New Graphics Card for Gothic 3

[SirDeity]

Does anyone want to help me pick out a new graphics card for Gothic 3? I'm currently using the NVIDIA 6800 GTO video card but the game lags the higher I have the graphics settings... even on minimum it still lags a little. The game also crashes a lot... even with the settings at minimum, but moreso with the settings higher. I want to be able to play the game with the graphics maximized with absolutely NO lag whatsoever if possible. I'm going to order the new video card in the U.S. and I have about $300.00 to spend. Any suggestions or recommendations?

My computer has 3.6Ghz processor and 2Gigs of RAM.... you don't think it's either of those specs that are causing the lag and crashes do you? I think it is most likely the video card but either way I'd like to know what you think. I'll upgrade my video card nonetheless.

[JDR13]

I don't know for sure because I only have 1 gig of RAM at the moment, but I've heard that G3 still lags a little bit even with 2 gigs. Can someone who has played with both amounts confirm this?

[SirDeity]

Better yet, can someone with a top of the line video card with 2 gigs of ram and someone with a top of the line video card with only 1 gig of ram comment on their game's performance?

[Cm]

I have a Geforce 7900 and 2 gig ram and I still have issues with white flickering and stutters at times. I put it away waiting for the next patch and plan to finish NWN2 for now.

[JDR13]

Better yet, can someone with a top of the line video card with 2 gigs of ram and someone with a top of the line video card with only 1 gig of ram comment on their game's performance?


I can comment about having a top of the line vid card and only 1 gig of RAM.
I have a Radeon X1950XTX and G3 still runs like crap.

[redman5427]

I have 2 nvidia cards running in sli mode-2 gigs of ram and I have to turn down a few settings.
3800 dual core amd so I don't think my processor is the problem either

[txa1265]

I can comment about having a top of the line vid card and only 1 gig of RAM.
I have a Radeon X1950XTX and G3 still runs like crap.

I have an X1650XT (256MB) and 2GB of RAM and it runs really well for me.

[JDR13]

I have an X1650XT (256MB) and 2GB of RAM and it runs really well for me.

Damn you!

Seriously though, Gothic 3 has to be the most RAM intensive pc game made to date. Are you running with all the options on high?

[SirDeity]

I'm thinking about buying this video card:

eVGA GeForce 7950GT 512-P2-N637-AR KO
Superclocked - Retail
GeForce 7950GT
512MB GDDR3
PCI Express x16
Avg Rating: [43]
$279.99

What do ya'll think??

@JDR13
How much did your ATI Radeon X1950XTX cost in U.S. dollars? If it's the insanely priced almost $600.00 video card then damn! Thats a kickass video card! But with only 1 gig of memory? 1 gig hasn't been enough for gaming for the past 3 years... mad props for the video card man.

[JDR13]

@JDR13
How much did your ATI Radeon X1950XTX cost in U.S. dollars? If it's the insanely priced almost $600.00 video card then damn! Thats a kickass video card! But with only 1 gig of memory? 1 gig hasn't been enough for gaming for the past 3 years... mad props for the video card man.[/QUOTE]

A gig of RAM hasn't been enough for the last 3 years?!? What world do you live in?:) Seriously though, a gig of RAM is still enough for more than 95% of applications out there, gaming or otherwise. 3 years ago 512mb was a lot. Gothic 3 is the ONLY game that doesn't run well on my system. Oblivion by comparison, runs like silk with all graphic options maxed out.
I'm staying with my lowly gig until I get my new motherboard. Right now the MB I have only supports up to 667 memory speed(using DDR 400 right now) I'm waiting for a really good Core Duo MB to come out before I order my 2 gigs of pc6400(DDR2 800).

The X1950XTX was around $460-$500 when it was released. I got mine about a month after release for about $410.

[Maylander]

It's all about the right tweaks really, Gothic 3 will lag no matter what computer you have unless you tweak it a bit, but that's a programming issue not a hardware issue.

If you want to buy a new card now I'd wait till 2007 and get a Direct X 10 supporting card(they are already out, but very expensive at the moment, you can get cheaper models soon I'd say).

[SirDeity]

Old video cards won't be able to use the new direct x? That's a bummer...

[Danicek]

Well, you are saying you have 6800 GTO and have problems. I have 6800 GS and I'm able to play very well with sufficient details setting. So I would like to point out that performance is influenced by very high number of different things. Of course GPU is the most important thing, but there are other pieces of hardware. Then there is OS with its setting, drivers with its setting and all other installed and running software...

Probably little tunning would give your card another year or at least half a year and make it possible for you to wait for new OS, new Direct X and so to make an efficient decission on your new card when all things that should be taken into account are known and verified.

