My GF needs a computer so i a friend put up a list. Anything you would change? Does SLI work fine with VG now? Would 2 7950s work better than a 8800gts?

ASUS S775 P5B Deluxe, DDR2, PCIe, Socket 775 Mainboard Intel P965/ICH8R Chipsatz, USB 2.0/Firewire/2x Gb LAN/Cross-Controller SATA II & PATA RAID/SATA II RAID/7.1 Audio/eSATA, 1x PCIe x16, 1x PCIe x16 (elextrisch x4), 1x PCIe x1, 3x PCI

ASUS EN8800GTS/HTDP, 640MB (PCIe)

DIMM DDR2 2048MB PC-667 CL5 Kit Kingston

Intel Core 2 Duo S775 E6600 (2x2.40GHz)

SATAII Harddisk mit 320 GB, 8,5ms, 16 MB Cache und 7.200 RPM

Im pretty clueless, any help appreciated!
Cheers, J.

Finlainea can give you some good info on this but I as far as I've been told the GFX 8800 >> having 2 7950's or whatever sli'd.

My machine runs the game perfect in 99% of the areas with max settings with the higher end 8800 and I don't even have any of the .ini files changed etc.

It might, situationally. But the 8800 will give you more features in the long and support more games in the end and just generally have a longer life span then the dual 7950's.

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-Rileigh (aka Golliwog)

i will admit... i am not that computer tech savvy. but i do want to play vanguard, and i am going to be either buying a new dell computer, or possibly building a new one (have a friend who has built a few in the past, or maybe turbo can offer to build one for me. although he plays a wizard, and i dunno if i trust wizards ).

anyone able to provide some links to specific pieces that i will need in order to play this game? i don't want to spend thousands of dollars, nor do i need the upper most echelon twinked/pimped out computer there is. i want an above average/good computer to play vanguard at good settings with good detail and good fps.

you can private message me if you wish on this, that is fine. but i see so much crap out there, and i really don't know the differences between 80% of this crap. just tell me what i should buy, and how much it is so i know.

thanks all.

-cc

Jalen, the system you listed looks a bit like mine (I have duo 7950GXs as well, but I am only using one to play Vanguard). I am playing Vanguard just fine with the specs that you listed. My average FPS is between 60 and 100, depending on where I am at and how many people are around. It rarely dips down to 35, and that is only around a very crowded area in town where a lot of things are going on, etc. once the game releases and all the major bugs are fixed, I think it will run an average 80fps.

Oh, that is balanced video settings.

What settings are you running it at? Damn that is good fps, i don't even get that in alot of area's and I have a pretty sexy little machine but then again I didnt tweak anything as of yet. Maybe the duo cards are provding better performance but most my sources say the 8800 still should come pretty far out on top.

Fin WRU you know this shit.

This is one wiz you don't want to trust when it comes to comps.....i had fin over vent trying to give me directions but half the time he gave up because I was taking so long, sob parts just don't fit

Turbo, bello said he was using "balanced" settings. ;p

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Was refering to jalens post but sorry, bad habit of only reading part of something and assuming I knew everything about it.....I blame having to read 150 page documents at work and pretending as if I am an expert

On a game related note though they really have tried to help performance, i see area's with 80+ fps once and a great while now which is well above any fps a gamer really needs. So once the debugging aspect is removed and a person optimizes his .ini files and what not I bet we see a 20-25% improvement in performance which will put me at perfect performance on my good comp and bearable performance on my shitty comp so honestly I think people are making to much a deal out of the perforance issue even though I know how fucking shitty it is to sit there all day taking a day off and just spend it crashing etc. Fuck grid used to TP me across the OoT because the boat would have already zoned in and out of the ocean by the time my gay comp got me in.

If i were to wage i'd say a 1300 dollar computer could run this acceptably ion today standards, I would strongly suggest sticking most your money into a 8800 graphics card though.

Turb run the highest everything setting at 100% in 1680x1050 and Anisotropic Filtering at 16x (AF 16x = non-blurry far/ at angle textures). Thats why you don't get the same performance as the balanced setting at a lower resolution hes probably running.

As for the original question: Yes I would still take a 8800GTS over 2x7950.

You can buy PC-6400 (DDR2-800) ram for the same price as PC-5300 (DDR2-667) so any reason you chose that ram?

Did you chose a power supply? If not then may I recommend one of those 2:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... ategory=58

They are great and both would be able to run a single 8800GTX or 2x 8800GTS in SLI if you decide to go that way in the future.

a VG dev said that Antialising is comming real soon. So SLI will probably be next on the list but either way a single 8800GTS or GTX is probably a better idea than dual 7950 like i said.

Any other questions?

According to the PhysX sites, Vanguard is going to be using their cards/drivers.

Is anyone using one of these cards and does it make a difference/impact?


Muli

I have the 8800 GTX and have a terible time with hitching.

I can run around at 80+ FPS and every few sec it will hitch down to 9fps then back up. I don't know if it is the card or my setup.

VG runs on my D Drive which is a 600gb Raid 0 w/2 300gb Seagate SATA II/300 cuddas. I thought that maybe it was a swap file thing but I have resized that to a fixed 2048. I have also taken my machine back to the standard E6400/PC6400 speeds (read: not OC'd) and still no help.

I have done all the sugestions on the boards. Nothing gets rid of the hitching...

