Battlefield 2 Guide

[booman]

To play Battlefield 3 with a decent frame rate you will need to invest at least $100.00
Any card below $100.00 is really risking it... at the same time your power supply needs to handle the new card too.

If you "have" to stay below $100.00 I recommend something like this:
EVGA GeForce GT 640 2 GB 128-bit
- can play Crysis II & Skyrim but not on high settings

I still recommend a more expensive card... you won't regret it for a few years!

[crazyjust]

I have an ocz 600 w psu. I see what your saying. It would work fine now, but down the road, I'll be in the same situation. Times are a little tough right now financially, so i'll do some homework and shop around a little. Some questions I do have is do you have to disable your second display to play with nvidia cards? Does hdmi audio screw with your sound card while gaming? I never really gave it much thought, but there has to be a huge difference between ati and nvidia cards. I have my old pci sb extreme gamer fatal1ty sound card that I might use. I have to check linux compatibility with it yet.

Sent from my Inspire 4G using Tapatalk 2

[Aedan]

Originally Posted by booman

Yes and No...
One of my pet-peeves with Windows is a required reboot after any hardware driver, Win update, or security software is installed.
OSX and Linux do not have this problem.

I've installed enough hardware drivers under Windows and not had to reboot - including the graphics driver. On the other hand, updates usually do require a system reboot if the existing files are in use for any platform - just like Linux or OS X. Patching a system while the code is in use just changes the code on the disk, not the code in memory.

[chrisbard]

Originally Posted by Aedan

I've installed enough hardware drivers under Windows and not had to reboot - including the graphics driver. On the other hand, updates usually do require a system reboot if the existing files are in use for any platform - just like Linux or OS X. Patching a system while the code is in use just changes the code on the disk, not the code in memory.

Lately I installed a lot of drivers on my windows 7 laptop and didn't had to reboot at all Boo. The webcamera, the printer and the special cardreader all worked without rebooting the computer.

[Daniel ~]

Nvidia settings have grown fairly complete. You will have options as to which and how many monitors are in use, no need to disconnect at the hardware level to play games, I haven't done it but I'm almost certain you can play your games across both monitors if you like.

Mint 14 offers you a choice as to which Sound hardware you use, see picture. as to your Creative card, I'm uncertain, but Linux users have been using Creative cards for quite a while, preferring them for thire compatibility with Linux as a whole.

I've never used a ATI card, sorry, it just never seemed the right move to me. But I can say You will get EVERYTHING your Nvidia card has to offer in Mint 14, at lest it seems that way to me.

Once in a Game I never think. "hey, pretty good for Linux". Once in a Game I Think "Nvidia and Mint Rock and Roll ":O}

With Nvidia...you seem to get it all.

[booman]

Originally Posted by Aedan

I've installed enough hardware drivers under Windows and not had to reboot - including the graphics driver. On the other hand, updates usually do require a system reboot if the existing files are in use for any platform - just like Linux or OS X. Patching a system while the code is in use just changes the code on the disk, not the code in memory.

I admit Windows 7 has fixed a lot of the reboot processes when installing stuff. Whenever I have to install Windows XP from scratch every driver requires a reboot. I've even had Antiviruses require reboot.
Rediculous!
But as of lately in Win 7, you can now install Video drivers without rebooting! Yea!

But the updating process in Win 7 is even more of a headache.... I won't go there right now.

[booman]

Originally Posted by crazyjust

I have an ocz 600 w psu. I see what your saying. It would work fine now, but down the road, I'll be in the same situation. Times are a little tough right now financially, so i'll do some homework and shop around a little. Some questions I do have is do you have to disable your second display to play with nvidia cards? Does hdmi audio screw with your sound card while gaming? I never really gave it much thought, but there has to be a huge difference between ati and nvidia cards. I have my old pci sb extreme gamer fatal1ty sound card that I might use. I have to check linux compatibility with it yet.

Sent from my Inspire 4G using Tapatalk 2

First of all:
Thank you for confirming the driver issues with AMD cards. I've read about it but have not actually seen anyone experience it. I'm sure there is still a way to fix it but probably not worth the hours of research & trial-n-error.

That 600Watt will do great with just about any video card. I have 6 gaming computers and none of them have a 600 Watt power supply.

As for HDMI and mutiple displays:
Mint 13 intially would set my HDMI audio as default without asking. So I had to set it to analog every time I logged in. But now in Mint 14 it defaults to analog.
I have 2qty 20 in. monitors on my machine, but I normally disable one in Mint because I'm testing games. Testing requires me to simulate what most people use when moving from Windows to Linux. But I have messed with the dual displays... when you install the Nvidia drivers they automatically work in extended mode. No intervention needed.
Thank you Mint!

[crazyjust]

Originally Posted by booman

Yeah, that sucks!
Anything GeForce 8800 or higher will work great!
I have been using a GeForce 550 Ti and it runs just about anything.
It is around $100 on newegg.com right now

I was just looking at that card. After figuring out budget, I figured I could do around $100, to prevent future aggravation (After all, I would be saving money later, right? lol). Then I looked inside my tower. I cant use a dual slot card. Do you or anyone else have any other recommendations? Thanks

[booman]

a 3rd party heatsink and more case fans?

[crazyjust]

My motherboard capacitors look to be in the way (could be an illusion). They are as high as the pci slots but appear taller than the pci-e slots. The specs said 2" wide, so I don't know 100% that it would clear.Besides that, I would be losing my pci-e x1 that I will be using eventually when I upgrade sound card. If I didn't upgrade my sound card down the road, or upgraded to another pci card, would that 550 Ti definitely work being that the pci x1 slot is the next one over? It's hard for me to tell without having a card to try. I don't really need/want hdmi, because my tv (second display) has vga, but I'm assuming that it would be hard to get a good card without it.

