Edit: Can I run at 1440x900????

Sorry, the guy on eBay made a mistake. The correct res is 1440x900, only few pixels more than the previously stated 1240x1024.

But is my HD 4870 512MB still going to be able to max out BF3 at this res? If it can max bf3 out it will max everything else I run.

Thanks again

you wont max bf3 at 1024 nevermind 1440, everything on low maybe.

I can max out Bad Company 2, and the beta was easy to run too.

everyone can max out, its if the FPS can hold up under fire.

Yeah in Bad Company 2 high end parts was easy to hold up with.

I don't mind my FPS dropping under 30 under manic conditions, because most of the time it won't be that chaotic.

A bit of fps drop I actually don't mind, but continuous lag throughout is horrible haha.

OK, basically I found a good (and obvious way) of testing how to run games... Use my tv -_-

Bad Company 2 runs at medium>high at 1080P.

So looks like BF3 will run easy at 1440x900.

DX10 though obviously not DX11.

For gaming the HD 4870 is actually a really good card, didn't no how good it was until I tested it today. Even though it is a directx 10 card, it runs actually pretty damn good.

Yeah, performance is very similar to the 5770/6770. I wouldn't recommend those cards for 1080p gaming, but for lower resolutions they're still a good choice.

Of course, it's also worth remembering that you don't *have* to run your games at your monitor's native resolution, so if you do find you're getting too much lag you could tweak back to, say, 1280x800 to reduce the load.

Yep, that is what I was thinking.

I bought a nice Hanns.G LCD widescreen 17", 8ms response rate, to be honest a larger monitor would be much preferable than larger resolutions for me. I don't really care about resolutions after testing today, larger image on a large monitor = awesome.

As long as it isn't 1024x768 to be honest I will be happy with. I am surprised how well my card actually works.

Thanks for all replies, helped me decide on what to do :)

Also, never knew HD 4870 was close to a HD 5770 and 6770. Just looked on Passmark and never spotted that.

In the future HD 4780 in Crossfire would be decent for me.
Whats the difference in DX11 to DX10 in resolutions?

I have a 19" Dell 1440x900 monitor at work and I've always been happy with it. But then my main monitor at home is a 22" CRT @ 1600x1200, and the HTPC which I use fairly often is hooked up to a 24" 1080p monitor. I have to be honest and say I don't really notice much difference moving between any of them (or indeed back to my 13" 1366x768 laptop) as I use them all for specfic purposes and they are all perfectly suited to the uses I make of them :) But I think for general use something like a 1440x900 monitor is a good call, and tbh having that at 17" rather than 19" means you get more pixels / inch so you won't notice as much when you turn down settings like AA in your games (which buys you a *lot* of extra performance, incidentally). Personally I'd always prefer the smallest screen possible at a particular resolution - for general computing at least...

There's no real difference between DX11 and DX10 - or at least, it depends entirely on the game. DX11 is basically a superset of DX10 instructions, and each of them is basically just a way to make it easier for game developers to create pretty visual effects. I suspect some games do show a difference in performance between DX10 and DX11, but I think it varies from game to game. It's not quite like the change from DX9 to DX10, as they were completely different. DX10 and DX11 are much more similar.

As to the 4870 - 5770 thing, they're basically the same GPU under the hood - the main difference is in the memory controller ... well, that and the DX11 features, obviously ;).

Never knew that, good job I bought a 17" instead.
Yeah a 17" would be decent for me, I always wanted a widescreen, nothing too big where you literally have to turn your head to see the other end of the monitor, that's too big.

Gaming on a larger monitor would kind of be overkill for me.

But cool, didn't know you wouldn't see the difference with AA at this resolution.
My old monitor Hanns.G, is 15" running at 1024x768, feels quite standard but has some dead pixels, 15ms response rate which funny enough you can actually see and is a bit small. Now thinking about it HD 4870 is overkill for my monitor lol.

It's not that you won't see the difference between AA settings, you will, but the difference will be smaller because the pixels are smaller. Basically if you have two monitors of the same resolution but different sizes, the smaller one should appear a little sharper...

Yes it is but at the same time that's not so bad ;)

I just want to clear up some terminology here. (general terms that we mean when using them not always the true meaning)

Resolution = the number of dot's on the screen horizontal x vertical, a bigger screen at the same resolution just means bigger dots.
Size = diagonal measurement from one corner of the screen to the other, one thing to remember here is that wide screen monitors while wider are also shorter, a 17" non-wide screen monitor is around the same height as a 22" widescreen monitor.
Maxing out a game = normally means being able to set every graphics option to maximum setting
but still getting playable fps
Playable fps = means different things to different people on different games, generally an average of 30fps or more, some people will not go lower than 30fps at minimum and some want 60fps+ average, it's down to what you personally perceive as smooth and playable.
DX10 vs DX11 = there's really not much difference between them, there's a couple of additional features, in theory it's a lot easier for developers to code for dx11 and it's a far better optimized API so things written for DX11 should run faster than DX10 . . . However near enough every game is just DX9 with additional features bolted on, quite often badly, so many games work no better in dx11 over dx10.

