So Sander, being basically a really lazy person, I wish you would post links to the benches you were seeing.

GeForce 8600 GT and GTS Review:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/426/

John Ingram said:

Of course you can play older games, just run them in compatibility mode. It appears your arguments are based on little or no experience whatsoever. **sigh**

Ezactly what type of games can you get on a console that you cannot get on a PC??

BTW, Flight sims, decent racing sims, proper MMORPG's etc cannot be had for consoles.

Why dont you go off and code those ridiculous ideas for games that you have and see how well they sell, rather than posting constant negativity based on no fact whatsoever.

Dublinguunner - I have already mentioned I have a dual boot system, I have already mentioned I have/use DOSBox, so I don't know how you can come to the conclusion I am talking for a position of lack of knowledge!

In XP, not all games will work, even with the XP compatibility option. That;s why there is freeware like VDMSound and DGVoodoo. I am very very confident that many many fewer games will work in Vista using it's compatibility option, hence my comment that Vista will run fewer Win98 games than XP did!

As long as you accept that the media and eBay are right to be talking about retro gaming interest on the increase (hence the Wiii, the PS3 backward compatibility arguument and the millions of DOSBox and VDMSound downloads!), then you have to say that that is a sign in disappointment in what is happening in PC gaming now.

Surely for every 2 or 3 pre 2000 games that eBay sells in it's retro section (started last year as they spotted a trend, as eBay often does!), that is a vote against modern gaming and the hardware demands and lack of entertainment value.

When you have Oblivion being lauded when it will run on less than 5% of home PC's and you have Half Life Two Episode One being lauded when it had 5 hours of gameplay, and in retail stores (where more than half of PC games are still sold) having a retail price of $20 in US and £20($30!) in the UK! THese actions are suicidal and just two examples to show, how in general PC gaming, the industry and media are losing the plot.

John Ingram said:

Faulty logic. An interest in one hardly precludes an interest in the other. Personally, I love old games as well as newer games. As do most gamers I know.

Your argument that modern PC games lack the "entertainment value" of older games is more substantial, albeit over-generalized. I agree with you that PC gaming genres are shrinking, and that games with real depth and ingenuity are few are far between. I blame it on consoles and the creeping "consolitis" that is now an unwelcome fixture in much of PC gaming today, but that is just my personal opinion. The industry is far too risk-averse in their choices of which projects to green-light. If it isn't a sequel or add-on or expansion or rip-off of an existing franchise, then it is 100 times more difficult to get published. This is another trait that has crept from console devs to PC devs over the last decade.



I am with you on your criticism of HL2 Episode One and, more generally, any PC game that is over in a few hours. Though I love the gameplay in F.E.A.R., for example, I hated how soon the game was done. And that would not bother me too much except that so many titles are doing the same. I fondly remember playing games like Deus Ex, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and even the likes of Solder of Fortune 2 for the generous number of levels and the sheer amount of time it took to finish them, not to mention their re-playability. (And that's just a few shooters, and obviously not talking about such perennial time-sinks as Civilization, etc.)

But I feel you are wrong about Oblivion. Though I and most of my friends have fairly high-end gaming rigs, I know many, many people who merrily play Oblivion on their Socket A machines with 9700-class GPUs. Sure, those rigs play games better than integrated office PCs and most laptops, but they are still at least 4 years old. (I know because I built and sold so many of them, and most are still in use by gamers.) And if a system can handle Oblivion (even at low-res), then there is an excellent chance that it will handle many other new games. The only thing that I dislike about Oblivion is the aforementioned "consolitis" that hampers its non-modded GUI and some gameplay mechanics. But I play it with mods that mitigate those shortcomings. (Another reason the PC is the only gaming platform for me.)

I, too, like the quality of the graphics in HL2 and question why we MUST move beyond that level so quickly. I would sooner spend my money on a well-written, 50-hour+ game using "last-gen" graphics than all the eye-candy that DX10 promises to throw at me. I have been playing computer games since my first Apple II in 1982, and the pace of these changes -- and the editorial insistence that change isn't coming fast enough -- is sillier than I have ever seen it.

Speaking of retro games.

Only last night I was having a discussion with a couple of my friends (a topic they brought up) about Elite, and Frontier:Elite 2.

We were discussing how they run flawlessly using the like of dosbox etc, and I had it running in Vista.

Yes, those games are classics, but can also be had for free, or nearly free.

I wish games only cost £20/$30 here. A new game bought here will generally cost beteen €40 - €60 depending on the publisher.

I would imagine the cost is what is driving retro game sales. They can be picked up for next to nothing, and a lot come in CD's of 100's of games.

But your argument that modern games wont run on new PC's doesnt stand. Turn the settings down as I indicated in an earlier post.