[pink-hippo]

Old video cards won't be able to use the new direct x? That's a bummer...

The only DirectX 10-compatible cards I could find in my local computer store are GeForce 8800GTS ($560) and GeForce 8800GTX ($700). I'll probably wait a bit until there are more affordable cards coming out.

[Maylander]

Yep, my guess is that more Dx 10 cards will be out early in 2007, with some more affordable cards among them.

[Danicek]

As for the DirectX 10 compatibility. I would wait till this DirectX version is available. It's really hard to buy a card for it when it is not yet out and so there are no banchmarks and so on.

[Zaleukos]

I can play G3 on medium settings (except for in large battles) with a Geforce 6800GS. What kind of lag are you experiencing? I notice some increased momentary "freezes" if I increase the details, which I guess comes from the game having to load texture into RAM more often (the amount of memory needed for textures grow at least with a factor of "detail level"^2, maybe more, so lowering the detail levels just one notch will have a significant impact on this problem). It also seems like the game uses RAM for all those textures, as people with way better graphics cards but less RAM complain a lot more than I do:p

Basically I have some freezes/stuttering at medium, a lot on high, and none on low or medium/low (adjusting only the two first sliders and the texture details).

EDIT: if the game really uses RAM for textures we are kinda screwed as far as stuttering goes. XP can only address a certain amount of RAM (somewhere between 2-4 GB, I dont recall the number), and with texture detail causing a quadratic increase in the amount needed....

[SirDeity]

I've decided to buy these two memory sticks (http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs.asp?mtbpoid=A7F0B34AA5CA7304) to bring my computer's memory up to 4GB. Do you think that will help reduce the lag? Yes, the lag I mentioned is frequent momentary freezes. They occur especially when turning the camera angle and viewing new terrain (running in a straight line lags too, but not as much). And occasionally graphics errors such as floating trees, missing terrain where I fall through the world, and sometime unsolid terrain where my character continues to run through and even plane or horizontal line while the terrain itself appears at a slope, thereby making the character appear as if walking through the ground with only the portion of him that's higher than ground level being visable. There also the occasional NPCs floating in thin air but my only major complain is the laggishness. Without the laggishness I can turn the graphics up. Currently they're at the very, absolute, minimum of minimums. The details is minimum and vegetation is turned off.

[Maylander]

If I were you I'd do some .ini tweaking, follow the tweak thread in the G3 forum. It really helps out quite a bit. More RAM can never hurt of course, but it won't solve graphical issues - that's a graphics card/driver thing.

[JDR13]

If it lags with 2 gigs, then your problem is something other than memory.

You're better off saving money for a new video card.

[Gorath]

The flag to allow allocation of more than 2 GB RAM for the application Gothic 3 has not been set by PB. A hack to circumvent this has been posted in the forum, but it´s unclear if it works 100% correctly. Without the hack you´ll only notice minimal improvements because the game will have full 2 GB available instead of ~1.7 GB.

I would also guess your problem is elsewhere.

[SirDeity]

Hmm... well I guess I'll wait and see if the game still lags after I install my new video card... I already ordered it online. It should arrive here in about 5 days.

[Bartacus]

Perhaps I can post my former and new config here so something becomes clear:

AMD 64 3000+, 1GB RAM, Nvidia 7800GS
-> Gothic 3 wasn't ok on minimal settings

AMD 64 3000+, 2GB RAM, Nvidia 7800GS
-> Gothic 3 played ok on minimal settings

adjusted some tweaks in the ini and made my pc start up with only the nescessary services (I'm not connected at that time, so no firewall or antivirus)
-> Gothic 3 played ok on high settings. (not ultrahigh, but yet I increased the viewing distance, what is much more important to me then highly detainled chair or vegetation on)

[SirDeity]

Oh, well I always shut off programs that I don't need running when gaming. I HATE with a passion programs that are invasive or run in the background even when you aren't directly using them, so I avoid them altogether by not installing them in the first place. As for antivirus and zonealarm, I just shut those down after booting up my machine before I play a single player game offline. Thus, to clarify, the problem can't be any programs running in the background and slowing down the computer. I check my running applications regularly to make sure I know what everything is... most of the stuff is just windows xp required programs.

I will try the tweaks mentioned in the tweaking thread though. Hopefully those will work. Thanks.

[Danicek]

Oh, well I always shut off programs that I don't need running when gaming. I HATE with a passion programs that are invasive or run in the background even when you aren't directly using them, so I avoid them altogether by not installing them in the first place.

It happened to me more than once that my game suddenly minimalized because of antivirus program decided to do an update exactly when I was about to hit the ugly beast that was trying to kill me. Different games tend to react differently on this. Some minimalize, some just start to stutter a bit and other just seem to not care.