Wanted: Experiences from 1600x1200 or 1680x1050 users

Hey,

I am getting a new rig soonish, and was wondering what video cards would have enough juice to run GW at high details, with the screen modes 1600x1200 or 1680. Basically, either a 20.1 monitor or 20/22" widescreen.

I'm quite likely obtaining a display with either S-IPS panel (HP LP2065) or AS-IPS panel (NEC MultiSync 20WGX2). The TFTs in question have about 130 eur (~170$) price difference where I live. Of course, I could always go with Samsung SyncMaster 225BW (22") TN panel widescreen, and spare another 50-180 eur, but I am inclined to invest into colour fidelity etc. needed in semi-serious stuff.

I could use feedback what VGA will run GW with adequate frame rate with the respective resolutions. For the reference, 7600 GT runs Oblivion at 1600x1200 AF8, no AA, at 37 fps, and I believe GW demands much less system resources?

The rest of my set would be Core 2 Duo 6300 (unless 4300 sinks a lot in next 2 weeks), 2 Gb ram and the usual stuff.

Oh, and I don't think I'm gonna wait for midprice G80 series to hit market, but have this next purchase carry over til I'm willing to go with vista etc, so patience is not virtue here

PS. the stickied graphic guides are somewhat obsolete

A 7600GT shouldnt have a problem with GW at 1600x1200, might have to not use AA if you want to go any higher though.

I am unsure about that card but the ATI X1900XTX runs Guild Wars more than perfect at 1680 x 1050 on a Gateway 22 inch widescreen LCD monitor (got to love the view that one gives). Seeing as the card that you are getting is just a little lower than the one that I have, I don't forsee any problems at all. Just run the game at the monitors native resolution and it should be fine. Also I run Guild Wars on my laptop at 1440x900 on a 17" widescreen with an ATI 200M chipset with 128 megs of dedicatd ram with no problems also. Another thing on neither machine do my framerates drop below 30, on my gaming machine I get over 150+ in most areas except towns where it has at times dropped to rock bottom mostly due to a lot of players on at the same time.

Mega Mouse

^^ same here, running at 1680 X 1050 using a 7900 GS with no issues. However, you should be aware that this is an aspect ratio of 16:10 which is not a big deal for most games, including GW, but does not work great with some other programs and watching some DVDs, which are looking for the 16:9. Most LCD will not allow you to change this setting. Just a heads up since I wasnt aware of this before I bought my monitor.

Still waiting on my income tax refund to upgrade, but I'm currently running an older machine with a GeForce FX 5900 Ultra on a 19" monitor. I've run GW at 1600x1200 with 4x AA/4x AS virtually since it came out, no performance issues. Any current video card should have zero issues with this game, the graphics aren't nearly as intense as current FPS titles.

I'm running a x800gto (older than a lot of your cards) and it runs fine at 1600x1200 with AA on

I'm using a 8800gts at 1680x1050 with max settings and 4x AA and I get 40~ fps in Kamadan dis1.

I'm using a P4 3GHz, 1GB Ram, X850XTPE, NEC 2080UXi 20.1" S-IPS and Guild Wars runs smooth with AA on.

I play 1600 x 1200 with full eye candy mode and I use a Geforce 7900 GTO 512M. No problems

I run GW with all the expansions in 1680x1050 with 2XAA on a laptop with a X1600 w/256MB. Other specs are a C2D 7200, and 1GB RAM.

Runs totally fine. might dip down into the low thirties/high twenties when lots of crap is on the screen. But always extremely playable.

Thanks everyone for their replies. I think I'll go for a passive cooled MSI 7900GS, which is a crippled version of 7900GT (4 less pipeline shaders - 20 vs 24, and 7 vertex shaders instead of 8). ATM, I value quietness more than monster speed

That GT0 version was surely a bargain when you got it, I reckon. Basically only slightly tuned down version of 7900 GTX, but much more affordable.

i play at 1680x1050 with a X800XL, never had a problem except the larger cities in vabbi,

nVidia: 7900GS or better.

ATi: x1900XT or better.


I am currently running an Intel QX6700EE, 2x nVidia 8800GTXs in SLi, eVGA 680i Sli Mobo and tons of other stuff I don't really care to list. 35-210 FPS, really depends on area and active players. Kamadan AD1 = 30-35 FPS. Max settings, 1920 x 1080, full AA.

Wow. Isn't it it kinda sad that pretty much the best system currently available can't run this game at least at 50+ guaranteed FPS? I know it's HD res, but still, I would expect this kind of FPS from Oblivion. Sometimes I really wonder where all that power goes, because the graphics ain't really that good. Must be the cool "magnifying glass" portals

It is only in highly populated cities. The character models have a high poly count, which is why the FPS drops if you are looking at 500 of them at once. It could also be the fact that the guild wars code is inefficient.

Just one thing, why Ati card has to be specced much higher? Since x1950 pro is slower than x1900xt, but faster than 7900gs...
Oh, and I personally plan to run only in areas with most 16 people in them, well, and some NPCs, if you know what I mean :P

Dell 24", 256MB 7900GT, 1680x1050, game plays wonderfully with 4xAA (80 - 100+ FPS most of the time). Yea, going to D1 of any trade-spam city will drag the game to a crawl, but I generally avoid American districts of LA, Kamadan and Kaineng like the plague, so nothing major there.

I have a ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9000 and it works fine at high graphics with GW. Course I have a laptop and can't upgrade it...

Ditto, only i have more fps ;] and i use 16AF and 4AA with super sample

Recently upgraded to an XFX 7600GT 256MB card and have been able to run at 1920x1200 with 2xAA in GW (4xAF on the card) and everything set to High, including Vsync and Post-process Effects, with frame rates ranging from 15fps (very rare) to 60fps depending on the location and amount of activity, with the average in the 30fps range. If I lower the res to 1680x1050 with the same settings, the frame rate jumps up around 7fps overall. This is with 2GB of system ram, a 6GB swapfile across two drives and a 700w thermaltake psu.

On my second monitor at 1280x1024, can run 4xAA/16xAF with full settings and the fps is silky smooth... well except for that notorious little lag hiccup now and then that nothing on earth can fix.