is the IGP on ASUS A8N VM CSM powerful enuf???

[sav_more]

i have budget of around 20K i have decided on da following
ASUS A8N VM CSM board
amd 3200+
seagate barracuda 120gb
2 X 256mb ddr
cabinet,KBoard,mouse...
i have to decide on 6600 from nvidia or 5.1 speaker set.
i can buy either the grafix card or speakers.
so is the IGP on this board enuf to handle games such as F.E.A.R or Doom3,san andreas.
i dont mind playin on low or medium settings as long as the game runs.
is the onboard solution enuf or is the card required.
if it is enuf i can go for the speakers.
please help.

system will be used for occational games,movies,songs
THANKS

[gannu_rox]

Hello there,

Well I'm using the mobo with the same chipset; but as far as games go, dont xpect anything above medium @ 800*600, otherwise it may get choppy.

LOTR:BFME2 was stressing the card like hell @ above specs.

So get a gfx card.

PS. I suppose u do have a 2.1 spkr or get a decent pair of headphones. Philips, Gainward seems to be the best bet for abt Rs.990.

Bye

[sav_more]

thanks man.so i guess i'll get da gfx card

[akshayt]

if you want to game then the igp is not enough, moreover you may get a crap mobo with very low if at all oc capacity and something not that great

get a 3000 venice if you are really low on budget or wait for conroe for price fall.

if you plan to play modern games released in the last year then a 6600 vanilla will crap your games

2-3yr old games might be acceptable but not great 3-4yrs should be just fine

2yrs or older maybe ok and some maybe great

[gary4gar]

Originally Posted by gan12320021

Hello there,

Well I'm using the mobo with the same chipset; but as far as games go, dont xpect anything above medium @ 800*600, otherwise it may get choppy.

LOTR:BFME2 was stressing the card like hell @ above specs.

So get a gfx card.

PS. I suppose u do have a 2.1 spkr or get a decent pair of headphones. Philips, Gainward seems to be the best bet for abt Rs.990.

Bye

what so special about the headphones that they owe a price tag of 990. i am using a headphone from techcom for Rs 125 for past 6 months

[samrulez]

Well......the 6150 is the best IGP around...........if u r tight on budget get the IGP....use it for a few months and then get a 7600 or something........

[deathvirus_me]

Well .. here something i can say :

With 1 GB ram , 64 MB shared .. u can run NFS MW at 800*600 , medium settings with smooth gameplay ...

[sav_more]

thanks to all u guys for answering.
i like the idea of getting a 3000+ and putting a few more bucks in da grafix card.
i dont want to run games at 1024x768 with full screen AA.just want the game to
run at atleast 800x600 for occational gaming.
thanks again.

[akshayt]

1)8X6 is crap for gaming on a 17" monitor.
2)The diference between the head phones is the same as a 5k card and a 10k graphic card.
3)few months down the line a 7600GT would be low end and crap, already it has come down to 10X7 med.
4)64mb shared is crap, I would say to play the game even at 800X600 med, you should have a geforce 6600 with atleast 128mb dedicated memory. 64mb shared is crap for any setting in this game.
5)even for 800X600 you should get a geforce 6600 or geforce 7300GS(not TC), onboard is not enough

[deathvirus_me]

64mb shared is crap, I would say to play the game even at 800X600 med, you should have a geforce 6600 with atleast 128mb dedicated memory. 64mb shared is crap for any setting in this game.

Yeah right ... and how much diff. does 128 MB make ??? specially since with 512 MB ram ??? if u do share 128 MB then , then ur left wil 384 MB ram .. and XP on it ... yeah right ..

few months down the line a 7600GT would be low end and crap, already it has come down to 10X7 med.

WTF ??? In what game dude ? Where do u live ??? In ur dreams ....

[akshayt]

dude, a 6600GT today is low end, this same card 6-8 months back used to be mid range, now it is low end, everybody knows that.

