No new videocard designs for 6months or so?

Cutting the quote there. I thought I explained myself that my initial post was about the SM part of it. I am not familiar with EQ2. I read it as a general statement when apparently something is fundamentally wrong with EQ2.

I see what you are saying and agree. Do you see what I mean with how I read the statement (not knowing any of the particulars about EQ2 and only seeing that because it is SM 1 it is excused poor performance?

 

It's because of SM1, but also because they tried to do too much with SM1. There may be other inefficiencies as well, but the specific causes are not obvious on the surface.

 

Since the inception of 3D accelerated graphics, I don't think there's ever been a good, performance-related argument for needing a new high-end card to play new games.

 

Heh, since the days of the first Voodoo card, there has always been a mad rush to have the latest and greatest. Fortunately for my pocket, I quit tryin to win that race two years ago. This 9500 unlocked to a 9700 just keeps working and working and ....

 

Correct. But there were no games that that 9700 made playable that the 9500 just couldn't cope with. This has always been the case. Yes, many people want the latest and greatest, but it usually takes quite a while for any video card to become so outdated that you can't play modern games well on. For example, the majority of games today will still play with full eye candy, albeit at low resolution, with a GeForce4 Ti. Only a handful really require a DX9 card for full eye candy.

 

Not only does a Geforce 4Ti cope pretty well, but looking at Valve data that level of hardware (or actually even somewhat lower) is roughly the hardware of the average player in their database. So it makes perfect sense that most titles released can be reasonably played on that level of hardware, or even Geforce 4MXs. However, the titles used for making gfx benchmarking articles are typically the most demanding both in terms of overall gfx performance and of features. That is, they are intentionally unrepresentative of typical game releases.
So the numbers we see in gfx-card reviews don't correspond very well to the overall gaming viability of a product. (They may however represent a reasonable projection into the future. Or not.)

That still leaves the question if there will be a single game released before 2006 that will require more than todays cards can offer to play. Probably not, but what we do know is that 99+% of all games released most assuredly won't.

As always with computers, buy only what you need for the immediate future. If in the future your needs grow, buy then, and get a better solution cheaper.

 

It would be nice to see the new cards for the simple purpose that the "old" ones will drop in price i hope.
Quite absurd how this gens of cards have been avaliable. Some got lucky but for the rest and most in EU the card´s is avaliably now as you would want them a month or so after launch. :?

 

I argued in another post that I was really interested in a new SLI solution. And to be honest, I am. But I have yet to find a game other than Doom3 that slows my system down to the point where the experience is affected.

I have been pretty lucky the last two generations. I went from a Geforce 4ti to this 9500/9700 and had nothing but a good experience with both cards.