1 year later, high end 6990m playing high end game what can this card still do in terms of performance

I bought my laptop exactly a year ago hoping I would be able to max games for 1 year, then high for one year then medium for 1 year then have to lower the resoltion for the remaining years, I hoped to get 4 years out of this laptop.

Farcry 3 just came out is is incred demanding. so can I still max it out answer is no i cannot but I can come close.

In catalyst control center I have AA set to 4x and ani set to 8x. the resolution is 1080p.
In game settings everything is set to the highest settings except shadows are set to high.

here is some pictures of this old beast running the game nearly maxed out and maxed in terms of how good the game can look!





edit I know its dx9, ill take some pictures in dx11 later 0 difference as far as I can tell..just gives you the option to add AA and I already added that

 

LMAO

using dx11 with hbao and an extra 8x AA on top of the 4x aa in CCC gave me even more performance.

 

EDIT just tried HDAO and ultra settings heres a pic of performance. I guess it can max the game.

 

whoops it was 720p...in order to get the best IQ it needs to be at 1600x900 with a black border and shadows on high no AA.

ps on my 47in tv with black boarders its just like playing 1080p on a 42in HDtv

 

--
(I feel the same way about my 675M)

 

You don't have to max out games.Games looks good at medium settings in native 1080p.I have gtx670 and this is not top of the line graphic card.
I play demanding games at medium and games looks fantastic.

 

I agree 100 percent with you guys

also. I forgot to mention it can play all games in stereoscopic 3d with ultra high looking graphics.

medium range FTW

 

so what's your point ?

If I bought the best GPU right now and if it couldn't play games on highest an year later, I'd be extremely disappointed. Heck after 3 years I'd still expect it to play games on high settings, and on the 5th year to handle those at medium.

 

these pics were shot while in stereo 3d just too give an idea of how powerful the 6990m still is!

 

Your machine will last longer. Far Cry 3 is a bad example. Don't blame the hardware for bad coding. AMD is working to cleanup Ubisoft's ineptitude, you should see improvements, hopefully.

Either way, it's an old DX9 engine where Ubisoft just slapped on many new technologies, instead of doing it right like CryTek or DICE. As I said, don't blame the hardware for Ubisoft being morons.

Enjoy your 6990M, it's a beast.

 

dont forget it's a port lol

 

This of course depends going from game to game (however it CAN be valid for many - setting them to Medium, but bumping up texture quality and other details can actually bring it visually very close to High or even Ultra settings without sacrificing performance)... but from what I was able to gather, 'High' and 'Ultra' settings aren't really that different.
They usually come out the same graphically, with Ultra only adding minor (and not really noticeable) things to the game that have a tendency to lower performance radically.

On top of that, most games (along with Far Cry 3 that the OP used) are console ports that hadn't been properly optimized in terms of code for the PC platform.
Realistically, mid-range/top-range gpu's from late 2008 should be enough to max out games at 800p and 1080p (minus perhaps some 'fancy' filtering options) because the hardware is basically better than the one found in consoles (although personally, I don't play AAA titles).

 

The 6990M is still a great card. If you overclock it, performance isn't too far behind a stock desktop 7850 or even a 7970M.

In late 2008 the best mobile cards were the 9800M GTX and the Mobility 3870. These are literally the minimum requirements for some recent games.

I had two 8800GT's in sli. They were slow as balls in 2011 when I retired them...

 

My SLi 9800M GTX were still kicking up the jams in early 2012 when the motherboard went bellies up. Have to admit that 88GT were a fair bit weaker so no surprise.. Here's hoping my current pair of 7970M could serve me for a good couple of years

 

Not sure about the 7850, but I know the 6990 won't reach 7970m performance. I've never seen one break 5k in 3DMark11 (they're normally in the low 4k range overclocked) so that's still pretty far behind the stock 7970's score (6500)

 

people are finally coming around to my points...max settings is pointless in most cases. lowers performance for next to nothing in terms of gains

 

If you set every game to "medium," I think you are missing out on a lot of optional features that could improve your experience.

Many graphics settings options have negligible impact on frame rate, it takes just a little research to find out which features have the frame rate cost for each new game you install. In my case, for most games I disable AA and use FXAA instead, quite a few games run well with all other settings completely maxed at 1080p.

In the case of Far Cry 3, HDAO looks so much better than SSAO and has very little performance cost.

 

Rationalize it however you want, it doesn't make max settings "pointless." The gains vary from game to game, but I can't think of an example that there is absolutely no difference between high and ultra settings.

btw, did you paypal me that 50 dollars yet?

 

But its "old technology".

