Will the 8400GS (PCI-E) be able to play any games at 1680X1050?

I understand it won't run newer games at that res, but older games?

I just bought a HP slimline PC ---- it only has room for a low profile card...and since it has a SFF PSU - 160watts, I'm limited on the video card.

The website says it only supports 7300's.

But i'm assuming that it's just outdated and an 8400 should be the equvilant.

At any rate - it seems a 8500GT that is a low profile card uses quite a bit more power and would exhaust the 160watt psu.

I've got a PS3 and a Xbox 360....so I don't need my PC to be super fast, but the onboard 6150 is too slow...and I do play older games ----nothing newer than HL2 on PC....but lots of old games

Carmageddon TDR2k, WarCraft 3, Half-life 2, Far Cry etc.

I've got a 22" monitor so 1680x1050 is nice as it's native.
 
When X-bit Labs tested it, they found the GeForce 8600 GTS only consumed 47w under max 3d load, while the 'max spec' on that card is 70w. I've not seen testing of an 8500GT, but given that the 'max spec' on THAT card is only 40w...I think you can assume it's really, really low.

FWIW, Wikipedia claims the max 3d power load of the 7300GS is 16w, while the max 3d power load of the 8500GT is 40w.
 
You can buy 350 and 400 watt SSF PSUs. You will have to get something else pretty much regardless of what card you go with -- 160 watts is just too puny for much of anything.

I'll reiterate what everyone else was saying, though -- the 8400 will not cut it at that res. Maybe at 1024x768. Maybe. Anything higher and there's not a chance in the world.
 
i don't think 8400GS will be able to handle HL2 at 1680 x 1050, i seconded that you shoud upgrade your PSU and get the fastest low profile card you can.
 
I'm not terribly familiar with the stats of the 8400 GS, but if it's anything like the 7300 GT, you'll be fine. I ran Half-Life 2 on a friggin' GeForce 3 and it looked and ran fine. 9800 Pro ran it like butter. Don't know about 1680 x 1050, but at least 1440 x 900 should be perfectly doable.
 
arthur_tuxedo said:
I'm not terribly familiar with the stats of the 8400 GS, but if it's anything like the 7300 GT, you'll be fine. I ran Half-Life 2 on a friggin' GeForce 3 and it looked and ran fine. 9800 Pro ran it like butter. Don't know about 1680 x 1050, but at least 1440 x 900 should be perfectly doable.
Click to expand...

http://www.digital-daily.com/video/hd2400pro_vs_8400gs/index3.htm

i don't think that's enough for HL2 at 1680 x 1050, also if you played HL2 with gf 3, you'll limited to dx 8 mode, what do you mean with ran fine here? care to give details?
 
That's a card you want for basic video playback. You can't game on something like that, unless you're talking 800x600 with all settings pretty low. Let alone something that is old but still fairly taxing like the source engine (HL2)
 
Domini said:
mean he got it to run at the best he could without all the candy. whats not to understand?
Click to expand...

Plenty. One, without all the candy isn't 'fine' to me or many, many others, and who knows just how unrealistic the OP's expectations are. Two, some people think that 15 FPS is acceptable. Some, 30. Some, 60. Some freak if they drop below 120 at any point. I'm somewhere in the middle. It was a vague statement, it needed to be clarified, it still hasn't been.
 
silent-circuit said:
Plenty. One, without all the candy isn't 'fine' to me or many, many others, and who knows just how unrealistic the OP's expectations are. Two, some people think that 15 FPS is acceptable. Some, 30. Some, 60. Some freak if they drop below 120 at any point. I'm somewhere in the middle. It was a vague statement, it needed to be clarified, it still hasn't been.
Click to expand...

some people get use to the low performance,but once you get smooth fps then you will never go back. also what are you clarifying? everyone is different on what their gaming smoothness is.
 
