Running games well on behemoth resolutions (1920x1200+)

[Thrik]

Being completely out of touch with computers yet having a load of cash to burn on a new PC, I turn to you guys in search of advice.

At the moment I have a 24 inch Dell monitor that has a native resolution of 1920x1200. I know at least a few others here have one, so you can probably empathise with me when I say that running games on older hardware is a nightmare due to the huge resolution -- and of course using a lower one isn't a good solution due to the nature of LCDs.

What I'm basically asking is: what kind of hardware do I need to run recent games (eg: Company of Heroes and any FPS of your choosing) at full whack on this thing?

I read something ages ago that indicated certain cards in the same range performed almost the same at lower resolutions, but once bumped up to something like 1920x1200 one would gain a massive lead in performance. Would I be better off shelling out the bank on a high end card, or would a couple of lesser ones (like, GeForce 7s) running in dual give better performance when it comes to pumping out high resolutions? Or do pretty much all cards of the latest series cope with the higher resolutions well?

If anyone has any other tips to give on buying a new computer right now (eg: what technologies to avoid/get) then go for it.

I was basically thinking of something with 2gb of RAM, and one of the better core 2 duo arse bandits. The graphics card is the main thing I'm not sure how to approach.

[Furyo]

Ncore 2 duo 6600

Geforce 8800 GTS

2 GB of Ram.

That's what I was gonna get, until I learned of some changes in my contract, which'll make me wait a bit

[JamesL]

I'm running a Dell 24 on an:

AMD64 3700+ San Diego

Asus A8N Mobo

GeForce 7800GT 256m gddr3

1 gig on Corsair XMS 3200 @ 2,2,2,5 (If I remember correctly...)

I run CSS / Source at native res 1920x1200 with 2x AA / 4x AF / High on most settings and HDR and get around 50-60 fps on most stock maps but lower (30-40) on some of the heavier custom ones (like my own)

Company of Heroes I run with most stuff on high or medium high, but I had to turn off the AA since when things got hectic it kinda ground to sub 10 fps and wasn't nice to play.

If I had cash I would probably go for an 8800 with plenty of memory on the board. I believe (can someone confirm?) that when you are running very high res screens the extra ram on the card really helps performance. You probably want to make sure you have a bang up to date CPU, mobo and RAM if you are going to go with the 8800 series though since I understand you can get some pretty heavy cpu bottlenecking on older chips.

[Thrik]

Since I'm feeling like a real dick head and taking your comment about memory being good for higher resolutions into consideration, I think I might just go for the 8800 GTX seeing as I've barely upgraded this thing since 2004 and have had enough of it being shit as fuck.

For a processor I was going towards the core 2 duo e6600 and then a pair of 1gb corsair XMS2-6400C4 TwinX whatsits for RAM.

Then it can all be obsolete again in a year.

[Defrag]

I believe (can someone confirm?) that when you are running very high res screens the extra ram on the card really helps performance

Yup. With AA at high resolutions the ~320MB versions can struggle on modern games. If you don't crank up the AA then it won't be much of an issue, though.

I wouldn't waste your dosh on a dual graphics card setup. Driver hassle, power supply cost, electricity costs. If you can afford a 8800 GTX then it'll do the business for you whatever you play. Notice how much the 320MB cards drop at the higher resolutions compared to the GTX. A GTS would do me fine, but your monitor will probably demand a GTX

http://www.trustedreviews.com/graphics/ ... S-320MB/p4

[Furyo]

If you're looking for more info on specific games/engines, I can say I've tried Rainbow Six Vegas (Unreal3) on the exact same rig I was planning to buy at a friend's place, and everything was cranked up and it was smooth as butter.

Then again he only was running at 1280x1024.

[zaphod]

I play wow and a couple of other games (bf2, some source mods) in 2560x1600, I have a moderately pimped dell XPS with 2 gigs ram and a geforce 7950 GX2

[Grinwhrl]

what ever you do, "Be a Maan! Do the right ting" get 4 gb of ram!!!!!

[Thrik]

4GB seems a bit excessive at this stage in the game; I think I'd rather invest that money in the CPU or GPU, which is pretty much what I'm doing by going for the 8800 GTX.

I've come to the realisation that as long as I use such a non-standard resolution, I'm never going to be able to run the latest games on full for long as developers will obviously focus on squeezing the most out of the cards on the more common resolutions such as 1280x1024, which takes considerably less power.

It kind of burns a little, to the point where I'm now considering buying a smaller widescreen LCD and selling off my 2407. The screen real estate is nice, but I'm not sure it's worth having to constantly upgrade to keep games running decently on its epic resolution.

I really wish a display technology without massive inherent flaws would come along. If a monitor doesn't weigh a million pounds and have an ugly case, it can't display true black (instead, dark grey) and is fixed to one resolution. God.