[Aedan]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

But I can say You will get EVERYTHING your Nvidia card has to offer in Mint 14, at lest it seems that way to me.

How well does that nVidia monster you have overclock?

[booman]

Originally Posted by crazyjust

My motherboard capacitors look to be in the way (could be an illusion). They are as high as the pci slots but appear taller than the pci-e slots. The specs said 2" wide, so I don't know 100% that it would clear.Besides that, I would be losing my pci-e x1 that I will be using eventually when I upgrade sound card. If I didn't upgrade my sound card down the road, or upgraded to another pci card, would that 550 Ti definitely work being that the pci x1 slot is the next one over? It's hard for me to tell without having a card to try. I don't really need/want hdmi, because my tv (second display) has vga, but I'm assuming that it would be hard to get a good card without it.

What motherboard do you have again? I'll look it up on Google and see if anyone else is having problems with double-wide video cards.
Most of my PC's are using onboard audio so I don't really use the PCI slots or even the PCI-E 4x 1x slots either.
Keep looking on newegg.com too. I'm sure there are some single-slot video cards with 2 Gig RAM and 128-bit interface under $100.00

[Daniel ~]

Originally Posted by Aedan

How well does that nVidia monster you have overclock?

Now that is a interesting question. My 670 is a GTX, which if Nvidia is to be believed, is over-clocked out of the box.

I have run a few benchmarks, Phoronix, Fluidmark 1.3.1 and Furmarks 1.91

My problem lies in not having any thing to compare my scores with....I rather suspect that Nvidia has already squeezed all the performance out of the GTX. So I guess what you see is what I get.":O}

What I can say is that adaptive seems to work quite well. I usually leave it on "Adaptive" as it kicks up to high performance almost instantly and walks down again somewhat slower so you can see it unwind when you finish playing...if you leave it open so you can see it in time.

So I guess my answer is I'm happy with it's performance with out really knowing how well it is performing...

Be happy to run any Bench I can install if any one wants a particular set of results?

[crazyjust]

Here is an update to where i'm at. put mint 14 (mate) on today. Got an nvidia gt640 (dual slot) which fits but its tight, and have bf2 up and running! I have lots of black spots floating around, which I will screw around with the settings. I disabled hdmi audio, and my onboard through bios, but the onboard kept taking priority. I changed that so my sb is device 0, and that is the end of my sound issue, except for mic. I can live without that if I absolutely had to. My flight stick works good. Didn't try online yet.

[chrisbard]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

Now that is a interesting question. My 670 is a GTX, which if Nvidia is to be believed, is over-clocked out of the box.

Be happy to run any Bench I can install if any one wants a particular set of results?

What if you want to go above their spec maxOC?

[booman]

Originally Posted by crazyjust

Here is an update to where i'm at. put mint 14 (mate) on today. Got an nvidia gt640 (dual slot) which fits but its tight, and have bf2 up and running! I have lots of black spots floating around, which I will screw around with the settings. I disabled hdmi audio, and my onboard through bios, but the onboard kept taking priority. I changed that so my sb is device 0, and that is the end of my sound issue, except for mic. I can live without that if I absolutely had to. My flight stick works good. Didn't try online yet.

Thats Awesome! Can you post some pics of the black spots?
I"m glad the audio is working too.
What other games are you planning to try out?

[crazyjust]

I plan on installing bfbc2 also. I will try to take some screenshots of all the black spots sometime over the weekend, but I can't post screenshots for some reason. Do I need to have so many posts to do that? It says they need to be approved, but aren't? Now here is a question for all you nvidia guys. What is my best option for the driver? I tried the download from nvidia's site, but had to disable some module to install. I reinstalled cinnamon since, and want to make sure I get it right this time.

Sent from my Inspire 4G using Tapatalk 2

[Daniel ~]

Originally Posted by chrisbard

What if you want to go above their spec maxOC?

Not sure why I would want to exceed it's inherent limitations... But I'm pretty sure it could be done.

But I'd have to install OCing Software...it's been so long since I've done this, I'm unsure as to how to go about it....but it can be done.":O}

[Daniel ~]

Originally Posted by crazyjust

I plan on installing bfbc2 also. I will try to take some screenshots of all the black spots sometime over the weekend, but I can't post screenshots for some reason. Do I need to have so many posts to do that? It says they need to be approved, but aren't? Now here is a question for all you nvidia guys. What is my best option for the driver? I tried the download from nvidia's site, but had to disable some module to install. I reinstalled cinnamon since, and want to make sure I get it right this time.

Sent from my Inspire 4G using Tapatalk 2

Been a while, but I think you get posting privileges at 25 posts...your nearly there...

I you want to spam us a bit to get there so can post images...nobody's going to get to mad about that. ":O}

[booman]

Originally Posted by crazyjust

I plan on installing bfbc2 also. I will try to take some screenshots of all the black spots sometime over the weekend, but I can't post screenshots for some reason. Do I need to have so many posts to do that? It says they need to be approved, but aren't? Now here is a question for all you nvidia guys. What is my best option for the driver? I tried the download from nvidia's site, but had to disable some module to install. I reinstalled cinnamon since, and want to make sure I get it right this time.

Sent from my Inspire 4G using Tapatalk 2

Oh My Gosh! In Mint Cinnamon you get to experience the simple install of Nvidia drivers...

1. open synaptic package manager
2. check Nvidia 310 (will probably say beta)
3. select install
4. restart
5. done