You got a 260 for $150 a year ago? Wow. You got a great deal. I just looked at the current prices on newegg, and they are about $200. The 280s are about $300. The prices will plummet this spring however when the 300 series comes out.

What resolution do you play Crysis? High resolutions and AA/AF are actually much more taxing on a video card than higher textures and graphics. I doubt a 260 could play Crysis at 1080p or better with full AA/AF and still stay above 30 fps.

I prefer mouse/keyboard any day, not just because of the extra precision but also because of hot keys on the keyboard. With a controller, you have to hold down a button and fumble through a bunch of menus. With a keyboard you can just press 1 for pistol, 2 for shotgun, 3 for rifle, etc. I watched a buddy of mine play Dragon Age on his PS3. It amused me that he had to constantly fumble through menus just to use different spells and skills.



Doom 3 is 6 years old, so yeah it is easy to max out. The original Xbox had a Geforce 3 card, and it could handle Doom 3 on low settings.



The Wiimote basically is a mouse though, so that isn't really a fair comparison to compare it to a traditional controller with analog thumbsticks.

Choosing a video card isn't that difficult in my opinion. You just have to remember what the numbers mean. The first digit is the generation and the second digit is the power. If the second digit is below a 6, it is not suitable for gaming. If the second digit is a 6 or 7, it is decent for casual gaming at modest resolutions. If the second digit is an 8 or 9, it is meant for hardcore gaming. That is basically all you need to know, and it has suited me well. The most difficult choice for me is choosing between a Geforce or Radeon card since they tend to leap-frog each other with one generation favoring one and the next generation favoring the other.

But yeah, I notice that some forums favor different platforms. This forum is very heavily on the console side. PC doesn't even have its own official thread here like each of the consoles have. I guess because there would probably only be three or four people posting in the official PC thread.

Yeah it's almost like the 260 216 went up in price. Strange. I have played it fine in 1920x1080 but have only done so once (when it was hooked up to a 1080p TV) don't think AA was maxed out though (believe it was set to 2x) and this was just regular Crysis, not Warhead. The fact my last card had problems with FEAR and this one runs it at 177 fps makes me chuckle.

I still have a 1280x1024, 19" LCD monitor (been meaning to upgrade .. but you know... why do 24" 1920x1200 IPS panels still cost so damn much ($315 for a 23" 1080p IPS being the closest I've seen to reasonable) and only 720p TV/Projectors... so I don't have much to worry about in terms of gaming (I can max out almost everything without issue) on it for now.

And I understand a lot of people prefer KB+M for everything, but since I started working 40+ hours a week in front of a computer, I decided the less time "off" spent in front of a kb+m the better. Sitting on a comfy couch or bed with a controller usually suites me better. But again, I still prefer kb+m for competitive gaming.

This and the fact that the life cycle of any given card so short (not how long it is useful, but the time from when a card is introduced to when it's successor comes out).

As much as I bitch about it though, I will go through it again. Heck, I'm getting ready to build a PC to put in my garage so it's off to compare specs on general purpose cards! That segment seems to be the most crowded.

I actually see that as a positive. When the new cards come out, the old cards plummet way down in price. Most of the time, the new cards aren't going to really provide a cost-effective benefit making it worth the upgrade. The Geforce 9800 GT can max out any game but Crysis easily, and this will most likely hold true until the next-gen consoles come out in a couple years. The 9800 GT can be bought for $100 or less now, and it is much more powerful than either the Xbox 360 or PS3. I honestly don't see a point in spending three times as much money on the newer 280 card for only a minimal extra benefit (being that it can handle just one game better than the 9800... Crysis). The 300 series cards come out this spring, and that is going to be even more pointless of an upgrade. It will make the price of the 200 series plummet though.

My 9800 GT will last for at least a couple more years. When the Xbox 720 and PS4 come out, it will be time to upgrade but by then the 300 series will be coming down in price. I imagine it will still be slightly ahead of the next-gen consoles since the consoles will most likely be based around 200 series tech in order to keep costs down.


I play on my PC from a couch. I have it set up on a TV dinner folding table/tray.