A decent 5200? Ti 4200 in DX9 games?

[supperman]

Hi everyone!

I'd finally fixed up my new PC, and for the video card, I went over to the Red side for the first time with a Radeon 9500. However, it is not detecting the native resolution of my widescreen LCD at all and the technical support hasn't been helpful at all, so I think I'm going to return (with my tail beneath my legs) to the Green side.

However, looking at the price/performance ratio of current nVidia products, I don't think any of the higher end products can compete with the Rads (you can get a 9700 for a 5600ultra and there's not much to say about the price and performace of a 9600). Therefore, I think I will tough it out with a budget card until DX9 games mature and the cards become fully optimised for them (it helps when you have a PS2).

I have been looking around and I think the general consensus is that the Ti4200 actually performs better than the fx 5200 at DX8 games. But what about future DX9 games? If I don't use AA or AF, would the 5200 outperform the 4200? Currently, I'm leaning closer to the 5200 cos I think that it will. I know that it will perform really badly, but I'm patient and it will be interesting to see how long I'll hold out until I start smashing my head against my monitor.

Following this thought, I had tried to do a comparison on the 5200s and the only round up I found was this one in Korean: http://www.darkcrow.co.kr/Review/Review_Content.asp?board_idx=156&contentpage=1.
Can't read anything, but seems to suggest (from reading numbers) that some of them have a 500mhz ram with 4ns Rams and thus have a better performance. The performance winner is the Prolink model... has anyone actually tried this model before? Any good?

Oops, I seem to have written quite a bit. Sorry for the long read. Any helpful comments welcomed!!

[gokickrocks]

if you want to use a widescreen resolution, i suggest you download the rage3d tweak or use powerstrip

btw, what resolution are you running?

[Sazar]

both are going to be slow.. the 4200 will not render the dx9 effects... but it will still play the game.. the 5200 will render the effects but the speed it does so is unlikely to blow anyones pants off :)

for todays games... and in the near future you are better off getting a decent 4200 variation... you can just upgrade @ the tiem you feel like you want to see nice dx9 effects @ decent performance when the time comes.. most of todays cards will be cheaper then anyways :) and you can enjoy gaming from today itself...

my $0.02

[extreme_dB]

ATI drivers don't support many resolutions by default, but custom resolutions can be added in the registry.

Here's information taken from Rage3d:


The Radeon display driver is built to support a number of display modes that are not enabled in the driver by default. The reasons for this are many fold and I won't go into the details. At any rate, it is possible to enable these modes by adding registry keys to turn them on, IF and only IF your monitor reports that it supports these modes.

Here are the modes that are built in but not enabled

704x480 @ 60 Hz
720x400 @ 70, 75, 85, 160, 200 Hz
720x480 @ 59.94, 60, 72, 75, 85, 90, 100 Hz
720x576 @ 59.94, 60, 75, 100 Hz
848x480 @ 60, 75, 88 Hz
856x480 @ 60 Hz
864x480 @ 60, 75 Hz
960x720 @ 60 Hz
1024x600 @ 60 Hz
1072x600 @ 60 Hz
1280x720 @ 59.94, 60, 75, 85 Hz
1280x768 @ 56, 60, 75, 85 Hz
1280x800 @ 60, 85, 100, 160, 200 Hz
1280x960 @ 60, 70, 72, 75, 85, 100, 120, 160, 200
1360x768 @ 62 Hz
1400x1050 @ 60 Hz
1536x864 @ 60, 85, 100, 120, 160 Hz
1600x900 @ 60, 75, 85, 100, 120, 160 Hz
1600x1000 @ 60, 75, 85, 100, 120, 160 Hz
1600x1024 @ 76 Hz
1600x1280 @ 86.52 Hz
1856x1392 @ 60, 72, 75, 90, 100 Hz
2048x1152 @ 60, 75, 85, 100 Hz
2048x1280 @ 60, 70, 75, 85, 90, 100 Hz