Domini said:
mean he got it to run at the best he could without all the candy. whats not to understand?
Click to expand...

do you understand yourself? what do you mean with "at best he could"? i just want to know, what res, detail level etc...
 
he cant get anything that is not low profile! he has a hp slimline!
oh and by the way do you have the new version? how is it? i love the look and want to buy one. any sells the case? sorry about being off topic
 
im no expert on the 8400GS, but i think a lot of people might be underestimating this little card

sure its no powermonger or anything, but for a casual round of HL2 or WC3 it should suffice i think

but to add some numbers to the mix :

http://sg.vr-zone.com/articles/Zotac_GeForce_8400GS_Review/5093-4.html

an average of 43 FPS on lost coast 1280*1024 high quality, with the score of the 8500GT showing clearly that the 8400gs is being held back by memory bandwidth here.

id say by dropping down some quality settings (texture quality first, anything to relieve that mamory buss) you should be able to scale the reso up without dropping below 30 FPS average

it would be better if the OP could find a low profile 8500GT or 7300GT (i believe MSI also has a low profile 8600GT), but as a cheap small card for only playing old games now and then, id say the 8400GS isnt that bad

hell, if i didnt already have a spare pair of 6600GTs lying around i would probably have picked one up, since they only cost about 45 euros here, just to fool around with
 
Thanks for the replies guys.

I'll let you know when I get the box...all should be arriving this week.

Fine to me is 30FPS.

With at least medium quality.

I hate low quality, and if I had my old 21" CRT I'd be fine with 1024x768.

Since I have my 22" LCD, non native stuff of course always looks a bit worse.


Thanks for that last set of benchmarks...Seeing that, I'm guessing I'll probably be okay.





The other thing you have to keep in mind is power supply requirements, besides low profile. I can't really get a clean answer on what the cards really require. It seems there is one site that says the 8400gs and 8500gt use about 40 watts, but there are other sites that say the 8500gt is quite a bit more power hungry than the 8400gs. (which makes sense, 128bit, vs 64 bit/higher memory and core clocks)

I think the 8600gt would be out of the picture due to power requirements. The PSU on this slimline is only 160 watt. So it's gotta be a pretty barebones setup.

I've purchased 2GB of memory, and I'll sell the GB that it comes with. I'm hoping just for decent framerates on older games and I'll play the new titles on Xbox360 or PS3...which is plenty fine for me!

I've been playing bioshock this weekend on my 360. It looks and plays fantastic - NO slowdown, I think you'd have to spend quite a bit on a compy to play as smoothly as it does on the 360.





At any rate - the system I picked up is here

http://www.compusa.com/products/pro..._pla=General&cm_ite=dd&afsrc=1&ref=performics

300 bucks. (comes with Vista Home Premium - that alone is $150 for an OEM copy - so the PC is really only about $150 bucks if you consider that and for that price - unbeatable)

A CNet video review is here (scores 8.4 at the $600 price point (remember I picked it up for $300))

http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/hp-pavilion-slimline-s3020n/4505-3118_7-32391038.html

Stats follow
Processor Brand: AMD
Processor Class: Athlon 64 X2 Processor
Processor Number: 3800+
Processor Speed: 2.0 GHz
Front Side Bus: 2.0 GHz
L2 Cache Size: 2 x 512 KB
Memory Speed: PC2-4200 (533MHz)
Memory Type: DDR2-SDRAM
Installed Memory: 1 GB
Memory Slots Total: 2
Memory Slots Available: 0
Total Hard Drive Capacity: 250 GB
Drive Controllers: SATA-150
Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM
Optical Drives: LightScribe Double Layer DVD SuperMulti Drive:
Create a DVD+R DL at a maximum 8X Write speed
Create a DVD-R DL at a maximum 4X Write speed
Create a DVD+R at a maximum 16X Write speed or a maximum 8X Rewrite speed
Create a DVD-R at a maximum 16X Write speed or a maximum 6X Rewrite speed
Create a DVD-RAM at a maximum 5X Write speed
Play a DVD-Rom at a maximum 16X Read speed
Create a CD-Rom at a maximum 40X Write speed
Create a CD-RW at a maximum 32X Rewrite speed
Play a CD-Rom at a maximum 40X Read speed