Running a TFT (aka LCD) monitor below it's native resolution will make the image fuzzy and can cause other issues, given a choice I'd drop graphic settings before native resolution.

Your old screen could well have an MVA panel
There are 3 main types of LCD panel TN, MVA and IPS, IPS has the best viewing angles, MVA was a sort of an all rounder and TN had the worst viewing angles but best response times.
You cannot trust official listed response times with those of older monitors because manufactures changed the method in recording them, it used to be timed from black to white, now it's timed from dark grey to light grey.

Personally I would of said go for a 19" widescreen 1440x900, I find anything below 19" a bit small for a monitor.

And yes you'll see a lot of difference with FSAA turned on and even at higher settings, the lower the dpi (dot per inch, in this case the resolution divided by the monitor size) the more noticeable FSAA is.

One thing to note is HDR blur, this is an effect used in many newer games to blur out distant objects, to increase the perceived depth of field and make things look more "realistic" however HDR Blur and FSAA don't play nicely and can have a massive impact on fps, generally it's best to use one of the other not both.

Monitor size is preferance :P

19" is decent sized, but I think 17" will do me just fine. I would rather be able to focus on a smaller monitor than a larger one. But that's me.

Yeah I want 30fps minimum, anything lower and it start to jutter a bit.

Well considering I could run Bad Company 2 at Medium at 1080p, 1440x900 with everything out max shouldn't be a problem, the monitor resolution isn't all that high compared 1980x1080 (correct me if the resolution is wrong :P).

Either way I would rather max out the settings with a smaller monitor, and buy a game and not be able to fully use all its features, feels a bit of waste of what the game can offer.

I don't know what my old monitor response rate is, its a Hanns.g HU131A, it is very old now. The one I am getting is a Hanns.G HW173A, I haven't a clue if it is new of not, but it is definitely newer than my old one, so the response rate will be much better either way. Only one thing to note, it isn't you know new new, because it has only VGA port. Only the HW173D (which I just found out) has DVI.

Do you think DVI will look better at this resolution. I have a DVI-I and a DVI-D to VGA cable.

HDR blur is very good, doesn't Bad Company use it? In terms of quality would HDR or FSAA be more eye candy?

VGA D-sub only is not a sign of the age, you can still get new models with vga only, it's a matter of cost.
VGA D-Sub is a very cheap input to put into a monitor it's also still pretty much universal, almost all outputs can be converted down to vga with an adapter but not all formats can be converted up from vga D-sub.
Overall a VGA only monitor is a sign of a low cost bottom range monitor.

I do agree with you on monitor size, 19-22" is my preferred range, but at the same time too small is also an issue, esp in terms of height, you'll probably find that the 17" widescreeen monitor is actually slightly shorter than your current 15" non-widescreen, even though it's a higher dpi
I'll happly use a 19" widescreen or 17" non-widescreen

HDR blur or FSAA is a bit of a personal choice, although I'll say that most developers seem to dislike FSAA, many games just don't have the option for it and official screen shots will almost always have FSAA turned off.
Personally I much prefer FSAA to HDR Blur

Granted a 4870 at 1440x900 should be able to cope with every thing maxed, I've been happly using a gtx260 (which is about the same performance) at 1680x1050 and that coped very well.

Really? Thought VGA inputs kind of showed age. I know its lower end, but VGA looks fine at the moment for me now. As I won't see what DVI looks like, I won't know what im missing out on :)

And really? I would prefer width, larger viewing angle. I suppose your right though, height is a good option, but I would of thought its a bit bigger than 15"?

And I will probably see them both out to see what I prefer :) HDR blur is a nice effect, more realistic = better in my view

And I am surprised a HD 4870 would cope, I originally had a HD 4830 which just about did it in Bad Company 2, it ran up to 50 degrees though. This thing never goes over 60 degrees fortunately, idles at 50 though.

Hopefully my HD 4870 will last a long time, I don't plan on spending huge amounts on high end GPUs when I can't afford to get a decent CPU with it, which I probably won't even use much so it would be a waste for me :)

17" 16:10 widescreen monitor is 0.25" taller than a 15" 4:3. Pythagoras FTW ;)