To turn these on, go to the following section
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ATI Technologies\Driver

In there will be numbered sub-folders (perhaps only 1 of them) \, for example ?\0002?. In the numbered folder will be a \DAL folder, and in that will be the key;

DALNonStandardModesBCD

The format of this key is a number of entries that enable the non-standard modes above. The data is formatted as follows

HH HH VV VV CC CC RR RR

where
* HH HH represents horizontal resolution
* VV VV represents vertical resolution
* CC CC represents color depth
* RR RR represents refresh rate

for example, to enable 1920x1080@70Hz: DALNonStandardModesBCD 19 20 10 80 00 00 00 70. The value of 00 00 indicates a wild card. In this case CC CC = 00 00 represents all color depths.

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by supperman
I have been looking around and I think the general consensus is that the Ti4200 actually performs better than the fx 5200 at DX8 games. But what about future DX9 games? If I don't use AA or AF, would the 5200 outperform the 4200? Currently, I'm leaning closer to the 5200 cos I think that it will. I know that it will perform really badly, but I'm patient and it will be interesting to see how long I'll hold out until I start smashing my head against my monitor.

I don't think there is any proof that a gfFX5200 will perform better in a DX9 game than a gf4Ti4200. It seems that the gfFX5200 is being maxed by DX8 games, strained to its limits. I don't see how it would pull ahead when its being strained even further.

The gf4Ti4200 should be faster than the gfFX5200 with or without FSAA/AF. A gfFX5200Ultra might be able to give a gf4Ti4200 a run for its money. I doubt it will though.

nV News will have a review out shortly of a gfFX5200Ultra, so you may want to hold out for that, as I'm sure the staff here will put the card through a plethora of game benchmarks :)

Judging from some Doom3 benchmarks (http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030512/geforce_fx_5900-11.html) at Tom's, the gf4Ti4200 is going to be faster than the gfFX5200Ultra.

@1024 Medium
5200Ultra is 27.5% slower than 4200
@1280 Medium
5200Ultra is 28.3% slower than 4200
@1600 Medium
5200Ultra is 32.0% slower than 4200

This basically proves my point. As the situation gets more stressful, the 5200 falls further behind the 4200. I think the gf4Ti4200 is the better card(because it is also cheaper anyway). Honestly, I would like to believe that the gfFX5200Ultra would be shown in a better light as games get more demanding, but that just doesn't seem realistic. If the gfFX5200Ultra was cheaper, I would say go for it...but it's not :p

[aapo]

Originally posted by supperman
I'd finally fixed up my new PC, and for the video card, I went over to the Red side for the first time with a Radeon 9500. However, it is not detecting the native resolution of my widescreen LCD at all and the technical support hasn't been helpful at all, so I think I'm going to return (with my tail beneath my legs) to the Green side.

I think since you already have the R9500, the best way to cope with the situation is 1) try to do the registry tweak that extreme_dB proposed 2) If you haven't used the regedit, you could perhaps find a person to do the job for you with little or no cost at all.

However, if you for some reason are not willing to do that, I'd recommend the FX5200. Be warned. it's much slower than the Radeon, but if you can live with that, I think it's both good and cheap.

[supperman]

Hi guys!

Thanks for your help. I'd gone through my resolution problem with Rage3D and ATi support and it's not really that simply. The card detects that the native resolution of my monitor to be 1024x768, so that's the maximum I can select normally. However, I can select the right resolution, 1280x768, if I install the monitor driver. The problem is that the actual viewing space becomes too large for the screen, so the left and right ends become hidden and I'll have to 'scroll' to the left or right to see them. I had absolutely no problems with my old nVidia card, so that's why I'm blaming ATi. That's the story. Sorry I wasn't that so clear to begin with, but I had been typing it so often I got a little sick :P

Hmmmm.... having read your comments, it's a question of whether eye candy is more important than performance. Oooh, just had a look a Newegg for Ti4200.... looks like only the 64mb board is price comparable to the 128mb 5200s. How would the 64mb 4200 match up against the 128mb 5200?

