Issues, Workarounds & Localization

Hi,

I'm building my first PC in 10 years and need some advice on choosing a gfx card. Main reasons to get a Wndows PC (I'm a mac user) are EVE and Photoshop CS5, which both run better on Windows and require some serious hardware.

My requirement for EVE is to be able to run 2 clients at competitive (50-60?) frame rates @ 1920x1200, main one at max settings, the other at all low for all I care, visual side not important on this secondary account.

Is this possible with any/all of these cards? (560ti, 570, 6950)

EVE is not usually included in the test benchmarks, and I have no idea how games like BF3 or Crysis relate to EVE. I don't have time for other games so EVE performance is the only one I'm interested in.

I don't want SLI or Crossfire, and prefer quiet & cool to cheap.

Other hardware specs are i5 2500k, 16GB RAM and SSD drive for Win/Ubuntu dual boot OS and programs, built in a Fraktal Design R3 case with additional fans.

Thanks for any comments and experiences!

You should have no problems running two clients with a 500 series card. Especially if you're only going to use one monitor and have the second client with min settings.

I'm currently running a EVGA GTX 480 with 1.5GB of memory. I run two clients on two monitors with all settings to max and I normally see upwards of 120 FPS in space. My monitors are set to 1920x1080.

I'll just say, get a better desk, you have no idea what you're missing with only one monitor.

Thanks for the input, great news for me :)

I've settled on an Asus GTX560Ti DirectCU II TOP, a factory overclocked model which is cooler, quieter and cheaper than a 570, but offering almost comparable performance. Looks like it is more than enough, then.

Looking very much forward to an all new EVE, I've played every gfx setting at lowest or off so far :D

One part of default settings if I remember correctly is v-sync being on (interval 1) which will cap the frame rate at the same as your monitor's refresh rate. For most LCDs this will be 60Hz hence the 60fps top end that you're running into.

Set interval immediate and check your FPS again, should breach 60fps. Spin the ship (preferably in space) and watch for tearing. If you see tearing then turn v-sync back on again.

Just tried on my system (2 clients on max quality settings, both undocked) with an old GTX285 backup card while my main card is away for RMA and I'm getting 80fps on both.

Glad I could help eliminate any concern there. Basically what's happening is that interval one is "underloading" your card by making it not need to generate as many frames hence fans kicking in when required to generate as many as it can. Same will be true of any other game just most of them list it as v-sync.

Obviously when (if?) Eve plays nice with nvidia 3D you'd need 120 fps as your v-sync baseline as the 3D monitors have a higher refresh rate (shuttered glasses mean each eye still "sees" 60 frames per second) so you're capable of that if you upgrade your monitor but I seem to remember nvidia classing Eve as "ok" when it came to 3D.

Absolutely no idea what the additional ones mean, used to think they were anti-aliasing related as they went one through four but given now video drivers are starting to offer 16x mega epic quality AA (ok maybe an exaggeration) it doesn't seem to match up.

However if you run fullscreen window (aka fixed window) mode then you'll only get interval immediate, one and default.

As for taking the time to help, don't worry about it. This is why we ask questions.