Sorry just had to say it

 

failwheeldrive: your the only person giving me a hard time and I dont see the difference as do many others..I have a point along with the other NBRers and you have 0 point period.

edit find a game that looks 1600 dollars better in ultra vs high post 2 pictures and ill send you 50

 

Failwheel disagrees!

his stock 7970m gets an average of 22fps maxed and I get look at pic below



so he gets a whooping 2-3fps more for an extra 1600 dollars..I dont even think the english dictionary contains the words describing how smart he is.

edit thats a whooping 14.3 percent faster when it goes to full utilisation ect in game in the real world.

in crysis he averages 43fps maxed i average 38fps ...not exactly like you get double the performance for all games ect..

 

I wasn't "giving you a hard time." I wasn't even talking to you originally lol. You replied to my post and completely changed the topic by saying ultra settings are completely pointless. All I said was they make a difference in pretty much every game I've played. I guess voicing a rational opinion is "giving you a hard time" now.

Not sure what the second part of your post means either. 1600 dollars better? If you didn't want to paypal me 50 bucks, you shouldn't have pmed me saying you would if I could name a single dx9 game you couldn't max out. I named one. You lost. Pay up

 

Actually, I get this (DX11 Everything maxed, 2xMSAA



This is everything maxed with 8xMSAA




That's on stock clocks. Add 5-10 fps to that when running at 1000/1500 like I normally do. 7970m obviously sucks/hardly better than 6990m/etc

edit: not sure why the pic below is attached lol ignore that

 

Boasting about your 6990M vs the 7970M is not going to end well for you. There's no close comparison in any game.

7970M wins, Flawless Victory

 

yes i know...pretty obvious... it was just a point of i checked notebookcheck and it says it averages 23fps. i average 18..not a big difference.

edit failwheeldrive you said Im poor or something like mommy and daddy wont buy me a new laptop ect...1600 for a laptop with a 7970m. and also what game can I not max out in dx9??? I posted pictures of ultra getting 40fps with this game and added 8x aa and 16x anso.

 

Notebookcheck isn't always right. Whoever did that benchmark probably wasn't running 12.11 beta 11 with CAP2, which would severely diminish performance with 8xMSAA. I've even told you I average 45+ while maxed in FC3.

 

ok then its settled...I was misinformed..

will the new drivers give me a boost as well? do you have a link failwheeldrive

 

Yes they will. Be sure to download and install the CAP2 after you install the beta driver. AMD Catalyst

 

good god man.

now im getting 20-34 fps maxed dx9 1080p vs 18fps

 

I actually found Dx9 on FC3 looked better than Dx11 and yes it runs better also.

 

Lol this guy is back again extolling the virtues of the almighty 6990m all over again:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming-software-graphics-cards/691976-i-need-stress-my-6990m-what-games-cant-max.html

We're only 9 days into 2013 dude! Are you going to make another in 2014 when your L33T GPU is 4 years old lol?

 

LOL I remember that thread too...

 

lol yeah that was a good one.

Edit: Sorry x, I didn't see the part of your post that you asked what dx9 game you can't max. The answer is The Witcher 2. I'm not even sure a gtx 680 could handle it with ubersampling (at least not at 60 fps.)

 

well... it was a legit thread....

Ubersampling does'not count, thats like saying try crysis with 128x AA see how it runs, and while your at it add 128x ansi see if it fairs well. This forum needs a higher ..

 

Could you run it maxed out without ubersampling? Anti-aliasing, SSAO, motion blur, ultra shadow quality, far LOD, no texture downscaling, very large memory size, ultra # of shadowed lights, light shafts, v-sync, DoF, cinematic DoF, cutscene DoF, high spec decals, cutscene DoF, the works?

 

yes 10 char...lolz if 22-30 fps is considered playable and for a game like that i think it is...if it was a fps id be sending you 50 big 1s

ask me again when i upgrade to a 8970m

edit just tried witcher...27fps average during inital cut scene, 47 inside dungeon

 

A 680m gets around 20-30fps with ubersampling.

 

thats pretty amazing. rac

i was thinking of getting a 7970m upgrade or 680m and i think ill pass this gen because the hdmi port doesn't work with my laptop. and i need hdmi out for my 3d tv. just hoping the 8970m will be double the performance and that i can upgrade this np8150 to the 8970m and hopefully a working hdmi. if not ill hold on to this laptop 1 more year and see how it handles games. if i have to lower major settings that are noticeable i will likely get a m18x

 

i get 20-40fps in 720p mode....its on a hd tv so it looks great vs a blurry 720p laptop downscaling..since i can't see the diff between 720p and 1080p from where i sit i think im going to stick with 720p...unless im sitting closer its pretty dumb for me to use 1080p

 

Like I say before.Games looks god at medium.Minor difference, not noticeable when playing.

medium setting on my laptop and games looks fantastic

 

I just played it for the first time in forever, it's not as demanding as I remember. Maybe because I was on awful drivers before lol. 20s are playable? Anything below 30 is really bad imo. 35fps is normally when games start to look ok, but that's on the low end of acceptable to me.

