Looking for an afordable Graphics Card to Play SH4

[nycoroner05]

I have only a PCI slot and I need a card with 2.0 shader support.

Any ideas?

Thank you in advance.

[CCIP]

PCI or PCI-E?

[Quillan]

If it's really just PCI, I think it's time for a new computer. The best I could find is an X1300, generally. Hightech has an X1550, but it's a dual-slot card which requires you to have two adjacent open PCI slots to use.

[Antrodemus]

Yup, if you're stuck with plain-old PCI, chances are the rest of the PC won't be up to scratch either, so, even if you did manage to find a PCI card that would do the job (unlikely), the CPU & RAM would probably let you down...

[nycoroner05]

PCI or PCI-E?

PCI

I have a dell optiplex not the tower version and it has a slot for a low profile agp though

[nycoroner05]

Yup, if you're stuck with plain-old PCI, chances are the rest of the PC won't be up to scratch either, so, even if you did manage to find a PCI card that would do the job (unlikely), the CPU & RAM would probably let you down...

It is a 2.8 GH with 1gb of ram and runs SH3 great

the only draw back is it is a desk top and not a tower

[nycoroner05]

If it's really just PCI, I think it's time for a new computer. The best I could find is an X1300, generally. Hightech has an X1550, but it's a dual-slot card which requires you to have two adjacent open PCI slots to use.

Thanks for the info

[nycoroner05]

Thank you

[Antrodemus]

It is a 2.8 GH with 1gb of ram and runs SH3 great

...but is it a Celeron? If not, great. As for the low-profile AGP slot, you may still struggle to find a card worth spending any money on outwith E-Bay.

[Quillan]

Actually, if he has a low-profile AGP he can really do something. They aren't quite the same power level as the PCI-E cards out there, but there are AGP versions of the 7800GS and X1950 graphics cards available, typically for around $200 US.

[Antrodemus]

I stand corrected... :)

[NefariousKoel]

Yikes...

Low profile doesn't just mean the width of the card board itself, it also means a shorter plate too for his computer. Might take some searching to find one, or you may get lucky and be able to cut part of the plate off it to make her fit.

[Antrodemus]

Hmmm... that's the "low-profile" I was referring to, i.e., half-height backplate versions. I've always had a problem sourcing low-profile but reasonably high-spec cards for customers in our shop, specifically those who are unwilling to shell-out for a whole new PC.

[NefariousKoel]

Yep, they're a pain in the @ss.:-?

[Hartmann]

Any good card for an AGP slot ?? and not very expensive :88)

7XXX or Ati equivalent

[Quillan]

Koel, are you talking about the metal mounting plate at the rear, or something else? The slot interface doesn't change, as far as I know, as that's part of what makes it AGP. But a lot of the more modern cards on the nVidia side have huge PC boards they're build around. Some computers physically don't have room for a card that's 10-11" in length.

[Camaero]

I am using a Radeon X1950 Pro AGP and I ran run SHIV with max everything at 1280 x 1024 and x6 aa without any slow ups at all. It is a damn good card. I haven't tried 1600 x 1200 yet but it wouldn't surprised me if it ran it just fine.

[NefariousKoel]

Koel, are you talking about the metal mounting plate at the rear, or something else? The slot interface doesn't change, as far as I know, as that's part of what makes it AGP. But a lot of the more modern cards on the nVidia side have huge PC boards they're build around. Some computers physically don't have room for a card that's 10-11" in length.

Yes, the plate on the back to fit in one of those flat tabeltop PCs. Not only that but the board itself will have to fit both dimensions. You can't just grab any normal card for a tower unless you plan on hacking it up (if the board will even come close to fitting).

Edit: Yes, the AGP slots themselves are the same, however.

[Iron Budokan]

I no longer play this sim but when I did I used the X1300 and it worked great! :up:

[FIREWALL]

Tigerdirect.com

PNY NVidia 7600 gs 512mb AGP $154.00 shipped USA.

[richoahu]

great cheap cards here:

http://www.newegg.com/

i was refered to tis site when i wanted to get a decent card for my cpu, but not "too" good because it isn't the "express". wanted a good card to play with until i got a new cpu.

for $100 i got the g-4 6800 with the 256 ram on it. not a bad deal, that was about 8 months ago. it is playing SH4 just fine. just a few things turned off.

rest of my cpu is:

Pent IV 3.2 ghtz
2 gig ram

then the card above. i was glad i just spent that amount of money on a card that runs everything i have tried ro play:

Battlefield II (full blast)
EQ1 (eq is a pig LOL)
LOTRO (almost full blast)

and multiple other games that run great.