BattleForge: DX10

Up next is BattleForge, Electronic Arts’ free to play online RTS. As far as RTSes go this game can be quite demanding, and this is just at DX10. DX11 isn’t even a practical option for value cards like the GT 430.

The GT 430 fares even worse here than it did in Crysis. We had always considered BattleForge to be a shader-constrained game, but at these lower settings there’s a lot of proof that we’re looking at ROPs and/or memory bandwidth, both of which the GT 430 is short on. The Radeon 5670 is approaching double the performance for the same price, a very dire outcome for the GT 430.

Crysis: Warhead HAWX
Comments Locked

120 Comments

View All Comments

  • dnd728 - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    That was word for word per ATI's instructions, if I wasn't clear enough.
    If I hadn't followed their instructions, then it would all have been my fault, right?
  • mr_datawolf - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    You were on an ALL In WONDER! What did you expect? Talk about niche!
    Look, I totally agree ATI has done many horrible things with their drivers in the past. But for most of the AIW's life it was the only real tv card out there, in the consumer market. The feature set was WAY beyond everyone else anywhere near that price point.
    Also I used an NVIDIA card that competed with the AIW and it was just as annoying in driver.
  • dnd728 - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    Among others.
    I don't agree it's such a niche product, they've sold quite a few – it's not like a combination of hardware.
    I agree that they had the best feature set, they just kept crashing my systems.
    I can't recall a single time that I left it to record a show unattended and it actually did.
  • dnd728 - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    And btw, I did also try driver sweeper with no luck.
  • heflys - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    Good question. I find it odd how all the ATI cards somehow failed every time, yet the Nvidia cards worked flawlessly. Yet, for my first ATI purchase in 8-9 years, the card works flawlessly. No driver issues what-so-ever. Lets say that I'm a little bit skeptical.
  • SilthDraeth - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    I would say that one reason would be you.

    I have used AMD cards exclusively for the last 10 years, and never had a single issue. I have also worked on peoples computers with NVIDIA and never had a single issue.

    I am not sure what you were doing, and it very well could have been a driver issue, or bad part, but being that most computer issues are user error, that is where I am going to place my money.
  • dnd728 - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    Then you'll loose your money. I'm in no way novice and installed tons of hardware with no issues. There's really no place for me to go wrong installing a graphics card in a brand new install of windows.
    Again, I call ATI to investigate. Be my guest.
  • heflys - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    Can you elaborate on the errors that you encountered, which cards (exact model if possible) you owned; the manufacture of said card and your system specs? Thanks.

    I must say though, I'm not sure why you kept buying ATI if each one failed in some manner.
  • dnd728 - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    That would be a lot to recall, search for old gear and receipts and detail just to look more reliable here. AMD also seem to have deleted my old ATI service account with nearly all correspondences. I will do it if I know it goes someplace useful.
    The errors varied with card, driver version, MMC version and windows version. Each card came with its own full long story. There's just too much to list from probably over a decade.
    PCs, Windows, cards were from all of that time range and from different manufacturers (except windows...). Cards by ATI, sapphire, hercules? oem by mic? (that's what the sticker here says) I was mostly bugged by bsods and other forms of crashes and freezes with all cards. One ended up dying, another deteriorated rapidly and if installed would probably die soon too. But there are many lesser bugs too. Change driver/Windows/MMC version and you get more/less crashes and some strange new bugs.

    I didn't buy them all one after the other. Time passed and I was thinking - it's working for other people, got nice reviews, it's a different card than what I previously had, a different card maker, a different PC, different Windows version, so why shouldn't it work? A couple I got preinstalled, without much choice. And with the first ATI card or two ...well I wasn't aware yet.
    Now I'm accused of giving them too much credit.
  • heflys - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link

    Interesting......Seems you just have bad luck with ATI for some reason. I'd chalk it up to crappy side manufacturers. I think it's telling when companies like "Hercules GPU' " are no longer around. Also, at the time, ATI and 3dfx (now owned by Nvidia) were lending out their tech to every fool with the potential to manufacture cards. There were a number of crap products during those times, I wouldn't be surprised if you experienced some issues. What was your problem with the 5xxx series though?

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now