The next cards that come out for nVidia and ATI will be PCI-E 2.0 compatible, but will also run in PCI-E 1.1 slots.

Nope. That is exactly where your assumptions are running wrong. The high end parts (emphasis on "high end") will most likely NOT run in 1.1 slots. The reason being the special juice (power/electric current) pins that PCIe 2.0 is designed for. The whole point of PCIe 2.0 is to supply high end graphics cards with more power. The high end cards will require these pins that will only be in 2.0 slots. Thus no usage possible in 1.1 slots.
Mid range or low end cards will probably work in 2.0 slots though. True. But those lower end cards were not the topic of the previous posts.

Just use the application profiles to set the level of AA you want for each game. It is much easier than having to enable/disable it globally every time.

That's too much of a pain in the ass to have to re-set up every time I update a driver.

How about you think a little bit? You can make Add-In cards that are backward compatible too, such as AGP8x cards that would function in AGP 4x slots...

The next cards that come out for nVidia and ATI will be PCI-E 2.0 compatible, but will also run in PCI-E 1.1 slots.

And all the stuff about the 8700 is rumor too. The only thing that nVidia has publicly stated is that they are NOT doing a G80 refresh (that means no 8900s), and that they were MOVING DIRECTLY TO THEIR NEXT GENERATION PART.

As for PCIe2 it should be backwards compatible with PCIe1.1, so you won't need to upgrade your motherboard just to run it.

Umm... if you want to run the new card that requires PCIe 2.0 then of course are you going to have to own a PCIe 2.0 compatible MB. Dude, think! Backwards compatibility means that you can plug any old 1.1 card into the new slot but not the other way around. The new high end cards will most likely require the additional juice that is supplied by the PCIe 2.0 slots so new high end cards will most likely not work in MBs with 1.1 slots.

BTW, I'm pretty sure that this is part of the reason why nVidia is not in a rush to bring out a new high end generation of chips and cards. The install base of PCIe 2.0 is pretty much non-existent since the X38 chipset is not even out yet. I believe that nVidia are either a) taking their time to figure out how to cope with the power reqs of their next gen to make it work in 1.1 slots or b) are waiting for 2.0 to become more widely available. If it is the latter then we might not see a new generation from nVidia until mid next year which I wouldn't consider as too unlikely. It's not like ATI is any real competition at the moment anyway so there's no need for nVidia to rush anything.


This comment was edited on Sep 30, 14:48.

Those 9x series rumors are not true. It has been confirmed by nVidia a couple of weeks ago already that G92 (coming out in November) is supposed to close the gap between the 8600GTS and the 8800GTS 320MB. The new card will be priced at ~$250. The chip will probably be called 8700GTS or something like that. If you are or were considering buying an 8800 card, I would advise to buy it now since nVidia might let the 320MB model expire to make more room for the new card. And they also might make the 640MB model a little more expensive to emphasize the separation of mid range and high end chips.
Finally, a new high end card or next generation from nVidia is nowhere to be seen yet. The G92 rumors were obviously all false.

can you still switch to the classic control panel? not been updating for a while and can't see where the option's gone.

just to be lazy, is it still worth doing the coolbits thing or do you just go for ntune now?

the only reason I haven't gone out and picked up an 8800GTS is because I'm trying to hold off for the rumored 9 series in a month.

Yea I like to skip a generation usually but with ATI/AMD sucking ass seems Nvidia aint in no hurry too bring out there 9 series and kill off the g80's, instead they sit back and milk it while ATI flounders to try and catch up.

Yea its been a great card but long in the tooth now..

Agreed. BioShock brought my card to it's knees; the only reason I haven't gone out and picked up an 8800GTS is because I'm trying to hold off for the rumored 9 series in a month.

With some luck the 9 series will go retail before UT3 does.

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Xfire/Steam: GreySpire (alias Bucky)
http://www.pclinuxos.com

Rumors currently have the 9xxx series at mid-November, however, they are all rumors. There's also been some stuff floating around lately about the card requiring PCIe2, again though, it's all rumor.

I do hope those rumours are true, even though my 8800GTS is doing fine for the moment. As for PCIe2 it should be backwards compatible with PCIe1.1, so you won't need to upgrade your motherboard just to run it. ATi were meant to have some new graphics cards for September but obviously that didn't pan out.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Founder of the "I Hate Smiley Fitz" society

Remember: Riley has autism. He has trouble communicating, and in an overstimulating
environment, he can get frightened and run away, leaving his parents frantic. - Auburn

I love my 7950 GX2 even if it does run really hot.

Yea its been a great card but long in the tooth now.. world in conflict really brings the frame rates to a crawl @ 1650 x 1080 widescreen.
The 8800 is up to 50% faster in many games with high settings/high res, think I will just pick up a single 8800 gtx and wait and see what nVidia does can always add another 8800 latter when I upgrade the rest of my system.

Refreshes of the 8xxx series were canned, so you'll never be seeing GX2 88xx. I love my 7950 GX2 even if it does run really hot.

Rumors currently have the 9xxx series at mid-November, however, they are all rumors. There's also been some stuff floating around lately about the card requiring PCIe2, again though, it's all rumor.

Edit: Thanks Shai-Tan. I uninstalled nHancer, but I might give it a whirl with that fix in place.
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Xfire: GreySpire
http://www.pclinuxos.com
This comment was edited on Sep 30, 10:31.

These are working well with my 7950GX2 in World in Conflict getting round 5 frames better performance.

Thinking I want to upgrade to 8800gtx sli but isnt nVidia coming out with a new card next month, and what ever happened to the 8850GX2?

Just use the application profiles to set the level of AA you want for each game. It is much easier than having to enable/disable it globally every time.

I've been running 94.24 because every driver since then has removed the ability to change the FSAA from the taskbar icon. You can still change the anisotropic filtering from the taskbar, so why have they removed FSAA? Now that's just an extra step to enable FSAA in games that don't have a built in setting.

This boosted my performance in TF2 like crazy. Way to go!

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Bioshock, Crysis, Quake Wars, HL2:Episode 2/Portal/TF2, Gears of War PC, Unreal Tournament 3... it's going to be a good Q4. :-)

there's a fix for nhancer but can't remember what forum I saw it on. beyond3d or nvnews maybe

EDIT:

http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?showtopic=8533

^^ found searching on google for nhancer 163.71


This comment was edited on Sep 29, 15:47.

I'm gonna grab these right now, the TF2 Beta drivers from a week ago broke nHancer compatibility on me.

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Xfire: GreySpire
http://www.pclinuxos.com

Make sure you get the PM version. The AM version is giving me glitches.


This comment was edited on Sep 29, 14:04.