Legit Reviews

Got it installed last night.

Uninstalled Nvidia drivers through Windows control panel.
Boooted into safe mode and ran Driver Cleaner Pro.
Installed latest ATI drivers from website .... Then found and installed the Crysis hotfix Apop told about.

In Vista 32 bit, there was virtually no change in FPS for Crysis compared to the 8800 GTS 320Mb.
Still getting 30 FPS +/- in 1024x768 on High settings with the "On the cheap" very high tweak.
Interesting note: Seems as though there's a memory leak somewhere.
The longer I play Crysis, the higher my RAM usage goes until it eventually fills up and the screen will start jerking every once in a while then.
Also seems to be no difference between DX9 & DX10 modes.

Haven't gotten around to trying it in XP yet.

I should mention also ...
I'm running dual monitors in independent mode.
That's how I'm monitoring RAM & CPU usage. Via a sidebar gadget positioned on the 2nd monitor.

LOL

Runs the hell outta Halo 1!
1440x900
All settings maxed - VSYNC off
Avg 300 FPS w/ no artifacts or Horizontal tearing as of yet.

Played quite a bit of Cryis multi player last evening.
The memory never filled up like it does in single player mode.

Also, I turned on the FPS feature in Xfire.
In multi player with the aforementioned settings, I was getting frame rates between 40 - 50.

Wonder what would cause the differences between SP and MP???

DL126 wrote:Played quite a bit of Cryis multi player last evening.
The memory never filled up like it does in single player mode.

Also, I turned on the FPS feature in Xfire.
In multi player with the aforementioned settings, I was getting frame rates between 40 - 50.

Wonder what would cause the differences between SP and MP???

Fire up FRAPS and try to capture some benchmarking numbers on similar levels. I'm a bit shocked the difference is that huge also.

is it just me, or is ATI back in the game? i mean two 180(CAD) 3850s can hold their own vs an ultra(at least in some games)? cant wait to see what the 3870x2 in crossfire will be able to pull off

I don't have FRAPS Apop.
And to be honest, I really don't wanna install it as it's just another program that I'll have to figure out how to use.
What I will do though is some more testing under more controlled situations.
In my original post, those FPS figures were obtained using the r_displayinfo 1 command in the console of single player Crysis.
This may or may not yield the same results as what Xfire reported in multi player mode.
However, the memory leak mystery still stands. Played more MP last evening and still didn't have the problem arise.

Is ATI making a comeback in the game??
As far as my opinion is concerned ... who gives a damn what I think??
But the 3870 was cheaper than a 8800 GTS SC 320.
And looks as though it's gonna yield better results, or equal results at the very least.
So are they?? .... I'd say so.
On a side note here ... I'm currently having some video driver crashes in Vista running the latest CCC.
It's not really bad but quite annoying. Reckon they'll fix it ASAP.

I'm looking forward to Apop's review on CF also.
Maybe I need another 3870???? We'll see.
I'm sure my wife would like to converse with Apop BEFORE that article is published.

Disclaimer:
I'm not into all those benchmarking woojangers.
I just fire up my games with the same settings and see which one is most playable to me.
Therefore .... your mileage may vary.

P.S.
As you've probably read in my other thread, I wound up with this 3870 as a result of my son needing a Crysis capable video card in his puter.
When we installed what was formerly my 8800 GTS in his puter, he played for about 20 minutes .....
And all of a sudden the smoke came out of his power supply.
So obviously I then had to install a new one for him. Yea we put a good one in there this time.
But it never ends does it???
Spend and spend and spend ....$$$$

It never ends! The 3870 does pretty good on Crysis and does great with Crossfire (and the hotfix drivers).

do you think a 3870x2 will beat the ultra and take the crown O:

So u need to hurry up and publish the article man!

This morning I had another driver crash that couldn't be recovered from.
So I totally uninstalled the drivers and CCC.
Then I reinstalled the drivers only download .... no CCC.

I've yet to reinstall the Crysis hotfix.
After just playing MP for a while, I could tell no difference.

it will be tomorrow... had some issues with the test system, but I got it all worked out... charts are all made and I'm putting the final touches on it now. Had to book flights for CES and get hotel reservations, so that took a couple hours today too.

maj0r_pawnage wrote:do you think a 3870x2 will beat the ultra and take the crown O:

Way too early for that... I'm sure you will start to see benchmark numbers on the 3870 X2 around CES as it will be on display and have newer silicon than when I got a chance to play UT3 on it and some other games. My honest guess... I think it will be faster than a GeForce 8800 Ultra in some games. I say that because of the performance of the 3870 in CrossFire and the fact that NVIDIA bumped up production of their new cores.

DL126 wrote:This morning I had another driver crash that couldn't be recovered from.
So I totally uninstalled the drivers and CCC.
Then I reinstalled the drivers only download .... no CCC.

This atikmdag crash thing is starting to get really annoying.
A search on Google yields a 24 page (and counting) thread of people having the same problem.
Some ATI (AMD) dude is in on the thread but he has no answer either.

One of the last posters in the thread, as of this morning, has an interesting entry which I also experienced.
Why did my sound drivers get screwed with when I installed the drivers for this VIDEO card??
I also had this sound driver thing happen last weekend when I installed drivers for an ATI HD 2600 for a customer.
It's hinted that this started with ATI drivers after CCC version of 7.7.
What the hell???

Oh yea ....
Read your article on the CrossFired 3870's Apop.
I'll get a 2nd one .... IF this freaking driver crash thing gets worked out somehow.

Turned the 2nd monitor off 2 days ago.
Haven't had the driver crash occur since.

Didn't realize I had gotten so accustomed to having that xtra screen space until it was gone.