Misleading info...

Maybe it's just me, but information on this forum seems to recently be getting dangerously out of hand lately. Just last night I was looking at a thread where someone was having trouble playing BF2 on their notebook. The immediate response was 'You NEED 1.5Gb Ram to play BF2'.

Now seeing as 512mb is the minimum requirement, I pointed out that 1.5Gb is only needed for users running the game at higher settings due to textures taking up more memory etc....I myself run it on medium settings with 804mb ram and it runs great. I know someone who ran it on 512mb ram on low settings and it also ran fine. Yet everyone continued to post that 1Gb of ram is not enough under any settings to play the game smoothly. Now this morning I stumble across this is another thread, where the user has a Go7600 and 1Gb of ram, running the game on low settings:

What kinda advice is that? Another thread somone posted this, also relating to BF2:

On various other threads I can't find now as well, the bashing on Intel hardware begs belief. Yes, we all know that the drivers are out, T&L is enabled through hardware, yes people continuously post absolute crap like this when asked can my X3100 play anything?

These are just a few quotes, there is much more in every aspect, including the people saying they're playing new games on crap hardware on high settings and thus misleading the people who need us to advise them on their needs. (Don't get me started on the guy that said BF2 played amazing at high settings on his X200, then his screenshots were at 15fps idle when he finally showed them...can you imagine if any sane human being bought the x200 thinking he was going to smoke BF2 at high settings?)

What are they based on? Well, mostly it seems, other peoples comments. Guy A seems to say the GMA is crap, guy B goes off and slightly exaggerates the original statement in another thread, even if hes never owned or even used the hardware. That's honestly how it seems to work around here sometimes.

Obviously, there are people who give thoughtful, fair and most importantly true comments, but the amount of people who join bandwagons is unbelievable. You might think I'm nitpicking, but really - all I'm annoyed about is that people who come here for advice sometimes end up with a load of drivel and it could end up costing them money, not the person who was spreading the misleading info!

 

I probably haven't spent nearly as much time in this subforum as you, but I have gotten the impression there are a lot of people advising either 8600M GT or 7950 GTX, 7900 GS minimum for everything. I might add the "Which Notebook Should I Buy" forum has a bit of this syndrome as well if you mention you play pretty much any FPS game.

Perhaps for those who've grown used to having high settings and top-notch video cards, the idea of any card below 8600M GT in benchmarks for a new computer seems slow. I noticed in your last quote the person said, "and medium detail settings". I'd just like it if Battlefield Vietnam always ran smoothly at low details (on my current computer)!

Perhaps what we need is a stickied thread giving the performance of different games with different video cards and RAM. Users could report their results (i.e. "Runs fine", "40 FPS on medium", "Slightly laggy"), and the master of the chart could compile the data. It would take quite a while to get a good collection, of course, but could prove quite useful.

Or maybe we just need more people who don't go for the latest graphics. The problem there of course is they aren't the most interested in this type of stuff.

But for the record (based on my own experience and hardware): Battlefield 2 will not play with the nVIDIA GeForce MX440. At all. Reason: no pixel or vertex shaders on this card.

 

There was a thread recently comparing the 8600 GT to the GS with some pretty solid screenshots of the fps in various games with the GS. Or maybe it was the 8400 GS... I don't remember.

For any forum browser here, it's always a good idea to corroborate claims by posters with a second or third source. Doing research always pays.

 

Also people comparing 8600M GT's to 7950GTX's, stating that they were the same performance level. I LOL'd.

 

I think this isn't the solution. First: it will, as you mentioned, take a while before this list would be complete. Second, there will always be questions about cards, RAM, processors and hard drives. People will respond to these questions, people without experience and people with experience.

The source of this problem is people who think they know a lot about graphics requirements. Since there will always be new forum members, these people will always wander the forums. I think the best/easiest way to solve this is to let them know they are wrong as soon as possible by giving them negative reputation points with a comment, or sending them a Personal Message. And there should be a post in this thread that says the previous post was wrong (but that's pretty obvious) This should be done by the more experienced people on the forum (that's obvious too).

