Hey guys, I posted this at GPM without much of a response so I am looking for anyone that can give some advice on this. I am wanting to get a new video card but I want to move to Nvidia without bottlenecking my system.

I have a Dell XPS 8100 Studio, 860 @ 2.80 ghz i7, 8 gb ram , Ati HD 5770, on Windows 7 64 bit.

I haven't been over the moon about the Ati HD 5770 and everywhere I turn it seems that nvidia wins running gta iv properly. Right now I get about 20-25 fps @ 1920 x 1080p on my 32 inch hd tv monitor. That is with the icehancer enb mod with aa enabled.

Any suggestions, or should I not even bother? I game mainly GTA IV, FSX-FS2004 , ARMA 2 OACO.

Thanks.

Edited July 28, 201114 yr by JFavignano

I usually get about 30-50 fps with my GTX 260 card and a Core i7-870 at 4.02GHz, but that's without any ENB. From what I have heard, a GTX 560 or even a GTX 260 which is a little older, but still almost the same as a 560, will be better than most ATI cards. You would need to get into the higher end ATI cards and those can get pricey. I think it's worth it to get an nvidia card but that's me.

I also have a 32" monitor at the same resolution.

Edited July 28, 201114 yr by Iconography

From what I know ENB AA works with downsampling, which isn't really ressource-efficient. Try disabling it and using GTA IV's 16x AA.

Wow I feel like a noob, I didn't know that GTA could even use AA. How do you enable it through that and not Ice?

I am a Nvidia person but this computer came with the Ati card installed. What would be a good Nvidia card to get? I am lost when I was looking at best buy at the GTX series. Last Nvidia card I owned was a GT4500.

Edited July 28, 201114 yr by JFavignano

I can run GTA at max with a GTX 570 without any problems, however ENB's AA really takes a lot resources, but it is playable with nice settings.

I can run GTA at max with a GTX 570 without any problems, however ENB's AA really takes a lot resources, but it is playable with nice settings.

Okay, so GTX 570 is a good suggestion for my system then? I am just confused with the GTX series since I knew the GT series cards.

Edited July 28, 201114 yr by JFavignano

I'd get a 5xx series card, actually if I was to buy one now, I'd go with the GTX570.

I'd get a 5xx series card, actually if I was to buy one now, I'd go with the GTX570.

Awesome, thanks guys for helping understand the new line of cards. 300 bucks seems a bit much, but I am just bottlenecking my system right now with the HD5770 don't you think?

No, what you are doing is running ENB at supernatural settings. Like I said, try disabling ENB's AA and see how much fps you get.

Oh I understand that, I was referring to other games on my current card. GTA IV runs great with AA disabled, but I love the look of AA and it's hard to go back. I get awesome AA in FSX and ARMA.

In the Ice config, I see options to bring AA down a tad. I really do hate the Ati interface though with the Multisampling.

Crank up GTA IV's AA to the max and turn off ENB's.

Crank up GTA IV's AA to the max and turn off ENB's.

I would try that but I know Nvidia is the only one with force AA? My Ati catalyst won't do anything in that department for GTA. Am I doing something wrong? I have been out of the loop with video cards since 2008, sorry for the ignorance there.

Why do you want to do that from your videocard? Just open GTA IV, go to settings and set it on 16x AA (or maybe even Tri-Linear AA)

Why do you want to do that from your videocard? Just open GTA IV, go to settings and set it on 16x AA (or maybe even Tri-Linear AA)

That's the whole problem, I don't have settings for that inside GTA IV. How do you have an option for that?

I just press escape go to the settings and it gives me the option to set my AA.

AA or Anisotropic? I have a Anisotropic filter setting, but I thought that was unrelated to Anti Aliasing. I know they try to acheive the same thing, but perhaps that was the misunderstanding we had from the get go. I will try AA off with ice and bump AF to max.

Edited July 28, 201114 yr by JFavignano

GTA IV natively has no support for FSAA. Only FSAF. Also I'd advise an AMD card if you have the choice. It states very clearly in the readme.txt that nVidia cards are prone to overheating due to the decision to use a dangerous .DLL file that was known to cause these issues. Apparently the creator must not care. I have a 570GTX so I won't be risking it.

That's 0.082 SORA, you can always downgrade to 0.081 by just replacing the d3d9.dll

Kind of defeats the purpose of a new version then. I'll pass on ENB anyway. I think the less mods I have the better off I am trying to strip away things for either playing LCPDFR on MP mode, or just troubleshooting stuff. ELS and a couple of car mods aren't too hard to replace if you have backup files and simply remove the right scripts. I'd just be adding more crap onto the pile. I may try it one day on my copy of EFLC or something.

I have ATI HD 6850 wich costed me around 130 - 140$ ( soon one for crossfire x ) and i have AMD Phenom II X6 1100t 3.2@ Ghz. with 6GB of RAM... and the game runs at steady 40 - 60 FPS... Because the game is just a poor port from console to PC, when i switch to Very High shadows.. the game starts to lagg at 20 FPS. But on Battlefield Bad Company 2 i max everything out and resolution on 1920x1080 with 8x MSAA on DX11 and the game runs at 40 FPS.