Recommendation for a mid range graphics card for TM2

[Demented]

For me too it's more a money issue that keeps me from going to a better card at this time.
I run Trackmania at 1920x1080 in High Definition mode on a NVidia GeForce GTX 760 and while I know what most of the settings do I'm not real good at knowing what they all do exactly. Most of my settings are personal preference by just trying different things and some are suggested to improve framerates.
I only get lag with these setting on Large, Heavily loaded maps and with about 20 or more cars on them.
I would strongly suggest listening to TMarc's and Tcq's advice though, they know much more than me about these things.
~
Some of the setting I use are:
-DISPLAY-
Atialiasing: FXAA
Shadows: Minimum
Shader Quality Nice
Texture Quality High
Max Filtering Anisotropic 8x
Geometry Very Nice
Water Reflections Medium
Car Reflections High In Replay
Motion Blur Off
Bloom None
Texture Decals 2D On
Texture Decals 3D On
-COMPATIBILITY-
Max FPS 60
Display Freq 60
Display VSync On
Tripple Buffer Off
Cpu/Gpu synchro 3 Frames
Vertex Processing Hardware
Lightmap quality Very Fast
Lightmap size Auto
Lightmap quality Ultra On
-GAME-
Quality of Cars High
Particle Quality High
Player Shadows All
Player Occlusion All
Opponents max count 20
Background Quatily Medium

[novationx]

also keep in mind :

Casual gamer? Sure, play at 60fps
Serious gamer? Play at 100fps+

And everyone who replies in this thread "yes but dreammy the human eye can only see 30fps" is utterly wrong. I can feel the difference between 60/100/200/300/++ fps. Every progamer can too.


In the end its all about FPS. So how much FPS would you want and do you prefere high or low settings?
I dont think a 760 could give you more than 100/150fps on high settings.

[Demented]

You are absolutely right novationx. The human eye actually sees less than 30 fps but with a game running at 30 fps your eyes will perceive a "jitter". At 60 you see much less of that and at 90+ it really smooths out mostly because your eyes will see all the frames and blend them together (similar to a motion blur effect). I have written some game software and actually design my games to run at around 120 fps by default and Special effect are only drawn while framerates stay above that, thus keeping things really smooth.
I only limit my framerate in TM to 60 to help keep my graphics card cooler.

[Omnixor]

Cpu/Gpu synchro 3 Frames

change this to immediate (or 1 frame if you get bad performance), less input lag that way.

[Guerro323]

A Saphirre R9 270x Dual-X is good, I got this and my game is in full setting ( all high ) and 60 fps ( 80 fps without V-Sync )

[Gomme]

Hi there,
My actual GTX570 is making artefacts. It works again now(after baking it ) but I don't know for how long.

good, did that too. do it again if you have to. baked mine at 200 °c for 8 or 10 mins

for your new GC here are 2 links to help out (old tests though)
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Trackmani ... k-1077752/

http://www.overclex.net/forum/s2499-tes ... wordl.html (scroll down)

historically nvidia cards have always performed better with TM but i think it has changed with tm2. maybe it has something to do with the fact that the new generation of consoles has amd hardware ? just saying, i don't known ....

[Demented]

Cpu/Gpu synchro 3 Frames

change this to immediate (or 1 frame if you get bad performance), less input lag that way.

Thanks Omnixor. I'll give that a try.

What does baking a card do? Does it burn dust out of the card? Does it melt the solder?

[Omnixor]

GPU deaths <...> are often caused by the failure of the solder joints that connect the GPU package to your motherboard. If you could reconnect those bad joints, you could potentially save yourself a whole lot of trouble.

[m0ritz]

The R9 290 is pretty fast and is on sale on the french amazon. For 225 Euro it's an good investment imo.

If you're okay with a bit louder card and got a nice cooling take it. But still, the cost effectiveness is very great.
(Don't know for how long it's on sale..)

http://www.amazon.fr/gp/offer-listing/B ... dealo07-21

[novationx]

280 is more mid range , cheaper & good enough.