Card Slots: 1 x CompactFlash
1 x MicroDrive
1 x Memory Stick
1 x Memory Stick Duo
1 x Memory Stick PRO
1 x Memory Stick PRO Duo
1 x MiniSD
1 x MMCmobile
1 x MMCplus
1 x RS-MMC
1 x SmartMedia Card
1 x Secure Digital(SD)/MMC
1 x xD-Picture Card
Audio Channels: 7.1 channel surround
High Definition Audio
Video Chipset Brand: NVIDIA
Video Chipset: GeForce 6150LE
Video Bus: PCI Express x16
Video Integration: Motherboard
Installed Video Memory: 128 MB
Total Available Graphics Memory (Vista): 319 MB
Monitor Included: No
Port Connectors: 5 x USB 2.0 (1 on front, 4 on back)
1 x FireWire (IEEE 1394) (on back)
1 x Video - VGA 15-pin D-Sub (on back)
1 x Video - S-Video-out (on front)
2 x PS/2 (on back)
1 x Audio - Headphone-out (on front)
Audio - Microphone-in, Line-in and Line-out (on back)
1 x Audio - Digital Audio-out (on back)
1 x Video - S-Video (on back)
1 x RJ-11 Modem
1 x RJ-45 Ethernet LAN

PCI Slots: 1
PCI Express x16 Slots: 1
Slots Notes: 1 x PCI open
1 x PCI Express x16 open

External 5.25 Bays: 1
External Bays Notes: None open

Internal 3.5 Bays: 1
Internal Bays Notes:
Internal Bays (Notes): None open

Network Support: Ethernet (10/100 Mbps)
Wireless Protocol: 802.11b
802.11g
Modem Speed: 56 Kbps
Input Devices: Keyboard
Wheel Mouse
Installed Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium
Special Feature: MS Windows Vista Home Premium
In the Box: HP Slimline s3020n PC
HP multimedia keyboard
HP scroller mouse

Chassis Style: Tower (Micro)
Height: 13.9 in
Width: 4.2 in
Depth: 10.9 in
Weight: 19.7 lbs
Click to expand...


I bought this RAM for 64$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145034

and this graphics card for 40$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150246

with this low profile bracket set for 3$

http://www.compusabusiness.com/prod...1&D=xfx+bracket&Ntk=All&product_code=52453620
 
You're going to put a fanless card that runs stupid-hot in a slimline case with near to zero airflow? Good plan, yeah.
 
I won't be the first, there are people on newegg and on searches that say the 8400GS works fine in the HP slimline...They have it currently setup that way with no problems.

In a slimline case the components are engineered to be able to withstand a bit more heat I've heard....

It's expected. The HP slimline motherboard is made by ASUS according to HP's white paper --- so the motherboard is a good board.
 
nösferatu;1031438435 said:
do you understand yourself? what do you mean with "at best he could"? i just want to know, what res, detail level etc...
Click to expand...

how on earth would i know what his settings are????? geforce 3 is no gamer card to todays standards but you can change settings in the game to make it playable which is what i meant
by "best he could".
 
well...

to those who said an 8400GS would run Halflife 2 with all settings maxed at 1680x1050.

You were right.

I'm used to my 7800GS and old tower system. So it's not as smooth as that, but definately playable with all settings on the highest and 1680x1050 - just got done playing some episode 1. I'd guess 25FPS with all settings maxed including HDR.



I think I'll either upgrade to the 8500GT, or upgrade to a X2 5200+ (from my 3800+) a bit down the road

That should seal the deal and make it silky smooth.
 
Archaea said:
well...

to those who said an 8400GS would run Halflife 2 with all settings maxed at 1680x1050.

You were right.

