ORIGINAL: Eddie_the_Hated

I' m not saying games won' t get to Pixar levels of quality, just not photo-realism (At least not without some as-of-yet-undiscovered development in the way games are designed).

It' s called ray tracing and it already exists. It' s just not possible at the moment.

I like how Epic does it. Realism can be stylized as seen in Gears of War.

As the hardware becomes more and more powerful more of the things that were done by artists in 3D modelling and animation programs will be done by programmers. Just like how rag dolls replaced death animations. There will always be more that can be done (rain with each raindrop having water water particles wich have realistic physics etc.). Until some sort of new system like linking with your brain or something is formed.

ORIGINAL: choupolo

And Majik, you get your new PC yet?

No, it' s going to be at least another fortnight.

Component shortages and my messing about trying to figure out what i wanted have delayed it. Heh, but you guys will know just as soon as it arrives. Crysis will be the first game installed

Ray tracing is slow as hell. You can make some stuff in the 3D modelling program of your choice do the highest quality ray tracing then come back in 4 hours when it is finished and it will look better in UE3 in real time at 60 fps.

Realtime off-the-GPU ray tracing is the future of videogame lighting, and lighting is key to getting closer to photorealism.

Virtual reality sex slaves?

Hell yeah

Component shortages and my messing about trying to figure out what i wanted have delayed it. Heh, but you guys will know just as soon as it arrives. Crysis will be the first game installed

It' s definitely a good time to be buying now. Everything is dirt cheap. This is actually my first post from my new system that I built yesterday. What parts did you decide on?

It' s definitely a good time to be buying now. Everything is dirt cheap. This is actually my first post from my new system that I built yesterday. What parts did you decide on?

Same question directed towards you.

ORIGINAL: Majik

Realtime off-the-GPU ray tracing is the future of videogame lighting, and lighting is key to getting closer to photorealism.

lighting is key, but ray tracing is not. Ray tracing is slow as hell and not really that realistic. There are better ways to do it that are thousands of times faster.

ORIGINAL: UnluckyOne

It' s definitely a good time to be buying now. Everything is dirt cheap. This is actually my first post from my new system that I built yesterday. What parts did you decide on?

64 bit Vista
nForce 680i SLI Motherboard
Core 2 Extreme QX6850 @ 3.0GHz
4 GB DDR2 @ 1,066MHz (3.5GB effective using 64 bit Vista)
768MB 8800GTX ULTRA

Now here' s the thing. I was considering two 512MB 8800 GT' s in SLI, but i read that there are compatability issues and relatively poor performance (for SLI) in Crysis, so i figured an ULTRA would suffice. Is that the right choice?

Yeah, I' d recommend staying away from SLI/Crossfire unless you really have time and money to burn. I learned my expensive lesson the hard way. SLI only really works on games that support Nvidia' s " The Way It' s Meant To Be Played" initiative so that cuts down things. Nearly all new games that come out will have serious issues with SLI and you' ll end up having to run a single card anyway until Nvidia picks up the slack. It' s a constant battle with drivers.

My new PC specs are a bit more conservative than yours, due to being on a budget (Christmas is unforgiving).

Motherboard: Asus P5E X38
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
HDD: Seagate 250GB SATA (main bulk storage is on another PC)
RAM: Corsair 4GB DDR2 800Mhz
Graphics: Inno3D 512MB 8800GT
Optical: 18x SATA Pioneer 212D
Monitor: 22” Asus VW222U
Speakers: Logitech X530 5.1
CPU Heatsink: Zalman CNPS 9700
PSU: Thermaltake 750W
Case: Antec P182
Mouse & Keyboard: Logitech Desktop LX710
OS: Vista Home Premium 64 bit

I ran into some power issues that I later isolated to a dodgy power point. Other than that, she seem to be running fine so far.

ORIGINAL = Majik

4 GB DDR2 @ 1,066MHz (3.5GB effective using 64 bit Vista)

Not sure what you mean by this. Vista 64 bit should be able to recognize all 4GB+, only a 32 bit OS would have problems with that.

ORIGINAL: UnluckyOne

Not sure what you mean by this. Vista 64 bit should be able to recognize all 4GB+, only a 32 bit OS would have problems with that.

I think i' ve confused myself. Nevermind

ORIGINAL: UnluckyOne

My new PC specs are a bit more conservative than yours, due to being on a budget (Christmas is unforgiving).

Motherboard: Asus P5E X38
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
HDD: Seagate 250GB SATA (main bulk storage is on another PC)
RAM: Corsair 4GB DDR2 800Mhz
Graphics: Inno3D 512MB 8800GT
Optical: 18x SATA Pioneer 212D
Monitor: 22” Asus VW222U
Speakers: Logitech X530 5.1
CPU Heatsink: Zalman CNPS 9700
PSU: Thermaltake 750W
Case: Antec P182
Mouse & Keyboard: Logitech Desktop LX710
OS: Vista Home Premium 64 bit

Is there a noticable performance gain in the Quad Q6600 over a Core 2 Duo E6850???

How does Crysis look with the 8800 GT???

ORIGINAL: Majik


Is there a noticable performance gain in the Quad Q6600 over a Core 2 Duo E6850???

How does Crysis look with the 8800 GT???

E6850 is clocked at 3.0Ghz with 1333Mhz FSB
Q6600 is clocked at 2.4Ghz with 1066Mhz FSB

Out of the box and with applications that don' t utilize more than 2 cores, the E6850 is faster. But in applications that use more than 2, Q6600 should win out. I went quad core mainly for future proofing (more and more games are starting to support it) and with a bit of luck I should be able to overclock close to 3.0Ghz. I really think that if you put the two side by side and compared the same game running, there' d be little difference. Both kick a lot of ass.

As for Crysis, I don' t know. I have not bought the game yet.

Well, be sure to let us know how everything performs. You don' t post here often enough

Nice rigs guys. To clear a couple things up Majik, 64 bit will recognize all of your ram and utilize all of it if need be. About the processor, the Duo Core Extreme that you are getting is an amazing chip and will out perform the Quad that both UnluckyOne and I have with most current and pretty much all older games but just by a minuscule amount (no noticeable difference, just in the techy numbers) . The Quad core will outperform the Duo Extreme with Crysis (which was built around Quad Core processing) and future games that take advantage of the extra two cores. Programs like 3ds Max will also see a significant boost in performance when it comes to rendering times and such.

The Quad is obviously a bit more expensive (though the difference between the Due Extreme and the base Quad Core is only like $50) but like UnluckyOne said, it' s mainly for future proofing. The nice thing about the Quad Core is it' s supposed to be really easy to overclock and doesn' t produce very much heat when cranked up. I' ve read that you can safely overclock the Quad Core 2.4Ghz to 3.0 without having to add any extra cooling fans and the like.

What it boils down to is that the Due Extreme is for the most part the most cost effective processor out there. Anything you throw at it at this point (other than Crysis and 3d art programs) it will handle pretty much the best. Down the line is when the base Quad Core will start to eclipse it. I' m not factoring the Quad Core Extreme though. That owns them all... by a lot but it' s also vastly more expensive.

Rampage , Good to have you back ...

Thanks man

Quadro FX5500 1GB
KTHXBAI

$3,000 video card... no thank you.

But it is SLI compatible, you could get over 500 fps in crysis.