Full system specs are:

Intel D975BX2 (latest 12/20 bios)
C2D E6400
Corsair XM2 PC6400 2gb
Creative labs X-Fi Extreme gamer
8800gtx
ANtech Case
Antech 650W PS

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
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VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

The PhysX card is not supported at the moment as far as I know it maye be in the future for effects like spells / cloth / capes etc... But for now it does nothing according to what I read.

Xkhanx go in your Vgclient.ini and modify those settings:
UseJoystick=False
UsePrecaching=True
ReduceMouseLag=False


If you don't have an X-fi or Audigy 4 also try:
LowQualitySound=True
And make sure you try the in game setting for Hardware Sound instead of Software.

--------
TextureDetailWorld=4 or 5
RenderQuality=5

This will reduce hitching a lot while still having the render quality to Very High (5). TextureDetailXXXXXX=0 is the best quality and 7 is higest performance but lower quality.

If you change the render quality in game you will have to re-aply this tweak.
--------

Under [D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice]
UsePrecaching=True
DisableShaderModel3=False

And DEFRAG DEFRAG DEFRAG DEFRAG it makes a fucking huge difference. I put the game alone on a small 7200rpm 80GB drive with only 2MB cache and it load faster than my 300Gb 16 meg cache drive because the game files are alone on the drive and completely defraged.

This is a shot of my FPS with the lowest video settings while I fight a bug. I was getting 100+ FPS on average the whole time.



That's also in the newbie area for dark elves, though I don't think many other people were around me at the time I took this shot.

I'll take some SSs later with balanced settings and one with highest possible settings all around to show you the difference.

Personally, a pretty game is nice to see, but overall I am more concerned with game play and play ability. That is why I normally play with a balanced video setting so I more or less get the best of both worlds.

Have done all of that, doesn't seem to help a bit. I was fine playing in beta 3, no hitching + 100+ fps etc, but now it is almost un-playable.

Funny thing is, I can play on my work machine that is the same setup except for D965WH board and onboard sound with X1950 Pro and I get 50+ FPS and no hitching... at all.

Both machines are defragged nightly.

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
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VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

Anyone else wanna comment on how horrible the graphics look with Bello's settings or do I have to do it?

It was a test.

I have been looking into building a new pc too. Mine is over 4 years old.

From all the reviews I been reading one 8800 GTS or GTX have been outperforming 2 7950s or whatever they are called on benchmarks. And if you have the money to 2 of them in? Nothing currently made or in the works is suppose to be able to push these 2 cards in sli mode to the wall.

I am considering the 8800 GTS as the minimum graphic card to go with for a new build.

I also been reading up on the cpus. Seems the best bang for the buck is the E6700 over the E6600.

I am just waiting for the mobos to stabilize for nvida 6 chipsets and more reviews / benchmarking as more manufactures are suppose to come out with them first quarter this year.

Honestly it reminds of North Ro.... Then again, if I can play the game and it's a good game.... I don't care what it looks like


Muli

Looks fine for the lowest possible video settings.

I'll give you a reason why Vanguard pictures vary so much in quality, it's because vanguard actually has graphics. Not like that one cartoony game.

Graphic settings are the devil!

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Oh and thats another thing. It doesn't matter what settings I have it on. Highest performance or Highest Quality, it hitches like a motherfucker...

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
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VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

Its a weird error, I used to get those hitches in beta 3, on lowest settings. Now on beta 4/5 I haven't hitched every 3-4 seconds, it sure was an annoying constant spike. It didn't matter if it was over crowded, or just me and a mob. Dunno how to fix it really, your computer just doesn't like vanguard. Are you running anything big on the background? But then again, it shouldn't matter, you have a core 2 duo.

Well, right now I am going thru my perfect disk 8.0 logs and seeing what files are really fragged and defragging them 1 by 1. Also I am going to try turning off my CA AV and see if that has any effect.

It isn't any kind of a packet spike or drop as my latebcy stays right around 180 and nice and green.

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
_____
VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

This is a shot of my FPS with on balanced settings while fighting a mob.



I took this right before I headed off to work this AM. I wanted to jump on and do some highest settings possible, but the game is down right now. I'll post later.

That looks better.

Vanguard running like ass on my PC is a good motivation not to pick up another MMO, hehe. We're talking 15fps with everything turned off...

(Radeon 9600SE)

This is a shot of my FPS with on the highest settings including some 16X antriscopic something or other while fighting a mob.



Now, these SSs are not to demonstrate the "beauty" of the game. They are only to demonstrate the average FPS I get with a system like what Jalen outlined on the best quality, balanced, and best performance settings.

Jalen, hopefully these will give you some idea of how a 7950GX will do on the sysmte you outlined. From the sounds of it, that new 8800 card is even better than two 7950GXs so you would probably do better to get one of those.

Hehehe, cute cartoon.

I think games like Vanguard and Age of Conan are going to force people into drastically updating a system they built a few years ago...or simply buy a new high-end system that can moderately handle the game.

You can see a direct correlation between the FPS and the video settings on my screenshots. The worst video is 120 FPS, average settings produce 60 FPS, and the best video is 30 FPS...30 while looking down at a mob you are fighting. On the highest settings, I get an average 15-20 FPS walking around and looking straight ahead. That is saying something about the game with the system that I have.

In a couple of years, the systems they produce will have Vanguard running at a minimum of 60 FPS on the best video settings. Until then, we find ourselves constantly trying to keep up with game programmers and the amazing products they are putting out.