Curse

Adacia Calla · May 17, 2005, 06:11 AM // 06:11

k, guys, this game isn't known for being hardware demanding.

Go play D3 or HL2 on your systems and compare your results to goldens. THAT's where the difference is.

CatLady · May 17, 2005, 06:21 AM // 06:21

I still don't see a ton of difference in the test-images on hardware test-sites (not GW related). They look a little more color-saturated and stuff....but image wise, I guess my eyes are getting too old to notice minor things like a 5-15% increase in edge smoothness or something.

Performance wise, that's a different thing. I'm just talking about image quality. Tho admitedly it's often hard to see such things in still pictures, no matter how 'uncompressed' the picture is, vs. actual in-game.

Cyris · May 17, 2005, 06:42 AM // 06:42

LOL yeah i can get as good graphics as that with litt and no lag in mosts areas with my Gforce 5500 256mb card. So theres really no need to upgrade!

goldenr1 · May 17, 2005, 07:20 AM // 07:20

whats with all the hate on my card lol? this was just incentive to get ANY good card, i listed mine for refernce, not saying at all that it was the ONLY good card in existence. this was misunderstood i think lol, my bad for not clarifying extensively. i wasn't trying to say all ur cards are inferior either, man this backfired i guess

Adacia Calla · May 17, 2005, 07:51 AM // 07:51

It's ok golden, they're just jealous that we spend waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much money on our video cards

<<< HiS x800 Pro flashed to XT PE.

goldenr1 · May 17, 2005, 07:55 AM // 07:55

heh ty for the support, here's one from H2, wish i didnt have to scale down

Omega_2005 · May 17, 2005, 08:44 AM // 08:44

Quite amazing what the ATI Radeon X700/X800/X850 - cards can do. That card (X850Xt) is actually being inbuilt for the XBOX360 as well, so it's a great card for what will be the benchmark for Ultra-real graphics

CatLady · May 17, 2005, 08:51 AM // 08:51

I'd really like to know why I can't see your pictures. Strange. Maybe some setting on Firefox that I have checked.
I don't even get a broken or never-loads link thingie - there's nothing at all except your post text.

Borealis · May 17, 2005, 09:03 AM // 09:03

I'm completely happy with the money I blew on my x800xt, I won't need to upgrade for quite awhile now. I ran fraps one night while playing and with all eye candy maxed it never dropped below 60.

http://img229.echo.cx/img229/2696/gw325960x7689tk.jpg
http://img229.echo.cx/img229/4544/gw344960x7681es.jpg

Obviously resized, but thats what I see in the game. I'm content.

goldenr1 · May 17, 2005, 09:23 AM // 09:23

gorgeous shots, and i agree about the 800XT, amazing card. glad to hear that the next XB will feature the 850, one of the best lookin cards on the market (under or around 500 bucks). my pals comp at expressions features a FireGL card, the most amazing graphics i have ever seen. 8 gigs of ram with 2 cards running doom3 x 4 instances, one comp 4 monitors. freaking rediculous, like a $10,000 comp, screens not inc.

goldenr1 · May 17, 2005, 09:24 AM // 09:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by CatLady

I'd really like to know why I can't see your pictures. Strange. Maybe some setting on Firefox that I have checked.
I don't even get a broken or never-loads link thingie - there's nothing at all except your post text.

hmm....maybe u have html disabled for some reason, i am usin fox too and they look fine to me

TaG Eledhel · May 17, 2005, 05:54 PM // 17:54

wasnt really knocking your card, its just with a game like this its so non performance related you can probably get away with a geforce 3 if your cpu and ram are up to scratch, as for Hal life doom 3 or far cry yeah i may not get the fraps as high on my 5700 but they still look good and main thing is they are playable, as for how much people spend on there cards hey im all for a good spend but would prefer more ram and faster cpu..and leave myself some change for a pint ;o) thing is as much as i love playing games its getting ludicrous when some graphics cards cost more than a complete pc systm these days and the differences to the bare naked in eye between a high end card and a lower spec one are almost impossible to see. anyway more screenshots soon once someone can tell me how u actually get the ss on the msg and not just a lnk to my pic which is all i can do, ive tried pasting pic in but it wont, so im stuck with having to put mty pics as links!

kratic · May 17, 2005, 07:33 PM // 19:33

my xpress 200m on my laptop has that quality of graphics... i think its just the limit of the engine this game is build on...

the only time i see improvement on mine is in HL2/CS:S... thats the only time it randomly has some slow times, but nothing compared to my old 9000pro lol.

blythe · May 17, 2005, 07:36 PM // 19:36

I have 128MB X800 Pro and the screenes looks pretty much identical as they do on mine running 1024x768

goldenr1 · May 17, 2005, 08:12 PM // 20:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by blythe

I have 128MB X800 Pro and the screenes looks pretty much identical as they do on mine running 1024x768

pro's definately a nice card as well

Gerbill · May 17, 2005, 08:33 PM // 20:33

I've got an Ati Radeon 9600 XT-4 @ 400Mhz and 256 MB.. this a precious little thing =)

Delil Isiorion · May 17, 2005, 09:42 PM // 21:42

Taken from the same sequence as one of the ones in the origonal post.