I'm used to my 7800GS and old tower system. So it's not as smooth as that, but definately playable with all settings on the highest and 1680x1050 - just got done playing some episode 1. I'd guess 25FPS with all settings maxed including HDR.



I think I'll either upgrade to the 8500GT, or upgrade to a X2 5200+ (from my 3800+)

That should seal the deal and make it silky smooth.
Click to expand...
that would be a useless upgrade as there is very little difference between the 8400gs and 8500gt. the 8600gt although relatively weak is twice as powerful as the 8500gt. to be honest in newer games at higher resolutions all those cards suck but the 8600gt should be the minimum amount of suck you should buy.
 
I just played some UT2004 at 1680x1050.

All settings maxed - where you get the guy that says "HOLY SH1T"

Probably about 25 FPS.


I lowered it to defaults of just high and it plays perfectly smooth.




I don't think the 8400GS is as bad as you people are claiming.



I'm sure on the newest games it wouldn't be able to hang at all, but what I'm seeing so far isn't unimpressive for a $40 dollar card.

The 8600GT would be preferable, but find one for sale that is low profile/half height.

Supposedly galaxy (european vendor) makes one, but I and nobody else can find it for sale.
 
If it gets the job done, there's nothing else that can be said. Everyone's different. Glad its working out for you nicely :)
 
Archaea said:
I just played some UT2004 at 1680x1050.

All settings maxed - where you get the guy that says "HOLY SH1T"

Probably about 25 FPS.


I lowered it to defaults of just high and it plays perfectly smooth.




I don't think the 8400GS is as bad as you people are claiming.



I'm sure on the newest games it wouldn't be able to hang at all, but what I'm seeing so far isn't unimpressive for a $40 dollar card.

The 8600GT would be preferable, but find one for sale that is low profile/half height.

Supposedly galaxy (european vendor) makes one, but I and nobody else can find it for sale.
Click to expand...
run STALKER in one of the dynamic lighting modes, run Bioshock, run FEAR at max settings, run Lost Planet. most of those games would be in the single digits at 1680x1050.
 
dennab205 said:
run STALKER in one of the dynamic lighting modes, run Bioshock, run FEAR at max settings, run Lost Planet. most of those games would be in the single digits at 1680x1050.
Click to expand...

True,

But then I have my 360 or PS3 - which are my primary gaming machines.

Bioshock runs fantasic on the 360, as does lost planet. I've not tried fear, but I'm sure it would as well.

I understand the draw to the best of the best, but I just want to put out there that the 8400GS has it's place and seems to be a great card for the $40 to whomever might be interested. If you need more than 30FPS, play at 1024x768 or 1280x1024 with all options maxed out. It seems to work buttery smooth at those resolutions!
 
Archaea said:
I just played some UT2004 at 1680x1050.

All settings maxed - where you get the guy that says "HOLY SH1T"

Probably about 25 FPS.


I lowered it to defaults of just high and it plays perfectly smooth.




I don't think the 8400GS is as bad as you people are claiming.



I'm sure on the newest games it wouldn't be able to hang at all, but what I'm seeing so far isn't unimpressive for a $40 dollar card.

The 8600GT would be preferable, but find one for sale that is low profile/half height.

Supposedly galaxy (european vendor) makes one, but I and nobody else can find it for sale.
dennab205 said:
run STALKER in one of the dynamic lighting modes, run Bioshock, run FEAR at max settings, run Lost Planet. most of those games would be in the single digits at 1680x1050.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...


wtf? Read his post again.
 
Archaea said:
well...

to those who said an 8400GS would run Halflife 2 with all settings maxed at 1680x1050.

You were right.

I'm used to my 7800GS and old tower system. So it's not as smooth as that, but definately playable with all settings on the highest and 1680x1050 - just got done playing some episode 1. I'd guess 25FPS with all settings maxed including HDR.

