Windows 8 Vs. R1q2

[ImperiusDamian]

No, like Quake4, CoD:MW3, Battlefield3.. If I were building a new rig today, I would probably skip a discrete GPU and just use the integrated stuff. The most demanding games I play are OpenGL 2 and DX9, heh.

That works, save some money! I'd still go with the discrete GPU, simply because while Crysis 3 doesn't interest me, I'm sure I'll want Doom 4 when it finally comes out...

[Jay Dolan]

No point building for a game that isn't out yet -- it'd make more sense to stick with the free integrated GPU until the game arrived. This is all hypothetical, of course

Altho there are some great deals on prev-gen iMac's on eBay right now.. 

[Golgo13]

anticheat is a first line of defense against casual cheaters.

As an admin I definitely find AC useful!

But Q2 can survive without it. It means going back to more players recording demos and more admins reviewing demos, but we did it before as a community. We can do it again if necessary...

Only if you had me and Alpha heading the demo department!  Lol

[ImperiusDamian]

No point building for a game that isn't out yet -- it'd make more sense to stick with the free integrated GPU until the game arrived. This is all hypothetical, of course

I'm more of a future-proofing kind of guy - probably because most of the prebuilt PCs I've bought have always been yesterday's tech! LOL!

[Golgo13]

Yea  future proofing saves the most money. i used those integrated chipsets years back, The performance was low. i had to replace my dual core for a 6 core in battlefield 3.  i also swapped out my graphics card for a better model. lost some money doing that some time ago. However since technological speeds are always advancing , it's common sense to want to get the high quality product for whatever reason. If you're mostly into pre 2005 games, then integrated chips are for you.

I would think integrated chips are being improved on as well. however i always thought it to be chancy. i guess players are really upgrading to windows 8 now? i would think that most players are content with their old systems running 95, XP, vista or 7.  depending if  they like pre 2000 games. quake 2 if it's their main game.

[Barton]

I think you should always double check those integrated graphic chips to see how good they are. Sometimes these companies love to cut corners and put in a shitty chip to cut down costs. Like my 2010 HP laptop that can only get 80fps in software mode on dm1, and the frames drop to 30-40fps when someone shoots a weapon. Maybe things are better now. 

[Jay Dolan]

I think you should always double check those integrated graphic chips to see how good they are. Sometimes these companies love to cut corners and put in a shitty chip to cut down costs. Like my 2010 HP laptop that can only get 80fps in software mode on dm1, and the frames drop to 30-40fps when someone shoots a weapon. Maybe things are better now. 

I think you're confused on what software mode means. Software mode uses your CPU for all rendering. The video card needs only to provide access to the framebuffer so that the CPU can write pixel data to it. In other words, you would see about the same framerate on a Radeon HD-6970 and a Voodoo Banshee in software mode.

I don't think there is a laptop manufactured today that wouldn't eat Quake3 for breakfast. Most smartphones have more GPU horsepower than the hardware Q3 was designed for.

[yahoo]

i would think that most players are content with their old systems running 95, XP, vista or 7.  depending if  they like pre 2000 games. quake 2 if it's their main game.

95? idk bout that. Maybe 98.
Im forced to use vista coz it came as the default OS in my Lappytop. Vista really sucks to a point I was thinking of downgrading to XP. But then again, I prolly just suck it up.

If youre prolly buying a new rig straight from a dealer, it would most likely be installed with win8

[ImperiusDamian]

95? idk bout that. Maybe 98.
Im forced to use vista coz it came as the default OS in my Lappytop. Vista really sucks to a point I was thinking of downgrading to XP. But then again, I prolly just suck it up.

If youre prolly buying a new rig straight from a dealer, it would most likely be installed with win8

Sadly yes. I'm hoping like hell my next rig will NOT come with Win8's Secure Boot feature, because from what I've heard trying to get Linux running on a system with Secure Boot can brick the damn thing!