Thanks for your comments! They are really useful :)

[aapo]

Originally posted by supperman
I'd gone through my resolution problem with Rage3D and ATi support and it's not really that simply. The card detects that the native resolution of my monitor to be 1024x768, so that's the maximum I can select normally. However, I can select the right resolution, 1280x768, if I install the monitor driver. The problem is that the actual viewing space becomes too large for the screen, so the left and right ends become hidden and I'll have to 'scroll' to the left or right to see them.

Yes, it's never easy with hardware problems, otherwise they wouldn't be problems, would they? It sounds like you're correct in that the 1280x768 isn't activated in the card, and Windows just uses 1024x768 with virtual desktop feature. I had a problem with the ATi modes with a 9000pro (all resolutions but only in 60Hz). I tried some registry tweaking programs, but they didn't help; it turned out my Windows registry was a mess, because I hadn't done a reinstall after 3dfx and Matrox cards and a couple of motherboards. :p I ended up reading through the registry and deleting manually all modes with 60Hz and adding some modes with higher frequencies. Now my computer can't go to 60Hz modes at all, and I am very happy with the situation.
;)

You could try something similar by deleting all display driver modes with 1024x768 and adding modes with 1280x768. I admit it's a very haphazard thing to do, but correctly done I'm certain it resolves the issue.

The easiest and maybe also the best solution, like you said, is to switch your card to an nVidia product. However, as it's said by others in this thread, if you want to play the upcoming Doom3, you should propably choose FX5600 or upwards. In your situation I would tweak the R9500 until it would work, because I wouldn't want to spend money just to exchange the card to something slower (meaning FX5200 or Ti4200). But if money is not an issue, an FX5600 ultra could be nice.

EDIT: formatting

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by aapo
The easiest and maybe also the best solution, like you said, is to switch your card to an nVidia product. However, as it's said by others in this thread, if you want to play the upcoming Doom3, you should propably choose FX5600 or upwards. In your situation I would tweak the R9500 until it would work, because I wouldn't want to spend money just to exchange the card to something slower (meaning FX5200 or Ti4200). But if money is not an issue, an FX5600 ultra could be nice.

I agree. the gfFX5600 should seriously be considered here. It is faster than the gfFX5200/Ultra, so while it may still be slower in many games today than a gf4Ti4200 without FSAA or AF, it is still a capable card. It is faster in Doom3 than a gf4Ti4200(well, the Ultra is, by a good margin. so the non-Ultra should be too). It is also faster than a gf4Ti4200 with FSAA/AF, and MUCH faster than a gfFX5200 with FSAA/AF.

a 64MB gf4Ti4200 is still better than a 128MB gfFX5200 non-Ultra. The non-Ultra is too slow for real gamers to ever consider. The gfFX5200Ultra is much better than the non-Ultra. I think I would recommend getting a 128MB gfFX5200Ultra over a 64MB gf4Ti4200, although you should be able to find a 128MB gf4Ti4200 for less than a gfFX5200Ultra.

[The Baron]

Avoid the 5200. Right now, it feels no better than my GF3 did (and the GF3 was in a 1.4Ghz TBird compared to a Barton 2500+).

The 5200 is a card without a market...

[supperman]

Thanks, I'll try the regedit thing when I go home...

My problem with the 5600 is that you have to have the Ultra to compete with the 9600 or the 9500, unfortunately, for its price, I might as well get a 9700. The 5600 vanilla is still more expensive than the 9500, but seems to be less powerful than the latter. I will feel really bad if I have to pay more for something less powerful. To me, it's more logical to pay less to get something less powerful, and hence my choice of the 128mb 5200 or the 64mb Ti4200.

