BFG not making video cards anymore...

I thought they only stopped making video cards, not gone completely bankrupt.

Their website has no new NEWS since 12/09. No mention of even the discontinuation of graphic cards, that info is just from a press release that's not even on their site. Plus other forums say people are getting no response from the company at all. RMA's and all. It's sad really.

Well, I think two points apply here. One, video cards have gotten too expensive lately. The most expensive ones cost more than a console. Which brings to the other point. All games are now being focused on consoles. Who is going to buy specialty GPUs to keep these companies in the green then?

Yeah my graphics card alone would buy me a .36 calibre console pus loads of console games and its not even top of the range, your looking at nearly £500 (thats real money not $) for a (top range, OC tested) 480, and you could get two of them tie them together and you still couldn't run some games on megamax settings.

Video cards have always been expensive, in fact you probably get more performance for your dollar than ever before. The difference is you dont have to buy the cards now, you can just play the console version of it, Just think of how many video cards Crysis sold, now that Crysis 2 will be available on consoles, hardware makers now have one less customer. The only way to stop this bleeding is if hardware makers demanded pc exclusive games, but game makers want the largest possible audience, it's a catch 22.

Another factor is that most new games are multi-platform releases. When making these games, the developers obviously design the game so that they will run on the weakest hardware (the 360). Current high-end PC video cards vastly surpass that threshold, and thus there's ironically no reason for them to exist. My friend was running Resident Evil 5 on a machine with a Radeon 2600 XT. It looked and ran great at around the settings it would have on the 360 version. What incentive does he have to go out and spend $500 (actually more since he's need a better power supply too) on a radeon 5870 or geforce 480 if he can still get acceptable performance on his 5-year old video card?

Video cards have always been expensive, but hardware requirements used to advance at the point where a top-end card would be junk after 2 years or so. The payoff was that PC games looked and played better than anything on a console. Now most new PC games ARE console games, and there is less and less advantage to playing them on the PC when a new Playstation or Xbox is only $300. ATI and NVDIA keep making better and better cards, but if there isn't any software that requires them what's the point?

Quoting lbgsloan,

reply 6

Another factor is that most new games are multi-platform releases. When making these games, the developers obviously design the game so that they will run on the weakest hardware (the 360). Current high-end PC video cards vastly surpass that threshold, and thus there's ironically no reason for them to exist. My friend was running Resident Evil 5 on a machine with a Radeon 2600 XT. It looked and ran great at around the settings it would have on the 360 version. What incentive does he have to go out and spend $500 (actually more since he's need a better power supply too) on a radeon 5870 or geforce 480 if he can still get acceptable performance on his 5-year old video card?

Video cards have always been expensive, but hardware requirements used to advance at the point where a top-end card would be junk after 2 years or so. The payoff was that PC games looked and played better than anything on a console. Now most new PC games ARE console games, and there is less and less advantage to playing them on the PC when a new Playstation or Xbox is only $300. ATI and NVDIA keep making better and better cards, but if there isn't any software that requires them what's the point?

Yeah, this. You don't need a $400 card anymore. Even a $150 card plays almost everything cranked up unless you have some rare huge dual monitor config. Upgrade cycles are also way longer.

For the competitiveness of PC gaming as a platform it's been great. Years old computers still run everything coming onto the market. For the hardware makers? Not so much.

Shame, BFG was great.

Who needs 2560x1920 resolution anyways?

I do. But then I'm sitting here looking at my 22 inch flat screen at 1920x1080 and wishing the pixels weren't so big I could count them while typing this out at arms length. Some people have eyes that work, and you should wear glasses if yours don't.

That crap doesn't run determine resolution anyway. They've just been increasing the math load to determine what appears in each pixel. High resolution reproduction is a piece of cake, it's rendering that takes power.

Video cards might cost about the same as some consoles now, keeping in mind how expensive the consoles release at, but the difference between how a game on the 360 or PS3 looks compared to on my machine is pretty large. I am not even using one of the expensive cards. Besides, BFG, EVGA, XFX, PNY... they're all just taking the same base model ATI or nVIdia throws out, slapping some paint on it, tweaking it some and releasing 5 versions of the same card at different price ranges. It's a fairly crowded market, and it's only natural for it to condence some, especially now that they have some pretty sweet cards in the budget range.

I like Asus.