BTW, this has gone WAY WAY WAY off topic.

whats funny is that PCs seem to Encode Old games better than the Latest Consoles out. I guess due to many caring about playing Games From the 80s etc.

The last three responses have been very good. Thanks.

Re: Oblivion running on lots of machines because people have the rigs to run it, well, Oblivion on PC has sold about 4 million copies. A free utility called OLDBlivion, which allows people with FX5200, FX5600, etc type cards to be able to run the game as OLDBlivion allows the game to run in 1.0 shaders. This utility has been pretty much ignored. Bethesda have barely mentioned it, it has won no awards whatsoever and yet it has had over a million downloads - 25% of the sales, give or take a few 10,000's. If you use the Sims as the template for sales possibilities (which the industry and gamers don't like doing as it shows how poor most PC games now sell!) you can see that Oblivion did well, but 10's of millions of casual to hardcore gamers could not have played it on release day with their current PC. The other thing about Oblivion was Bethesda's callous use of 'minimum' requirements and 'recommended' requirements. Many many gamers found that while they had the minimum system or better, the game was as slow as a turtle in game speed, even with the options turned down and was unplayable. This is why by word of mouth, OLDBlivion has been downloaded so many times.

I still say, purely on sales trends (last year had the smallest number of PC game releases - ever), and personally based on seeing PC game shelves getting smaller and smaller in computer game stores and disappearing altogether in the more general electrical stores and department stores, that we could easily be in the last two years of a PC gaming market that is large enough to have retail distribution. Where all that's left are the independant software companies producing the low budget games and having them available for download. Maybe a Half Life will still get distribution, maybe WoW will continue as it is almost self sustaining, and maybe the SIms and it's exapnsions will still be carried because of there sales numbers, but a general PC games market like we have a 360/PS2/PS3 market could be gone before we hit January 2010 - at least as long as the industry/gaming media keeps it's head in the sand and continues along it's current route.

It's a personal opinion, and I am unhappy having come to this conclusion as a 20 year+ PC gamer who has never owned a console, but the number's are there, the trends are there, and they are not so hidden that those of you positive all is well couldn't find them....

The big disappointment is that fact that these cards have a 128bit interface. This cripples the cards in my opinion. Thus results a big gap between the High end to the mid-range in terms of performance. They should have had a 256bit interface. Even my old 9800XT from 3-4 years ago has a 256bit interface.

tottally dx10 ?? come on they didnt even produce a call of duty 3 for the P.C. -- --- want graffics follow me -- im going MAC ! lol

That's a bummer, I had considered waiting to build my new rig to use this card, instead I went with a 512 MB 7950 GT which I'm happy with for now, besides, I like oldies like BF2, COD2 and BF1942. They look smokin' with the 7950....When they come out with more DX10 games that I'd actually want to play, maybe then I'll make the jump.

Went with XP instead of Vista as I've read too many horror stories...

So is Vista a requirement with DX10 games?

Yes. DX10 is an integral part of Vista.

I guess I wasn't clear with my question ...my bad...


To play DX10 games must one use Vista?

If you had an 8600/8800 on XP could you play the new dx10 games and get the same graphics as you would on Vista?

Yes, you need Vista.

s*** waited so long to replace my whole machine. well lets see wot the gts got.

I wouldnt recommend the 8600gts, unlesss you really want dx10 compatability.

If you're only gonna be playing dx9 games, I'd get a current model of DX9 card within the same price bracket.


Price/Performance ratio is not up to scratch on the new 8600 models.

I'm currently playing Tomb Raider 2 with the naked Laura cheat/code. Do you think this card is right for me?

the gts will show the true qualitities of Lara's body ;-) Its a perfect match for that ultra-realistic look. She'll have an ass you could bounce marbles off if you get one, really!

angryhippy aka Payton said:

Wasn't that game released in 1997? That would mean it is a DirectX 5 game.

DirectX 5 simply doesn't push enough polygons to get the details right.

Here we go again, a new Direct X, a new generation of video cards, PC gaming is dead once again blah, blah, blah....

Sure PC gamers have had FPS after FPS, RPG after RPG with a few console ports, sports and driving games thrown in. It's always been that way though and the market is still there. Every time new consoles are launched we get the PC is in trouble speech. PC gaming is far from dead.

I'm off topic here let me get on...

Nvidia mainstream/budget cards always seem to not be significant from their last to me. When I had my Riva TNT2 Vanta and upgraded to a Geforce 2MX I didn't notice any improvement in my games. Sure my 3D mark scores were higher but it wasn't until games started to take advantage of the card itself that I was glad I had it.

Maybe when Direct X 10 comes up a whole world of difference will be there between the two cards performance wise. It is kind of disappointing that it isn't that much quicker than the card it replaces in DX9 scenarios but we'll see how it goes.

I on the other hand will hang on to my 7600 for as long as I possibly can.