Also, 64mb and 128mb makes a huge difference,
1) Most decent cards don't come in 64mb
2) This is not the case of 512mb and 256mb, todays games fully use 128-256mb, so 64mb is less

512mb is the bare minimum for any game today, for practical purposes get atleast 1gb ram

[Ethan_Hunt]

Originally Posted by akshayt

Also, 64mb and 128mb makes a huge difference,
1) Most decent cards don't come in 64mb
2) This is not the case of 512mb and 256mb, todays games fully use 128-256mb, so 64mb is less

That's strange you are comparing a dedicated card's memory usage with an onboard's.The onboard too can stretch to 128MB but virtually it makes no real difference as the chipset itself is capped to deliver certain amount of bandwidth to the game.Let me remind you that onboard uses physical memory as a base to secure its sharing part and hence it wouldn't make world of a difference if we shift it to either 32MB,64MB or even 128MB(Except the physical memory getting depleted).All will work on more or less the same bandwidth.Most of My friends have the Asus A8N VM and most of the games that I have tried on them have worked similarly with either 64MB Vram settings as they do on 128MB shared settings.Agreed that today's games uses 128MB to draw complex textures but that starts to begin when the resolutions start to cramp over 1024x768 settings with visuals set to medium.The more heavy the game on textures the higher is the deamand of Video Memory i.e. if you ought to play them at utmost settings.

dude, a 6600GT today is low end, this same card 6-8 months back used to be mid range, now it is low end, everybody knows that.

Considering the time frame that it was there for,I would say that it had extremely good potential.Though now the games are getting more intense on graphics and hence taking into account the time this card was released it is doing fairly good at 1024x768 resolutions.Each card would meet the same fate some years down the line but that dosen't mean that we dump those and wait for something which would secure you for lifetime.The 7600GT is doing fine and by the looks of it the card can pull off till later half of next year at decent resolutions.

[deathvirus_me]

Also, 64mb and 128mb makes a huge difference,
1) Most decent cards don't come in 64mb
2) This is not the case of 512mb and 256mb, todays games fully use 128-256mb, so 64mb is less

If i'm not mistaken , the onboard 6100 IGP has 2 pixel , and 1 vertex piplines .... do you think 64 or 128 MB will matter much ??? Also , the graphic mem. is synchronised with the system mem. , so they share the same frequency ... so now .. even the mem. bandwidth is capped ... again ,do u think 128 MB and 64 MB will make much of a diff ??? Onboard IGP's are not comparable to add-on GPU's ...

Well .. about using 256 MB Vram ... very few game use the whole thing ... some don't even cross 150 MB .... any card with high clocked ddr3 mem. can handle anything with just 256 MB Vram .. rest depends upon the core. ..

512mb is the bare minimum for any game today, for practical purposes get atleast 1gb ram

I hope ur taking about system mem. .. Then dude ... for better gameplay 2 GB is recommended. . 1 GB has become the utmost min. for gaming right now ...

[bharathbala2003]

Originally Posted by deathvirus_me

for better gameplay 2 GB is recommended. . 1 GB has become the utmost min. for gaming right now ...

ok your first line is accepted with 2gb ram ul not get better but fab. gameplay provided u got a GFX to support atleast a 6600 GT n man which game is havin 1gb min req? if u have a 512MB DDR 400 n 256 MB 6600 GT ul b safe for a yr or two.. am using 512MB ddr 400 with fx5200 ultra(128 mb) n am able 2 play the games at atleast AA if not AAA.. which is gud enuff man.. n i run a AMD 64FX 3000+

and as for IGP its the crappiest man.. and shared vga's are always a problem.. u wil buy a game since it is said 64mb gfx card n ul have 128 mb shared on 1gb or somethin.. but it wil not cos it wil not have the text filters or fogging etc..

[Ch@0s]

Originally Posted by gary4gar

what so special about the headphones that they owe a price tag of 990. i am using a headphone from techcom for Rs 125 for past 6 months

LOL they sound better than ur crappy techcom and yeah people spend a lot on headphones cos they sound incredible compared to speakers. Approximately, its like 1$ spent on headphones = 6$ spent on speakers. I use a sennheiser HD580 and if I were to get speakers+amp that sound as good as those, they'd cost atleast 3000-4000$ including everything. The headphone+amp+accessories just cost me around 250$ . As far as buying in India is concerned, the best deal is philips HP805 for around 1k.

[Ethan_Hunt]

^Not to mention the Zalman 5.1 headphones which are a bang for buck.
The sound in these babies are truly mind blowing but the price tag of 1.9k is a bit over the top.