... and my specs?
Radeon 9700pro 128MB that i've had since it first released, 1GB pc2700RAM, AMD3000+ Barton core 2.17ghz. I can't really say I have anything to complain about as far as graphic go and my system specs. I play at almost highest quality on every option, at fullscreen 1680x1050. Only acceptions are AA and some of the shadow quality. Other than that....

So all you people spending $500-$600 just for your video cards... I want you to know that my gameplay is nearly as amazing as yours is... and I haven't spent any money on my computer for the past 2-3 years. I'll upgrade when I see ATI's AMR technology, USB 3/Wireless USB, and the price for Dual Dual-core opterons drop about $1000 or 2 in price. (I'm a Visual Effects major... basically I need a workstation powerhouse for rendering anyways.. but right now i'm relying on the school's renderfarm, and it's working 'ok', but i'd rather be able to do all my rendering and such locally)

Anyways.. back on topic... so.. yea.. no complaints here. I guess this prooves you don't need a $500 video card to play the game well.

-delil
(images continued in next post)

Delil Isiorion · May 17, 2005, 09:43 PM // 21:43

-delil

goldenr1 · May 17, 2005, 10:39 PM // 22:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delil Isiorion

Taken from the same sequence as one of the ones in the origonal post.

... and my specs?
Radeon 9700pro 128MB that i've had since it first released, 1GB pc2700RAM, AMD3000+ Barton core 2.17ghz. I can't really say I have anything to complain about as far as graphic go and my system specs. I play at almost highest quality on every option, at fullscreen 1680x1050. Only acceptions are AA and some of the shadow quality. Other than that....

So all you people spending $500-$600 just for your video cards... I want you to know that my gameplay is nearly as amazing as yours is... and I haven't spent any money on my computer for the past 2-3 years. I'll upgrade when I see ATI's AMR technology, USB 3/Wireless USB, and the price for Dual Dual-core opterons drop about $1000 or 2 in price. (I'm a Visual Effects major... basically I need a workstation powerhouse for rendering anyways.. but right now i'm relying on the school's renderfarm, and it's working 'ok', but i'd rather be able to do all my rendering and such locally)

Anyways.. back on topic... so.. yea.. no complaints here. I guess this prooves you don't need a $500 video card to play the game well.

-delil
(images continued in next post)

IMO they dont look as good, but yeah, the card was 385 or something from frys, maybe 400 or so, the reason? performance. you cant dance around the issue that these cards perform much better than what you are running now. I will log onto CS source, put everything at max, then take a screenie of my FPS at 187. you would think that a video effects major would know the diference and appreciate the performance, apparently not. and if you can run H2 and get 100+ frames and have it look like above, props.

Quote:

Only acceptions are AA and some of the shadow quality.

And with exception to AA, and shadow quality....you mean two of the MAIN factors (with exception to AS and Textures obviously) in making a game look incredible? As an effects major you would know that ligthing is of incredible importance to high quality graphics, shadows go hand in hand. also, it takes a tremendous amount of power to run even 2x AA, yet my card can produce 6x AA and 16x AS filtering, again making games look great (even though guild wars goes up to 4x you can uncheck "application controled" to override). thats why we pay more, you get what you pay for.

P.S.
not meant to be an attack, just found it funny.

CatLady · May 18, 2005, 12:27 AM // 00:27

Quote:

IMO they dont look as good

They're posting .jpg's instead of .bmps - which lowers the image quality a lot.
Even a .bmp, however, lowers the image quality from what you see in game. Which I tried to point out earlier.

For example, in this .bmp on my geforce 6200 card (all game options on 'high', AA on 4x, AF on 4x), the pattern on the gryphon statue, walls, and colums etc looks much sharper (and more color-vibrant) in-game than it does in the (unaltered) picture (even tho the picture looks pretty good, IMO).
http://redwoodtower.com/images/guildwars/gw058.bmp (warning: over 5.5MB)
http://redwoodtower.com/images/guildwars/gw056.bmp (warning: over 5.5MB)

Screenshots really aren't the best medium for comparison - you'd have to sit in front of 2 PC's and look at the game in action for a serious comparison.

I don't think anyone is 'jealous' of people who use higher-end cards. It's just that most people don't care if their game looks 10% better graphically, or whether or not they get 178fps. If the game moves smoothly and doesn't lag and it looks pretty, most don't care beyond that. (edit - and don't like being told how 'sucky' their own cards are, when they're really just fine, heh)

Those that do care, great. But the rest of us, we're not obsessed by numbers, that's all. It's like audiophiles w/$6,000 worth of music equipment vs. people who are happy with $1000 stereo system. To the average joe, the difference is so neglible (or unnoticable) that they see no reason to spend 2-10 times as much.