Video Card Advice

[frozen]

Hi, I would like to see some advice from you experts on video card selections. Recently I decided to get back to D3 with new season starting and realized that my video card (GeForce 560 Ti) I bought at the time when D3 came out a few years ago was surprising inadequate. I don't recall it being laggy when I played back then but I supposed expansion pack might have contributed to more graphic intensity?

Could you provide some advice as to what I should be looking for when shopping a video card? Or if you are a D3 player and is familiar with which video card can run it smoothly, I'd appreciate if you could recommend some.

I'm trying to keep my budget low, preferably under $200 but may go up to $200-300 somewhat depending on incremental performance/$.

My understanding is that you pick Radeon or GeForce brand first, then there are other manufacturers who tweak the video card, some of which include Asus, Zotac, MSI, Gigabyte.

Which brand do you recommend and avoid? Thanks in advance!

[Traum]

Hmm... this seems a bit strange. I've recently started playing a bit of D3 RoS again, and I am reasonably sure I am using some kind of GeForce 560 Ti-class video card as well, but I don't seem to have any video lag issues. Idle frame rates 100+, but obviously a bit slower when the action happens. Still, I don't notice anything unbearable at all.

CPU is some sort of low end Ivy Bridge i5 and 8GB of RAM. I'll doubled check my exact video card model and GPU when I get home.

[Reeyal]

First, I would try to lower down the graphic settings before trading up your video card.
D3 still uses the same graphics engine as when it was first released. Blizzard has upped the amount of details, but the engine remains the same.

Because of the exchange rate, video cards price points have gone through roof. Something which was worth $300 is now $500.

[flagella]

Thanks for the info. If you can check your spec that'd be great. I'm running a relatively old computer (about 7 years) but at the time was top notch with i7 processor (forgot specific model) and 12GB of ram.

I wonder if it's just due to the age of computer or maybe it's really dirty? How often do you guys clean up? Do you use your own tools or take it to a service shop?

It appears there's pretty decent video card for $200-300 range at ncix and bestbuy that can run D3 smoothly (zotac geforce 750 ti for $199 at bestbuy).

Anyway, it'll be great if I can tweak my setting or do something to smooth the gameplay without having to purchase a new one.

[twitchyzero]

update your graphics driver if you haven't already
if no luck then try reinstalling the game
if it worked before on the same game it should work again without spending money to upgrade.

[SoNaRWaVe]

have you checked to see if theres something in the background that might be holding up resources to cause the game to lag?

but if you are wanting to upgrade, here's what a quick search on ncix will get ya for RADEON or NVIDIA.

http://www.ncix.com/detail/msi-gefor...05313-1147.htm

http://www.ncix.com/detail/gigabyte-...10237-2038.htm

both roughly $240-$250ish before taxes. (after mail in rebate)

[bobola]

Have you upgraded yo monitor these pass year? If so, maybe you're running at a high resolution?

Either way, an upgrade would be nice if you plan to play other PC games as well.
The ATI R9 380 and Nvidia GTX 960 are both decent choice.

[DragonChi]

Weird, I run a 560 TI too, and I can play D3 at 1920x1200, max settings fine.
The original D3 that is.

ATIAMD is releasing their next gen cards this year. I'm hoping for a sizable jump in performance this year rather than just renaming cards.

[knight604]

I'd go with geforce because i hate AMD's software.

[flagella]

Originally Posted by SoNaRWaVe

have you checked to see if theres something in the background that might be holding up resources to cause the game to lag?

but if you are wanting to upgrade, here's what a quick search on ncix will get ya for RADEON or NVIDIA.

http://www.ncix.com/detail/msi-gefor...05313-1147.htm

http://www.ncix.com/detail/gigabyte-...10237-2038.htm

both roughly $240-$250ish before taxes. (after mail in rebate)

Thanks. Interestingly, I went to NCIX and bought a video card before seeing this reply. It happened to be the R9 380 you are recommending.

I plan to tweak my settings a bit more and see if there's anything I can do to play smoothly with 560 Ti before opening the box since NCIX has a pretty crappy return policy with restocking fees. If ultimately everything fails with 560 Ti, I guess I'll have to try R9 380 which I believe is quite an overkill for D3. I did check on my old CPU model and looks like there's no bottleneck with R9.

[Traum]

OK, so my video card is a GTX 560 Ti 448 -- it is supposed to be a touch faster than a regular GTX 560 Ti. But I still don't see why your 560 Ti shouldn't be enough for D3.

[Razor Ramon HG]

Double check the fans on your CPU and video card, and do a repaste.

Maybe it's throttling.

[Reeyal]

Originally Posted by flagella

...

I wonder if it's just due to the age of computer or maybe it's really dirty? How often do you guys clean up? Do you use your own tools or take it to a service shop?

...

I take my computer outside and use compressed air cans to clean it out every 6 months or so.

[SoNaRWaVe]

damn, every 6 months is good. i do mine maybe once a year if i'm not lazy lol. all those dustballs comes straight out with compressed air.

[ImportPsycho]

I can run D3 ROS on HD4400 or AMD A8 APU.
ofcourse, I have to turn off some details
560TI should run this at max setting.
hell, when D3 original came out, i even ran it on GTX295, max setting.

[Retrac]

I had a gtx460 and it ran fine on medium setting. Agree with others that you should clean out fans.