Hate to hear that about BFG. Have used nothing but them for years and have no complaints. Still have one of their 6800OCs in a PC I threw together out of my old parts for my g/f. One of the two fans stopped working several years ago and it still never overheats and keeps chugging along.

another factor might be that while for a you almost needed a new video card for every game as the games minium system specs went up with almost very release.. that's not so much the case now.. take a look at this sampling of game video requirements:

Ruse: 128 MB DirectX® 9.0c-compliant video card ATI® Radeon X1000/GeForce® 6 Series

fallout3: Direct X 9.0c compliant videocard with 256MB RAM NVIDIA 6800 or better / ATI X850

starcraft2:Video Card 128 MB NVidia GeForce 6600 GT/ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card

disciples3: nVidia GeForce 6600 / ATI Radeon 9600

bioshock2:NVIDIA 7800GT 256MB graphics card or better, ATI Radeon X1900 256MB graphics

Supreme Commander2:128 MB VRAM DX9 compliant with Pixel Shader 2.0 w/ instancing support

simply put, we are not upgrading video cards as often add that with economy and the fact that software advance are allowing for some pretty cool things with current tech and I can see why for some companies it might make sense to change what they do or fall by the wayside when demand is less...

On one hand i hear that upgrade cycles are too often needed, and on the other i hear that an old card is more than enough because games are made for console hardware. What gives?

not sure i have been on a 1 to 2 year cycle on my video cards lately (at one point it was more like 6 to 8 months).. however the last upgrade I made was for 1 game in particular other then that one game my last card was rocking and so far my my 9800 gtx+ is more then holding its own.. at this time i have no plans to upgrade in the next year...

as i said most pc games have a low minimum specs, this does not mean that a higher end card does not net me more in fact it does.. ya have to remember most pc game have adjustable graphic options ... consoles not so much heh heh...

The Big Fucking Gun is out of business? What will DOOM games do next??

Quoting coreimpulse,

reply 14

On one hand i hear that upgrade cycles are too often needed, and on the other i hear that an old card is more than enough because games are made for console hardware. What gives?

In the era of early 3d games, PC games did require more frequent upgrades. That hasn't been true for a while (my wife's nearly 3 year old computer still plays everything on the market easily), but perception changes slowly.

Well that sucks. My GTX 280 is made by BFG and I have a "Lifetime" warranty through them. If my card ever breaks they Better live up to that warranty. I already had to send the card back once less then 6 months after I bought it, but it's been fine ever since (that was a little over a year ago).

The biggest reason video cards don't need upgrading nearly as often these days is that the biggest GPU hog, FPS', have all moved to consoles now. When was the last time any PC gamer seriously took a look at video cards? That's right, when Crysis came out; regardless if you actually wanted to play it or not. Crysis 2 is going to be a console multi-platform game, which means current PC hardware will once again be more than sufficient to run anything out there. Even Valve's major releases are all multi-platform these days, which means if your hardware can match the 360 you can run anything on the market.

Unless you want to run that dual-monitor 2560x1920 setup there simply isn't any reason at all to have a top of the line gaming PC these days.

In the era of early 3d games, PC games did require more frequent upgrades. That hasn't been true for a while (my wife's nearly 3 year old computer still plays everything on the market easily), but perception changes slowly.

My Nvidia's GTX285 can also max out any game on the market, and it's a pretty old card. I even got a pair of them in SLI when I got a new PC 2.5 years ago, and never *had* to turn SLI on, though found it helps a bit for some games.

btw

you know what pisses me off, when new videocards are reviewed in magazines/or online they use the lastest cpu on the market, not the two year old cpu most of us have in our machines. So this way I could see if UPGRADING to the newest card makes sense for a two year old system.

Chances are if you have the latest cpu extreme edition you already have the latest videocard.

Quoting wbino,

reply 21

btw

you know what pisses me off, when new videocards are reviewed in magazines/or online they use the lastest cpu on the market, not the two year old cpu most of us have in our machines. So this way I could see if UPGRADING to the newest card makes sense for a two year old system.

Chances are if you have the latest cpu extreme edition you already have the latest videocard.

Toms Hardware have a GPU hierarchy chart (though I know it's not what you request). What you're requesting is a bit unusual though I absolutely agree with you. It's sorely needed. Lucky for me though, SweClockers and Nordichardware does it sometimes.

Quoting Annatar11,

reply 20

In the era of early 3d games, PC games did require more frequent upgrades. That hasn't been true for a while (my wife's nearly 3 year old computer still plays everything on the market easily), but perception changes slowly.
My Nvidia's GTX285 can also max out any game on the market, and it's a pretty old card. I even got a pair of them in SLI when I got a new PC 2.5 years ago, and never *had* to turn SLI on, though found it helps a bit for some games.

Max out at 60 FPS in 1920x1080?

Cause "maxing out" means max graphics, max resolution and 60 FPS.

Edit: Can't you delete your replies?? I made this post and intended to cut'n'paste it into my previous one!

Brad needs to buy new forum software or expand on this one

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BFG not making video cards anymore...