[Ch@0s]

Zalman is more of gimmicks and less of substance... however they are cheaper than 5.1 speakers so there's some virtue of them selling.

[Ethan_Hunt]

Since they technically can't replace the 5.1 speaker set up they do at times yield good amount of surround effects preferably in games.Movies don't sound much different on it.The only down point to it is that they are way too large in size but thats just me I guess.

[deathvirus_me]

ok your first line is accepted with 2gb ram ul not get better but fab. gameplay provided u got a GFX to support atleast a 6600 GT n man which game is havin 1gb min req? if u have a 512MB DDR 400 n 256 MB 6600 GT ul b safe for a yr or two.. am using 512MB ddr 400 with fx5200 ultra(128 mb) n am able 2 play the games at atleast AA if not AAA.. which is gud enuff man.. n i run a AMD 64FX 3000+

First of all .. there is no AMD 64FX 3000+ ... and ur card is one of the worst ever (i may sound harsh , but it is) ...

2nd ... AA , AAA i mean .. AA is ok ... what is AAA ??

3rd ... Did u try Battlefield 2 .. or maybe Call of Duty 2 ... or maybe Oblivion ... or maeybe Boiling Point .. or maybe Hitman Blood Money .. or maybe Need for Speed Most Wanted ..
The thing is that ... at low settings .. u probably can do with a FX5200 and 512 MB ram .. but then .. at low settings , the 6100 IGP with 512 MB ram should do the same too ... turn up the settings a bit ... u'll see that u'll have to face loads of stuttering , even with games that have recommended 512 MB ram ... coz that WinXP u use is already a resource hog ...

And also .. 512 MB min. RAM requirements generally points to 512 MB free system memory , and not 512 MB system memory ...

[bharathbala2003]

Originally Posted by deathvirus_me

First of all .. there is no AMD 64FX 3000+ ... and ur card is one of the worst ever (i may sound harsh , but it is) ...

sorry was atypo 3200+

what is AAA ??

wel if am not mistaken its a highest setting possible in a graphics

3rd ... Did u try Battlefield 2 .. or maybe Call of Duty 2 ... or maybe Oblivion ... or maeybe Boiling Point .. or maybe Hitman Blood Money .. or maybe Need for Speed Most Wanted ..
The thing is that ... at low settings .. u probably can do with a FX5200 and 512 MB ram .. but then .. at low settings , the 6100 IGP with 512 MB ram should do the same too ... turn up the settings a bit ... u'll see that u'll have to face loads of stuttering

omg!! man i haven been using this card for 4 months now.. n its giving me good results.. NFS MW with medium is wat i play with and it does do gud.. in high its not bad enuff but u can say ok..

and yes i have played COD2 n Battlefield 2 in high setting with snow,fogs etc there was no hitches AT ALL man.. i haven played da other games u asked for and i ve played DOOM3 at medium settings pretty decently ..

, even with games that have recommended 512 MB ram ... coz that WinXP u use is already a resource hog ...

And also .. 512 MB min. RAM requirements generally points to 512 MB free system memory , and not 512 MB system memory ...

wel 2 tel da truth i don find XP slow.. i don have any customization to it.. no background mostly.. classic theme.. system tray has only clock,spybot teatimer.. desktop icons are my comp,recycle,and 1 folder for games(shortcuts).. and as for start up i don have any startup keys including messengers or anythin.. my sys boots up 2 windows desktop in 30 secs flat cos of this.. ok win xp does hog ram but 512 is more than enuff dude..n plss don compare 5200 wit IGP man.. pls ok i accept 5200 is a bad card but not as bad as a IGP cos i played the games in the same sys without da card n i can tel u leave nfs m/w in ug2 i cldn have the effect of nitro man.. after i installed da card(i got frm a frnd for 500 bucks hehehe) there was this drastic change man i can tell u IGP is far worse than a 5200

[Ethan_Hunt]

Originally Posted by deathvirus_me

what is AAA ??

Originally Posted by bharathbala2003

wel if am not mistaken its a highest setting possible in a graphics

Not really.Actually there is no such term as AAA.I think the term you are looking for is AF or Antistropic filtering @bala.Highest possible setting would mean cracking up the resolutions,setting the visuals to the higest and turning and AA and AF to full.

