SoccerDude28

Psychonauts PC Demo out

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How crappy a company is Saphire? What other brand might be better? Thanks again.

Sapphire is a very good company, I'm the happy owner of a radeon 9600Xp from this constructor and it's a very good one. Only thing i can regret is the not-so-silent fan.

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Sapphire is fine, make sure that the speed is appropriate for the card and not slightly underclocked. If the clock speeds are Ok the only way they could really be "cheap" was if the overclocking ability was hampered, usually not a problem and you won't even be overclocking. If they're not trying to rip you off just buy whatever is cheapest.

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Thanks for the info. I'm trying to find some clocking info online.

Anyone have any thoughts on Radeon 9600PRO 128MB vs. Radeon 9600 256MB?

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Speaking from personal experience and from extensive internet research, if you have an Abit AV8 motherboard, don't get a Radeon 9600. The 9600 is apparently a very nice card, but hundreds of people including myself have been unable to use it for gaming due to a weird issue with the AV8 that prevents the motherboard from sending the video card enough power to function when playing intensive 3d games. It's a pretty specific combination of hardware so it probably doesn't apply to you but I feel it's my duty to spread the word. Both ATI and Abit are known to be aware of the problem but have refused to help in any way other than suggesting updating drivers and so forth, which has not seemed to help anyone.

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Anyone have any thoughts on Radeon 9600PRO 128MB vs. Radeon 9600 256MB?

A larger amount of RAM is useless except for playing games with super-high-resolution textures on special settings like Doom 3 (this is becoming a more frequent option). Quite frankly, it wouldn't make a damn difference how much ram you had because you'd be playing it at 6 fps on a regular 9600.

9600PRO is much faster, although by todays standards it is the budget end of DX9 cards (a good card though, I recommend it, and it can stand relatively large amounts of overclocking).

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Has anybody noticed that Psychonauts.com already has patches available? One for the demo, and one for the full game, 11 MB each. I didn't see anything specific about what they fix, but they're zip files, so maybe they include a ReadMe with more info.

[EDIT] They don't, just compressed .exe files.

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Cool, where'd you find that? Did I look right past it on the official page, or is it tucked away somewhere else?

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Is it just me, or is the GeForce naming system incredibly complicated?

The Web page I found explaining them didn't mention FX, PCX or ones that just say GeForce but have larger numbers. Or ones that end in TC.

I assume GeForce FX is better than 3 since it's in the recommended requirements. But is it better than four? What the hell is going on? I think I may need a PCI slot card.

:frusty::frusty::eek:;(

Sorry to drive this further off topic. Maybe it should split into a "getting a graphics card to play psychonauts" thread.

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It's not hugely complicated, although the FX one is a bit of a confuser at first. The FX series is essentially just the 5th series, then you've got the TI series being the 4th series, the rest are just named by number. Certain cards in each series fall well above or below cards in higher/lower serieses though, so have a good look into a card before buying it. The MX that I mentioned earlier is one example.

As a small piece of advice though, I'd try to avoid the FX series if you can, and just go straight to the AGP 6th series. The cards are far more powerful, and are worth the extra cash. The 6600gt is a fairly good card which is powerful yet affordable, although it has problems with VIA and SiS mainboards, so avoid it should you have either of those. ATI don't really have a comparable card to the 6600gt afaik.

The 2nd/3rd/4th Geforce series cards should just be outright avoided. Most of them are 100% obsolete and no longer supported, and newer drivers pretty much ignore their existence (you get far better performance with two year old drivers when using a GF4 than you do with the recent ones). They're cheap, sure, but they'll struggle. They'll struggle a lot.

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Cool, where'd you find that? Did I look right past it on the official page, or is it tucked away somewhere else?

That's from the updated readme for the patched demo. You have to install the patch before you have any idea what it does, basically.

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Thanks for your help, everybody. I'm probably gonna end up with an Xbox now, as I'm not sure the cards will work right with my PC. :(

I guess I'll have to sell my PC Psychonauts, keep the shirt and save up.

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I'm actually planning to buy my own Xbox soon (the one I use is belongs to my niece and nephew, and I'm moving away so will need my own). When Xbox 360 comes out I'll wait a few months and then consider getting it.

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Well I hope you want other games for Xbox because it won't be supported much longer,

I only have eyes for Psychonauts.

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Hey, people still have super nintendos! I'm waiting when I start making money again to start getting xbox games for cheap! stock up on the collection, ya know. :P

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It is likely that Microsoft will continue supporting Xbox until at least 2006 or 2007.

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Well, if it's a bad move to pay $189 for one game, it appears I could get a GeForce FX5200 or FX5700LE. I'm not sure if the LE makes it better or worse, but the FX5600 is the minimum recommended. I could also get a PCI Radeon 9250 or 9200SE, which should fit the requirements.

Possible brands include Apollo, Jaton, Prolink, PNY. Sapphire, Powercolor and Infotek for the Radeons.

Actually, all those Radeons say DirectX 8, so they're no good anyway.

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