X1600 good enough for new games?

Is my X1600 going to be good enough to play new games at high levels of quality?

I just installed GTA San Andreas and at a resolution of 1680x1050 at Very High graphics, it almost seems like it skips during intense action moments.

Would I do better lowering the resolution or the quality?

 

That is a poweful card, it should run that game without a problem. How much ram do you have, and do you have the newest drivers installed?

 

Yes I have the newest drivers and 2gb of 667mhz ram. Heck I even got 4514 on 3dmark 05

 

yea...1680x1050 is not a good idea. I always start off with 1024x768 on High and raise it later as I progress through the game and determine that higher resolutions won't slow me down. But 1024x768 is about the only resolution where you can max everything out and still be playable. Enable Strech - Maintain Aspect Ratio so it doesn't look retarded

 

but playing at the Higher Res will look better than playing at a lower Res and using AA and AF. Although I know where you coming from, I get mad when I can't max EVERYTHING out, but I've come to realizations and try to keep a good frame rate and a decent look.

 

Well you can have the game running at higher resolutions and take a greater performance hit for somewhat better image quality or have it at a lower resolution but with AA on and suffer little performance impact with comparable image quality. Due to how ATI implements AA algorithms on their cards, they suffer less performance impacts than most other cards.

Having a higher resolution just means more pixels drawn on screen, reducing jagged edges due to the larger amount, and therefore "looking better." But, that's no different than having AA on at say 4x and having the card draw 4x the regular amount of pixels for anti-aliasable objects and reducing those jagged edges. You just get more performance with the latter.

Anywho, it is up to the preference of the individual user.