Yeah don't bother upgrading if you're going to have to sacrifice hdmi output. Honestly, it would probably make the most sense to just buy a new laptop. Since Haswell is coming this year, we won't be able to upgrade our cpus so eventually they'll end up being a bottleneck if we upgrade our gpus. I started throwing a couple hundred a month into savings last month for upgrades, but I think I'm just going to sell this laptop and either buy a P170 or M17x. I love my Sager but I want to give AW a try.

Yeah, I get low 20s on stock clocks, it's unplayable. I guess a desktop 680 could handle it ok.

 

failwheel don't you find it impressive a year and a half well almost 2 year old card can run farcry 3 in 3d with all settings high? its at 720p of course as 1080p runs at 24hz due to hdmi limitations. so F that noise eh. I swear ill never buy a sager again Im thinking aleinware because of their upgradability and warranty is phenomenal. pay a bit extra but win in the long run.

Are you going to switch to alienware also?

 

I'm glad i went alienware, the hardware and support are something else.

 

Sure it's impressive, but it's not surprising. The 6990m is the best card of 2011, so of course it's going to still handle games well. Yeah, I'm thinking lately that I'm going with AW. I love Sager, they're really easy to work on, they have really simple and understated styling (less likely to get stolen and I can bring it to the office without getting weird looks from people lol) and they're really affordable, but I wish I had gone AW this time around so I could run off the dedicated 7970 and kill all the issues with Enduro. Both Sager and AW have their advantages. I just want to try AW out, and I don't mind paying a couple hundred extra. If I don't get an M17x I could get an NP9370 (or whatever comes after the 9370) though, so it's a hard choice. The 9370 would have dual gpus, no switchable graphics, and will be the same size and around the same price as the M17x.

I have heard mixed things about their tech support and warranties. I assume they have 24/7 tech support, right? Did you buy directly from Dell or did you go through a reseller?

I really like their hardware and features, though I wish they came standard with a 1920x1080 display. That's my only major gripe though... well, they could be cheaper too, but I guess you get a certain peace of mind for the extra $ you pay over MSI and Sager/Clevo.

 

I bought direct from dell, with 25% off in discounts. The tech support is generally good but as with all big corporations it's hit and miss sometimes, the reps on the forum here are awesome and will always help. AFAIK it's 24/7 not had to call them yet though.

Alienware definitely have the best cooling.

 

Yeah, they have nice big chassis and strong fans from what I hear, though I'm impressed with the NP9150's cooling too. It does really well with high-end gpus even though it's only 15 inches. I would love an M15x too, but I'll probably go M17x even if there were a 15" model this year anyway.

And 25%? That's incredible! Was there a limited time special of some sort? If you don't mind sharing, how much did you end up paying? I just built a comparable model to yours on Xoticpc's site and it was around 2500 bucks lol. Super pricey. If I got one, I'd definitely just buy my own RAM and use my 256gb 840 Pro from my Sager. AW charges crazy money for extras.

 

It's aging very well indeed

 

Where did you come up with 2500? I just priced one and was about $2200.

If Alienware made a "stealth" model without all the bling I'd likely consider them. But yeah where they kill you in cost is with the upgrades. Granted RAM and SSD/HDD are easy enough to swap out yourself.

 

They had a deal on Alienware Deals which gave around 15% off I then found a 10% coupon from here Dell Voucher Codes, Cashback & Discount Codes | Quidco

To be fair if you ring up and haggle you can get around 20% off.

 

Starts out that 1499
add 1920x1080 screen 150
i7 3740 150
gtx 680m 550
16gb 1600mhz 129
750gb hdd 50
Killer Wireless 29

Total (without ssd) comes to 2557.00, or 2480.29 after 3% cash discount. Perhaps you forgot the RAM or cpu upgrade?

I consider the styling both a positive and a negative, I love the conservative stealthy look of Clevos, but when it all comes down to it, these laptops are just 2000 dollar toys, and that's what the AW looks like. It has wild, flamboyant styling, tons of lighting and curves, etc. and that doesn't really bother me because I work out of my home so I won't have to take it to the office or anything. Plus, it's instantly recognizable as AW... even people who aren't into notebooks will know what it is. As long as I don't let it get stolen, I'm fine with how it looks.

Wow, good deal, and thanks for the links. I'm going to seriously consider going that route now. Can't wait until Haswell and the 780m/8970m are out.