[ex]

i would think that most players are content with their old systems running 95, XP, vista or 7.  depending if  they like pre 2000 games. quake 2 if it's their main game.

95? idk bout that. Maybe 98.
Im forced to use vista coz it came as the default OS in my Lappytop. Vista really sucks to a point I was thinking of downgrading to XP. But then again, I prolly just suck it up.

If youre prolly buying a new rig straight from a dealer, it would most likely be installed with win8

I don't really have any issues with Vista now that I put extra RAM to get 3 gigs in total.  Vista just needs a lot of RAM to run well.  My system is fast as fuck now that I have the RAM in there, and it's a mere 1.8 Ghz too with no vidcard.  :>

Sadly yes. I'm hoping like hell my next rig will NOT come with Win8's Secure Boot feature, because from what I've heard trying to get Linux running on a system with Secure Boot can brick the damn thing!

You know, buying a bare bones computer is the best way to avoid those kind of issues.  You just add whatever parts you want (aside from the basics the bare bones gives you - I think you get motherboard, processor, RAM, and a harddrive...might depend on where you go).  Then you can add a fresh install of whatever OS you want without any bullshit from a previous OS still on the system.

Ah yes, but what about OpenGL performance on Linux with an Intel 82945G Express Chipset?  :>

Is there OpenGL performance at all on ANY OS with an Intel chipset??

BTW, that post above was a tounge-in-cheek jab at my own system.  :>  But I actually do get fair performance on it anyway.  OpenGL runs average about 60-90 fps now, on this basic Intel integrated chipset.  The processor dictates how well things run.  1.8 Ghz does the current FPS, but I know someone who has a slightly newer, but same class of Express Chipset, on a 2.67 Ghz processor.  He gets around 250 FPS on average, which means that more intense games like Quake 4 could actually run decently on it.  Probably not anything higher-end though, especially within the last 4 years especially.

[Jay Dolan]

BTW, that post above was a tounge-in-cheek jab at my own system.  :>  But I actually do get fair performance on it anyway.  OpenGL runs average about 60-90 fps now, on this basic Intel integrated chipset.  The processor dictates how well things run.  1.8 Ghz does the current FPS, but I know someone who has a slightly newer, but same class of Express Chipset, on a 2.67 Ghz processor.  He gets around 250 FPS on average, which means that more intense games like Quake 4 could actually run decently on it.  Probably not anything higher-end though, especially within the last 4 years especially.

It's not that simple. id Tech 2 and id Tech 3 do not use the programmable pipeline. They use the OpenGL 1.x fixed-function pipeline, which any card from the last 10 years can utterly crush. This is why Quake2 and Quake3 are entirely CPU-bound on most hardware.

id Tech 4 was one of the first AAA engines to take advantage of OpenGL 2's programmable pipeline, in the form of per-pixel lighting. The fragment shaders in DOOM3 and Quake4 require a heck of a lot more GPU cycles than the FFP rasterization of Quake2. For this reason, plenty of hardware that was CPU-bound with Quake2 either becomes heavily GPU-bound or won't even run Quake4. I'm not sure your card supports OpenGL 2.0 at all.

[ImperiusDamian]

You know, buying a bare bones computer is the best way to avoid those kind of issues.  You just add whatever parts you want (aside from the basics the bare bones gives you - I think you get motherboard, processor, RAM, and a harddrive...might depend on where you go).  Then you can add a fresh install of whatever OS you want without any bullshit from a previous OS still on the system.

True... it's just a shame Dell doesn't seem to do that kind of thing. (The only way we can afford anything right now is because we buy on finance using a Dell account.) And sadly all the top-notch systems come with Win8 and no Win7 'downgrade' option. Which would be okay, if I could wipe it down and put Linux on it without bricking the fucker!