The problem is: "Where is the line between experienced users and not experienced users?" Or: "Who is allowed to post these advices and who is not?" For example: "I myself think I am quite experienced and I think I know it when I know enough to post an advice" But I don't have a laptop (yet), I learned it by reading threads on the forum. I hope that explains how difficult it is where to draw the line.

People on this forum should be learned to think about their knowledge before posting an advice. This by giving them feedback if they do something wrong (or right).

You should think before you post!

 

I think that now a days, people think that because they have the best of the best, other need to have the best of the best to run game smoothly. Therefore the over exagerate. For exapmle, someone told me that i would not beable to run Quake 4, But i can just about Max it out with no problems. And people that normally tell you things like that have for example, 7950 GTX, or the 8600 GS, etc. Another example is Counter Strike Source/Half-life 2, a 200m can run the game on 1280X800 mediums graphics, but because these other people have never had to use a computer like that, they automaticly assume that it will not.

 

So what do you want, create a negative atmosphere by installing a bunch of "forum nazis" that doll out negative reps?

This is an (essentially) public forum. There's bound to be a lot of misinformation and stupidity on it. If you're trying to find any information off the internet, it is your responsibility to judge the credibility of whatever you 'learn.'

Mods are here to weed out anything thats really out in left field, but (IMO) they shouldn't police random threads and delete all speculation that they deem more incorrect then their speculation. Realize that a lot of the questions asked here cannot be answered, like "How will Crysis run on an 8400 GS" .

Exactly. I used to run CS:S on an x300 more or less fine.

 

Ofcourse not. Maybe giving them negative rep points isn't the solution, but you should understand that if they are not given feedback, they will go on posting bad advices.

So the most important thing is to say someone is wrong (provided you do know enough about the question asked).

 

This is why you should never trust random people telling you things without backing their statements with something substantial. Until they post actual benchmarks, or links to a reliable source with them, take everyones opinion with a grain of salt.

I do agree that there seems to be a lot of "advice" given which is merely other peoples opinions being passed on without personal reflection. I have especially noticed this in regards to Vista, mainly because I don't agree it's as bad as everyone wants to make it seem

Anyway, not taking what other people say for an absolute truth is something everyone living in a country with free speech should know.

 

Come on, that may sound like a great idea but it's totally impractical.

Haven't you ever been in the same room with a big-mouthed republican? Have you ever tried arguing or politely saying "No! You're wrong"? I stick to polite nodding, then when s/he leaves, somewhat cruel jokes.

(That was just an example. No political debates please!)

 

I agree with you on the political thing you said. But I think it is not that hard to correct them at least, although it's a bit impractical maybe.

This is not something about beliefs/opinion, this is something about facts: a card will/will not run this game. You can learn that to someone.

Maybe you guys won't, but I will try to correct/explain someone if he/she is posting an advice that is wrong.

 

It's not *really* about simple facts, though. For the person posting, an 8600M GT might be the minimum card that will play that game to his satisfaction. Another person might be happy with the performance of the 8400 GS. The problem is that the framerate that people consider playable is so variable to begin with.

 

...And the only really universally accepted 'fact' is a screenshot, with the FPS, of a game running on ___ settings with XYZ GPU. You can draw your own conclusions from that. The rest is all speculation/opinion/fluff.

And since a lot of newer (8 series) cards are barely out there yet....

 

i've heard tons of contradicting statements on these forums, good thing I can pick out the right ones.

 

QFT. It amuses me when people who don't use Vista tell others about the "horrible driver situation", when most people (including myself) who actually do use Vista are quite happy with it.

As for giving bad advice - a lot of times it's a matter of preference. Personally, I'm an admitted graphics whore and I would never consider anything less than a Go 7950 GTX (I come from the high-end desktop world, where 10,000 in 3DMark06 is "alright" ). But I understand that others are not so demanding with their games. If people have questions about how the low-end or mid-range cards run, I'll usually just let other people answer.

I think people should just stick to answering what they have personal experience with. If someone asked how a game ran on Intel GMA950, my first reaction would be to say - "not at all" - but I'll stay silent and let somebody who actually has experience with it respond instead.

I think that's a great idea. People can decide for themselves if the graphics in the screenshot with that framerate is acceptable for them personally.