I think I'll either upgrade to the 8500GT, or upgrade to a X2 5200+ (from my 3800+) a bit down the road

That should seal the deal and make it silky smooth.
Click to expand...

if you think '25 FPS' is enough to play first person shooter, well, fine then, enjoy your silky smooth :rolleyes:
 
How about somebody just lock this trashed thread? All the OP wanted to know was if a card would be able to run Half Life 2 and older games at 1680x1050. Somewhere in the 1 1/2 pages of replies a few people somehow managed to turn it into a pile of shit.

Only things said of value from this thread: 8400gs will probably not run HL2 at 1680x1050. Thats a lot of pixels and the 64bit card probably wont be able to handle it well. If you can find a better psu, get one and open more doors for your graphics card selection. Ask HP, they might have a model you can buy or can refer you to a vendor.


/thread. Go troll the steam forums or something if you want to get bitchy.
 
nösferatu;1031465158 said:
if you think '25 FPS' is enough to play first person shooter, well, fine then, enjoy your silky smooth :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

problem in this thread is that people aren't reading the context.

I never said 25 FPS was silky smoothy...In fact if you read my posts you'll see quite the opposite. All settings maxed 1680x1050 I'm guessing is about 25FPS which I consider pretty good for a $40 card. Right below that point I said I guess I'll upgrade to a 5200+ or 8500GT to allow for sily smooth framerates at 1680x1050
 
Archaea said:
problem in this thread is that people aren't reading the context.

I never said 25 FPS was silky smoothy...In fact if you read my posts you'll see quite the opposite. All settings maxed 1680x1050 I'm guessing is about 25FPS which I consider pretty good for a $40 card. Right below that point I said I guess I'll upgrade to a 5200+ or 8500GT to allow for sily smooth framerates at 1680x1050
Click to expand...

I'm just glad you paid money for something YOU are happy with and not what other people think is your "happiness". Gratz on the card.

BTW if you are upgrading, processor will go further than 8400 to 8500, so it would be better value.
 
i guess i couldnt, but watever. i like the name assclown. heard it somewhere around here.

oh and if you are a modder op. i was thinking you could get a regular card, maybe a 7950gt, and mod the case so it will fit. i was thinking cut the panel out where the card would go and then made your own casing around the sticking out part of the card with some modders mesh or something, and put some good ass support for the card too so it doesnt bend. also for the power question you have, you can get the vid card psu that goes in side the 5.25 bay and keep it out side of the case. would look sick ass hell! and you would have a sick gaming pc. just need to be creative!
 
Regarding my earlier post about the GF3. I don't remember the exact settings (it's been a few years after all), but I'd guess it was 1024 x 768 with settings medium-low. Funny thing was, it still looked great. In fact, there wasn't that much difference in visual fidelity between the GF3 and the 9800 Pro. HL2 was a game that scaled very well to lower end hardware, and didn't take much of an image quality hit when you lowered the settings.
 
Sean said:
I'm just glad you paid money for something YOU are happy with and not what other people think is your "happiness". Gratz on the card.

BTW if you are upgrading, processor will go further than 8400 to 8500, so it would be better value.
Click to expand...

nor argument here that the 8400 to 8500 move would be a small upgrade (try to find a low profile 8600GT, i believe MSI has them as well), but for a game like HL2 that x2 3800+ is more then enough, the bottleneck is the vid card

MSI link:
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=1232&maincat_no=130&cat2_no=136

newegg doesnt appear to have them right now, but they should be out there
 
I e-mailed newegg and advised them about that card and asked them to see if it's something they could carry since I can't seem to find that MSI 8600GT half-height anywhere.

Thanks for the above link.


Now that I've had the computer a few more days I think this 8400GS isn't half bad. It isn't ideal, but it certaintly is MUCH better than my wife's 7300gs.

I can play Titan Quest Immortal Throne at 1680x1050 with all settings on medium and it runs pretty well. I can play it on High, but I think it's too slow. Medium still looks good, but I'd love to get an 8600GT when they come out.
 
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