Which video card for Empires

Discussion in 'Support' started by meg griffin, Jul 25, 2011.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. meg griffin

    meg griffin Member

    Messages:
    618
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Ok,
    My 8600GT from 3 years ago finally died and my box can only run the shitty onboard video that gives me 6 fps in empires. D:

    Right now i am not looking for the latest technology that gives me 400 FPS but more like a cheap solution with 40-50 FPS.

    :eek:

    Which cheap video card would you suggest for Empires?
     
  2. MOOtant

    MOOtant Member

    Messages:
    4,047
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Empires can't get you good FPS because it's CPU bound in some places. When it comes to Nvidia my relatively old GTX 260 does good job. You should check GPU charts yourself but 460 or 5850/6850 class should do fine.

    Buy your graphics card with budget and kinds of games in mind, if you want to have any relation with Empires see TF2 performance. If Empires on Source gets ported to TF2 version of the engine (L4D/TF2/AlienSwarm) it could get a lot faster.
     
  3. McGyver

    McGyver Experimental Pedagogue

    Messages:
    6,533
    Likes Received:
    31
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Even a 9800GT is good enough to run Empires fine. (Note that your FPS in source games is anyway more dependent on your CPU).
    I have an AMD 5750 and it also runs Empires just fine. Don't know if those two cards are even sold anymore.
     
  4. ViroMan

    ViroMan Black Hole (*sniff*) Bully

    Messages:
    8,382
    Likes Received:
    4
    Trophy Points:
    0
    9600gt was fine too.
     
  5. w00kie

    w00kie Mustachioed Mexican

    Messages:
    3,863
    Likes Received:
    13
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I updated from gtx260 to gtx560 TI and do get some more frames out of empires, but it's only a 15%ish improvement. I can recommend gtx550 and gts450 for empires and everything else that came out within last year.
     
  6. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

    Messages:
    13,299
    Likes Received:
    168
    Trophy Points:
    0
    get something that can run BF3 ;)
     
  7. Fooshi

    Fooshi For fuck's sake Fooshi

    Messages:
    4,741
    Likes Received:
    18
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I think you can get a cheap 5770 somewhere if you're lucky. Can run Bad Company 2 on full (1400x1050 + 4AA & 8AF) with avg. fps around 60-90.
    Works pretty nice in Emp too. Get a custom cooler to overclock your CPU while you're shopping.
     
  8. Apex

    Apex Member

    Messages:
    191
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I was running Empires on a GeForce 7400 GT before it died, but this was before the updates that killed a lot of peoples' FPS. Anything you can find that isn't integrated & supports DX9 that you can find easily on the market will probably play it.
     
  9. Brutos

    Brutos Administrator Staff Member Moderator

    Messages:
    3,385
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
  10. MOOtant

    MOOtant Member

    Messages:
    4,047
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    While sucking dick on Linux, having small market share, not being nvidia which has most games with their logo and so on.
     
  11. Brutos

    Brutos Administrator Staff Member Moderator

    Messages:
    3,385
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I dislike nvidia ever since I had a constantly > 120°C GPU. I'm not going to recommend them anytime soon.
     
  12. Trickster

    Trickster Retired Developer

    Messages:
    16,576
    Likes Received:
    46
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Nvidia master race kthx. Fuck your stupid catalyst control centre fucking up all my shit. 4870x2 was the worst card I'd ever had. Anyway, this thread is already heading into GPU wars, so let's stop that here.

    In short, as it was said a few times, CPU is the issue. I have a 285GTX, but when I dropped my CPU clock from 3.6ghz back to the stock 2.66ghz, I suffered more than 70% FPS reduction, and that's not even a slight exaggeration.
     
  13. meg griffin

    meg griffin Member

    Messages:
    618
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Thanks for the Link Brutos and all the people that provided information. I have a decent CPU and the issue is the stupid onboard GPU.

    All the sugested cards are in the range of 65-150 GBP.

    nvidia GTX and GTS cards seem to be between 120-150 and ati HD about 100-150 GBP. The previous generation of cards which is the 9600 starts at 65 and I found an 8600 gt for 35 GBP...

    As this is a temporary solution i will go with the cheapest until I can get my hand in some US stock.

    And to fuel the wars... I really dont like ATI as one of their cards burn (literally) my computer down...
     
  14. ViroMan

    ViroMan Black Hole (*sniff*) Bully

    Messages:
    8,382
    Likes Received:
    4
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I will put my 2 cents into this GPU war...

    Nvidia:
    +Drivers are great and stable
    +Overclock heaven
    +Physx(better looking shit)
    -Physx(less fps due to the awesomeness)
    -Power hungry

    ATI:
    +Cheaper
    -Unstable drivers
    -Larger cards then comparable nvidia cards
     
  15. Brutos

    Brutos Administrator Staff Member Moderator

    Messages:
    3,385
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    The flame war is useless. Closing the thread since OP seems to have found what he is looking for, if not PM me and I reopen the thread.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page