I know that it will suck big time, but I'd rather save up the money to blow it big on maybe a NV40 (or more likely the mid range product of that), when the demands of a DX9 game really becomes clear.

Thanks Aapo, if you really think that there's away to salvage my 9500, then that will really solve my headache. Funny, I seem to be getting better Radeon advice from a nVidia forum. You guys rock!

[aapo]

Originally posted by supperman
Thanks Aapo, if you really think that there's away to salvage my 9500, then that will really solve my headache. Funny, I seem to be getting better Radeon advice from a nVidia forum. You guys rock!

Ok. Regedit starts with "Start->run" and then write "regedit" to the run-box. RegEdit is like windows explorer, but it's far more dangerous. ;) The correct keys (in my Windows Me at least) are in

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrenControlSet/Services/Class/DISPLAY/0000/MODES/32/1024,768

the "0000" part means the first adapter, so "0001" would be the tv-out / second monitor if it exists. I'm not certain whether they can be in different order. After modes comes "32" which means bitsperpixels of the mode. You can also change 16bpp and 8bpp modes.

I would recommend that first you change your desktop to 800x600, because if something goes wrong you can lose the 1024x768 mode. Now you can rename the said key "1024,768" to "1280,768" with edit->rename. When you have selected the renamed key "1280x768" you can then choose edit->new->string value, which you should name "RefreshRate" and set there a suitable value your monitor can handle e.g. "75". The "RefreshRate" -key might already be there, then you can leave it untouched.

You also need extreme_dB:s tweak:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ATI Technologies\Driver\0000\DAL\
where you should find a binary value "DALNonStandardModesBCD1" which should in your situation be set to "12 80 07 68 00 00 00 75"

Note: extreme_dB said it's "DALNonStandardModesBCD" but in my comp it's "DALNonStandardModesBCD1". You can however set up both binary literals, it won't hurt.

In the same key there is "DALRestrictedModesBCD1" that you can set to an empty value (delete all numbers with edit->modify).

After these mods you should close the regedit and reboot. Then change the resolution from "800x600" to "1280x768" in the control panel. If all went well, you may have the "1280x768" working correctly. If not, you can search the registry for "1024x768" and change them to "1280x768". This is however very hazardous thing to do, so you should expect your Windows to cease operation if worst things happen.

[jAkUp]

well.. im still unsure how much the 5200 drivers will mature... but as of right now, if you are planning to upgrade when dx9 games come out, just go with the geforce4... its faster, and it runs cooler:)

[extreme_dB]

The 9500 can definitely run at 1280x768 using tweak programs or registry editing. It's not necessary to delete other display entries in the registry (and how would games work when they don't support 1280x768?).

Make sure you have multi-monitor support disabled for the time being. When I was setting up an R8500 for 1280x960 it wouldn't work at first because a second monitor with lower timings was interfering. It caused me a lot of hassle to troubleshoot the problem. A search on google groups was helpful.

[supperman]

Urgh! Can't find the 'Class' sub-directory under CurrentControlset/Services... I'm on XP HE, so I won't be surprised if it's changed... tried finding but no luck.

Help!!

[extreme_dB]

Did you try searching the registry for specific keys? I can't help right now because I'm using WinME with an Nvidia card.

[supperman]

I haven't found it right 'key' yet, but I just tried using a VGA connection instead of the DVI and lo and behold, the native resolution and max refresh rate is correctly detected and runs beautifully without any incorrect stretching... sigh... why can't it be the digital?

I had just seen the Abit Siluro 5600 ultra... sweet... I think it's the best looking card I've seen by far... I'm now rather tempted to get it instead. Personally, I feel that any one who tries to make more aesthetically pleasing products should be richly rewarded and supported :) Problem is, does anybody know if this is a newly revised 5600U board or the rather lacklustre old one? I tried looking for the tell tale CPU speed and memory speeds, but the closest I got was 11.2Gb/s memory bandwidth... Any clues as to what that translates to?

Cheers!