BTW, that post above was a tounge-in-cheek jab at my own system.  :>  But I actually do get fair performance on it anyway.  OpenGL runs average about 60-90 fps now, on this basic Intel integrated chipset.  The processor dictates how well things run.  1.8 Ghz does the current FPS, but I know someone who has a slightly newer, but same class of Express Chipset, on a 2.67 Ghz processor.  He gets around 250 FPS on average, which means that more intense games like Quake 4 could actually run decently on it.  Probably not anything higher-end though, especially within the last 4 years especially.

Mmm I can run Q2/Q3 on an Intel chipset, but as memory serves, I was very sad trying to get Doom3 to run. That was when I upgraded. LOL

[ex]

BTW, that post above was a tounge-in-cheek jab at my own system.  :>  But I actually do get fair performance on it anyway.  OpenGL runs average about 60-90 fps now, on this basic Intel integrated chipset.  The processor dictates how well things run.  1.8 Ghz does the current FPS, but I know someone who has a slightly newer, but same class of Express Chipset, on a 2.67 Ghz processor.  He gets around 250 FPS on average, which means that more intense games like Quake 4 could actually run decently on it.  Probably not anything higher-end though, especially within the last 4 years especially.

It's not that simple. id Tech 2 and id Tech 3 do not use the programmable pipeline. They use the OpenGL 1.x fixed-function pipeline, which any card from the last 10 years can utterly crush. This is why Quake2 and Quake3 are entirely CPU-bound on most hardware.

id Tech 4 was one of the first AAA engines to take advantage of OpenGL 2's programmable pipeline, in the form of per-pixel lighting. The fragment shaders in DOOM3 and Quake4 require a heck of a lot more GPU cycles than the FFP rasterization of Quake2. For this reason, plenty of hardware that was CPU-bound with Quake2 either becomes heavily GPU-bound or won't even run Quake4. I'm not sure your card supports OpenGL 2.0 at all.

Interesting.  That's why I like this community.  I learn new shit.  :>

BTW, looks like you're right, the express chipset doesn't natively support OpenGL 2.0, at least not mine for sure.

[ex]

You know, buying a bare bones computer is the best way to avoid those kind of issues.  You just add whatever parts you want (aside from the basics the bare bones gives you - I think you get motherboard, processor, RAM, and a harddrive...might depend on where you go).  Then you can add a fresh install of whatever OS you want without any bullshit from a previous OS still on the system.

True... it's just a shame Dell doesn't seem to do that kind of thing. (The only way we can afford anything right now is because we buy on finance using a Dell account.) And sadly all the top-notch systems come with Win8 and no Win7 'downgrade' option. Which would be okay, if I could wipe it down and put Linux on it without bricking the fucker!

If you have a Fry's Electronics near you, they have cheap as fuck bare bones that you can throw together.  Or there is an even cheaper option:  Buy everything from Newegg build it yourself.  You can hand-pick what you want for your complete system, for the bottommost price.  Just make sure you read the fuck out of the specs on the box, motherboard, processor, power supply, vidcard, RAM, sound card, etc. etc. to make sure it all matches up right.  Would suck to have to send something back for a refund.

[Barton]

I think you should always double check those integrated graphic chips to see how good they are. Sometimes these companies love to cut corners and put in a shitty chip to cut down costs. Like my 2010 HP laptop that can only get 80fps in software mode on dm1, and the frames drop to 30-40fps when someone shoots a weapon. Maybe things are better now. 

I think you're confused on what software mode means. Software mode uses your CPU for all rendering. The video card needs only to provide access to the framebuffer so that the CPU can write pixel data to it. In other words, you would see about the same framerate on a Radeon HD-6970 and a Voodoo Banshee in software mode.

I don't think there is a laptop manufactured today that wouldn't eat Quake3 for breakfast. Most smartphones have more GPU horsepower than the hardware Q3 was designed for.

Haha, I see. Well with this laptop I needed to run the game on software mode to get better frames. I don't remember the model name of the laptop or the onboard graphics chipset it uses. It was a crappy laptop period, but it was one of the cheapest ($600ish) I could buy while on base.