

aGorm · Post by **aGorm** » 13 Mar 2005, 00:26

Sorry? I was not suggesting youd need an ati X series or a Geforce 6, just saying that it would actully help out. Frame rates are what would suffer if your card was insufficiant. Yes, CPU and Ram will be needed, but a lot of people buy PC's that say: Look 3ghz CPU! 1 Gig of ram! Buy me. And then they have a half rate graphics card. And complane when it dont run games. Thank god i got my friends educated...
Now adays most computers come with plenty enough ram and CPU but often lack in Graphics performance cause people are navie. I know people that rate a PC buy the size of its hard drive. They think there pentium 2.8 ghz is better than my athelon 3200+ cause its got a 160 gig hard drive. Anyway, ill stop moneing now. In reality it will prob run Ok most half decent machines and its only if you want max res and anit anilisng you'll need a beefy card.

aGorm

AF · Post by AF » 13 Mar 2005, 02:14

aGorm that isnt exactly true in some cases. For example Intel Centrinos or AMD 64's and pentium 4's.
And AMD 64 at 1.8Ghz outruns an intel Pentium 5 Extreme Edition at 3.6 GHZ is it? or is ti 3.8? I aint too sure bout that. Anyways even though the pentium ahs bigger numbers and a fancy title added (EE), its still slower. So be aware fo the make and manufacturer being counted

Cheesecan · Post by **Cheesecan** » 13 Mar 2005, 14:26

You're both right in ways, overall lets agree that you need a good all-round system to enjoy Spring as it was meant to be enjoyed, that meaning none of your components should be a bottleneck for another.
Check this link out for some A64/FX vs. P4/EE comparison:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sh ... i=2353&p=1
(A64 trumps P4 in gaming but otherwise the PR rating is pretty correct)
Now that we bring that up also, i'd like to see Spring optimized for 64-bits, it might take a bit of work but imagine the benefits.

AF · Post by AF » 13 Mar 2005, 20:40

oh yah 64 bit spring is gonna be sweet, but then wont that require a whole line of new compilers? Best wait till we start seeing Intel Itanium processor adverts

PauloMorfeo · Post by **PauloMorfeo** » 13 Mar 2005, 20:47

Linux has 64-bit versions for quite some time now. So they must have compilers for 64b.

Too bad the game isn't ported for Linux (yet). I would most certainly install Suse Linux for 64b!!!

AF · Post by AF » 13 Mar 2005, 21:26

Spring will have to be ported to 64bit x86 if you want to pay it on an intel 64bit cpu sucha s itanium. Atm only AMD have made commitments to 32bit and 16bit backwards compatibility for 64 bit cpu's, and intel says it will have to survey the market first which could mean months before they even announce a decision.

Cheesecan · Post by **Cheesecan** » 13 Mar 2005, 22:07

Alantai Firestar wrote:oh yah 64 bit spring is gonna be sweet, but then wont that require a whole line of new compilers? Best wait till we start seeing Intel Itanium processor adverts

Itanium is an entirely different architecture, it's not 32-bit compatible unlike Intels new EMT64 and AMD64. And since it is meant for enterprise servers and workstations I doubt anyone here owns.

Right now it seems to be mostly M$ delaying the release of Windows XP 64-bits, which is a shame as once it's out in the stores software developers should realize it's time to make the move.
A 64-bit version of Spring shouldn't require much more than some adjustments and recompiling the code, so how about it perhaps after releasing 1.0.

PauloMorfeo · Post by **PauloMorfeo** » 14 Mar 2005, 00:11

Alantai Firestar wrote:Atm only AMD have made commitments to 32bit and 16bit backwards compatibility for 64 bit cpu's ...

And an AMD-64b is the one i have.

Also, i think i read here,

Cheesecan wrote:http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sh ... i=2353&p=1

that the new Pentium 4s serie 6xx are coming with new extensions to work at 64b like the Athlon64...

And yes, the Itanium is a diferent processor and most probably no one owns one.

AF · Post by AF » 14 Mar 2005, 00:17

Well I read that Microsoft are delaying the release of XP 64 bit edition till the itanium is out.
Otherwise they're more likely to be bothered with dual core cpu's than 32 bit compatability. Perhaps Cell processors could flatten them out, they're 64 bit multicore cpu's afterrall

Torrasque · Post by **Torrasque** » 14 Mar 2005, 08:26

But, 64 bits cpu are the fastest now, they will run spring with no problem.
I would be better to optimise the game for slow PC.

aGorm · Post by **aGorm** » 14 Mar 2005, 12:50

Alantai Firestar wrote:aGorm that isnt exactly true in some cases. For example Intel Centrinos or AMD 64's and pentium 4's.
And AMD 64 at 1.8Ghz outruns an intel Pentium 5 Extreme Edition at 3.6 GHZ is it? or is ti 3.8? I aint too sure bout that. Anyways even though the pentium ahs bigger numbers and a fancy title added (EE), its still slower. So be aware fo the make and manufacturer being counted

Sorry? A Athelon 64 at 1.8 does no way out run a pentium extreem ed. Sure, the 2.6 out runs it and thats still at a much small clock speed, but get your facts stright. And my argument is infact supported by what you say, cause i said, that he said, that his p2.8 out runs my athelon 2.6 (3200+).

So realy i just dont get what your post was digging at?

:EDIT: Pentium 5?!?!? No such thing!

aGorm

Triaxx2 · Post by **Triaxx2** » 14 Mar 2005, 12:54

HT processors would make the AI much easier, since it could be run along side the main game as a separate process.

aGorm · Post by **aGorm** » 14 Mar 2005, 12:59

HT (or dule core for that matter) wont realy matter, as the prog as yet isn't designd for it. Nor is the AI so complex as to need a thred of its own. Maybe in the futre though...

aGorm

Spring RTS Engine

Which cheap video card to play Spring