Best Video Card

" Second, how many people are running their monitors with refresh rates greater than 60Hz in the first place? Hmmmmmmmm? "

I'm not sure if this means what I think it means, but I normally set my refresh rates to anything other than 60, becuase 60 can have interference problems with room lighting.

On some monitors this will show up as a dark band on parts of the screen, or worse, a dark band that slowly rotates from top to bottom.

Why Windows so frequently defaults to 60 I have no idea, since it is ablsolutely the worst setting. If I have a monitor or video card that won't go above 60 (rare) I pick a value below.

I've seen too many perfectly good monitors put out for the trash becuase they were connected to systems with refresh rates set to 60.

PS: I had serious problems with ATI video cards back during the transition from Windows NT 3.51 to 4.0. At at that time Microsoft in it's infinite wisdom changed video drivers to run with the system protection key, meaning they had write access to all system memory. ATI drivers were addressing out of bounds and clobbering things like disk i/o buffers. I compared results with numerous other people running that driver and they all had the same problems.. usually a system that would run for about an hour before the disk was so screwed up that you had to do a full re-install. As far as I know ATI never publicly acknowleged the problem, but they did discontinue the card shortly after that. I didn't forgive ATI for a long time over that one.

Headaches, flickering, and room lighting interference at 60Hz? You guys have some odd problems, I've never heard of these before. Tell you what, I'll switch to 75Hz or something and see if my eyes like it better.

In the meantime I was poking around Tom's Hardware...

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030311/geforcefx-5600-5200-04.html

That page goes to one of many benchmarks done with the current contenders in the video card arena. Seems like the best price/performance tradeoffs are:

1. GeForce FX 5600
2. GeForce 4 Ti4800
3. GeForce 4 Ti4200 8x
4. Radeon 9500 PRO
5. Radeon 9600 PRO

The 9600 PRO is an odd customer. It has a much faster internal clock (400MHz rather than 275) than its predecessor, the 9500 PRO, but the 9500 PRO actually beats it:

http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030416/radeon_9600-07.html#unreal_tournament_2003

The 9500 and 9600 are faster than the GeForce FX 5600 at the high-polygon, eight-light test, and they are both loads faster at vertex and pixel shading. If you don't particularly like or dislike either vendor, the 9500 PRO is probably a good bet. If you don't think much of ATI's support (like me) the 4800 or 5600 is probably a good bet. The 4800 seems a little faster than the 5600 but it probably doesn't have as many features that might be tapped by newer games.

If you don't mind spending over $250 for a video card, look at the Radeon 9800 and the GeForce FX 5900. The 128MB 9800 is a lot cheaper than the 128MB 5900, and the 256MB versions of both are in the $470 range. Ick! Unless you have money to burn I'd wait... by the time there are games you need this level of performance to play, you'll get a better card for that price or less.

If you saw the GeForce FX 5200 for $75 and thought it was a steal, think again: it's a very slow low-end card, don't waste your money. The Ti4200 beats it hands down.

Yes those who are prone to Migraine headaches, if they notice, are effected by 60Hz.

I am one of them, I can't stand anything lower that 75hz.

Some people who don't have Migraine problems can actually see a "flicker" in the monitor, similiar to pointing a video camera to your T.V. but not quite.

There are abilities some have over others in the area of sences, like sight, hearing, touch etc... There should be no surprise tha tsome can "see" their monitor refresh to some degree. Which is why I get migraines easily at 72hz or lower.

There have been scientific studies in the University in the state I live in regarding some of this. Anyone ever heard of UW Madison Wisconsin? A very high profile research facility.

I am currently trying to decide what video card to upgrade to. I have a nvida geforce 2 Pro which was kick ass when I got it and still is pretty good but that won't last much longer. I have spent many a hour reading through the internet on video cards reading graph after graph of benchmarks and they all seem to favor the ATI cards. Basicly the only thing that is keeping me from buying one is the driver problems in SL.

60mhz makes my eyes bleed. I have my monitor set to 85 right now... I can't stand anything less. Maybe Huns has some kinda super-eyes, but everyone I've talked to about this says 60mhz is painful, and yes, I have talked to quite a few people.

The thing that most people forget when talking about super high FPS is that the human eye can't notice anything higher than around 30. What's the use of having a card that runs at 100, or heck, even 1000 FPS if you can't even tell the difference?

I won't really get into the whole ATI vs. Nvidia thing, because they both have their strengths and weaknesses, and arguing about it is really pointless. In fact, it's their differences that are really driving the market right now, and that are keeping the prices as low as they are. If there were only one company, no competition, do you think you'd be paying $100 for ANY kind of video card, crappy or no?

Personally, I just want a card that plays SL with nice graphics at ANY number above 30fps reliably and cheaply, even if that number is just 31.

I can notice flicker when I look at European TVs (on rare occasions when I am there) that I don't notice with US televisions. TVs here in the States run at 29.997Hz, Euro TVs run at 25Hz.

We may not be able to process more than about 30FPS, but for some reason I can still detect differing levels of smoothness above that level. I don't know why, it may have to do with tiny changes in time dilation in games. As for having "super eyes," I don't know about that.

60 Hz... cycles per second... this is the frequency at which alternating current runs in your household electricity. And because fluorescent lighting is essentially a big resistor, it runs at 60Hz, and will interfere with fun things like cameras and monitor refresh.

30fps is not so much a maximum but a minimum iirc in order for you to not notice a major flicker. If you focus hard enough, almost everyone can still notice flicker at higher rates.

If 30fps were true then all monitors would be set to 30Hz. And all cards would be 30fps.

But they aren't, because the higher the rate the less flicker we are able to notice.

It's like slow or fast motion in movies. All a matter of rates.

So.. running the Asus v9900 Geforce Fx 5800 Ultra.. thats kinda overdoing it a bit here?

Thats what I have.. running at 1024x768 at 85hz. Seems to be running at a stable condition so far, except for few minor crashes but I don't think they're video card related.

If your monitor supports it you could probably do with upping the resolution a few notches, and turning on all the special effects.