[deathvirus_me]

wel if am not mistaken its a highest setting possible in a graphics

Well .. NO ... there's nothing as AAA ... well u can take AAA as Adaptive Anti Aliasing .. but its still AA ... and i wonder i good the FX5200 can handle AA ....

and yes i have played COD2 n Battlefield 2 in high setting with snow,fogs etc there was no hitches AT ALL man..

Good ... could u post the settings and the FPS u get at that settings ... i don't reckon even the 6600 doing good with CoD2 , specially with 512 MB ram .. so u must have a extremely good card there ....

n plss don compare 5200 wit IGP man

the 6100 IGP is quite comparable to the 5200 .. infact in most cases i'd recommend the 6100 IGP over FX5200 ...

pls ok i accept 5200 is a bad card but not as bad as a IGP cos i played the games in the same sys without da card n i can tel u leave nfs m/w in ug2 i cldn have the effect of nitro man.. after i installed da card(i got frm a frnd for 500 bucks) there was this drastic change man i can tell u IGP is far worse than a 5200

The 6100 IGP features SM3.0 , absent in the FX5200 .. so in most cases the effects will be the same ...

[akshayt]

AAA is only for ATi and nvidia has SAA or something, but in case you plan to use AA then you need to have atleast a 7900GT/GTX for most games and in some rare cases at least a 7600GT for the new releases that is.

To play todays games:
Absolute min: 512mb
Practical min: 1gb
Recommended: 2gb
Really good though not required: 4gb
Each 6-12months the cycle will goforward a step, in Q1 2007, 1gb will become the min for almost each game and less than 2gb will not be recommened for almost a singel game.

Please tell us your budget and requriement.

[bharathbala2003]

Originally Posted by allwyndlima

Not really.Actually there is no such term as AAA.I think the term you are looking for is AF or Antistropic filtering @bala.Highest possible setting would mean cracking up the resolutions,setting the visuals to the higest and turning and AA and AF to full.

ah yes sorry m8..

@virus sure il do that but not right now as am home for hols.. il do it by month end sure.. da card i have is fx5200 ultra edition 128 mb

[Ethan_Hunt]

Originally Posted by akshayt

but in case you plan to use AA then you need to have atleast a 7900GT/GTX for most games and in some rare cases at least a 7600GT for the new releases that is.

Not quite true.My friend uses an X800XT PE Built By ATI card running on AGP 8X and would still turn the resolutions to 1280x1024 with all the visuals set to max and AA set to 6X and AF set to 8X and yet achieve playable frame rates in most recent games.Once you have resolutions over 1600x1200 it will barely make a difference if you turn on the AA or turn it off as the textures at this point are so close to each other that it would barely show jagged edges visiblity.Except for GRAW for which even forced Anti Aliasing hans't done the trick,Sheez!

[akshayt]

even a 1800XT can't play recent games at the settings you mentioned, for that you need atleast a 1900XT or maybe even crossfire

X800XT will do at most 10x7 Med-Max(dependdant upon game)

[Ethan_Hunt]

Originally Posted by akshayt

even a 1800XT can't play recent games at the settings you mentioned, for that you need atleast a 1900XT or maybe even crossfire

X800XT will do at most 10x7 Med-Max(dependdant upon game)

Dude trust me I have been there done that.
This guy could easily throttle the resolution to 1600x1200 in Quake 4 and still achieve smooth frame rates.The resolutions settings hence now have to be set to 1280x1024 to adjust to the recent games.The only problem faced was during the outdoor sequences in The Elder Scrolls 4:Oblivion where the card was slaughtered to mere 14 Fps but once indoors it went upto 34.Even tried GRAW,Hitman Blood Money,Dreamfall-The Longest Journey & condemned Criminal Origins at 1280x1024 resolutions(Visuals details maxed)without any hick up's.

[akshayt]

Please tell me his complete rig specs and also which games is he talking about.

Do a favour. Actually visit his house and play FEAR.
Set the res to 1280*960 and turn on everythnig to the maximum(excluding AA and AF) and switch on Soft Shadows as well. Download FAER and use the benchmarking utility, play the game for 10 min and please tell the avg,min,max fps as recorded in the file by Fraps.
also, try GRAW, Oblivion and Timeshift and most wanted