Terrific review. Once again, I want to buy a computer which can actually run games which came out in the past 4 years.
When did you get the new rig?

Ho,sounds awesome, but I'd say you're definitely not getting the best graphic splendor. There are forums which give you advice on how to get DX10 class graphics on DX9 machines, although I'm not sure that 8600 will hold up. How come your awesome boss didn't get an 8800GTS class card? Even the physics may be an issue of not being on the highest setting for CPU utilization.

Ah Prachit, Radhika got a new quad-core rig so her dual-core was a hand-me-down. I'm not complaining.

Regarding the graphics, Suresh, you're right - everything was set at medium with a 1024x768 resolution and no antialiasing. I bumped up everything to high and the most visible difference was the bloom lighting and water shaders. Like so:


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Unfortunately, the framerate took a dip. Not unplayable, but certainly a distraction. So I eased back to medium and did some trial and error with bumping up the settings individually till I got the best graphics that I could maintain at a good framerate. This is what the compromise looks like now:


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Framerate still takes a toss when there are 6-10 enemies around and chaos happening but overall, it's a great balance. Antialiasing is rarely worth the trade-off for me unless I've maxed out everything else in a game and it's still running smooth. I don't mind the jaggies that much.

I checked out the DX10 graphics possibility and am going to give it a go soon. Considering these awesome revelations, it's clear to see that the demo has way more juice than I initially anticipated.

And shit, I haven't played MGS3 yet. I hope I get time to amend that someday. Along with Chaos Theory.

AA and Aniso makes more difference in a game like Crysis where you have a big draw distance but ya, if you already have frame-rate issues no point turning it on, Resolution >> AA.

Anandtech had once done a feature on the midrange and budget 8xxx cards in which they slammed them for performance, saying they cannot handle DX10 heavy situations and DX9 performance is no better than 7xxx equivalents. Basically that is why nVidia is launching the 8800GT for a 200-250$ price-point. Make a point of getting it when it launches, according to all initial reviews including Anandtech it kicks ass and chews bubblegum with performance to spare.