video card upgrade

[singingwinds]

My husband and I have been longtime sub sim players, so when we came across SH4 in the store, we bought it right away. My husband asked if our rig could run it, and I stupidly assured him it could. I was wrong. Our video card had the 128 mb ram, but not the shaders. I am on a tight budget, so I can't spend a lot on upgrading.

I am dying to play in the Pacific again, so I am looking at graphics cards. I know this has been hashed out endlessly on this board already, but I was wondering if it would be better to get a cheap ATI 9600 with 256 mb ram, or get a slightly better card like the 9800 with only 128 mb ram. I am really worried about overheating. I noticed that most aren't happy with the 9600 anyways

Same goes for the nvidia. Is it better to get the cheaper cards with more ram or better card with less ram?

I am not expecting spectacular graphics, I really would just like to be able to play it without crashes, errors and huge slowdowns.

[AVGWarhawk]

Couple of things, what are your specs for the rest of the computer? Processor? RAM? AGP or PCI set up for the card?

[Jaeger]

generally said: less faster videoram (gddr3) is better than more slower ram (ddr2). actual games dont use more than 256 mb ram. the bigger cards are for next generation games with huge areas, where lots of textures must be loaded. for sh4, take a good chip with 256mb gddr3 ram, which uses shader3.0 (directx 9c). is there an agp port or pcie on your board? an what about the cpu? the fastest videocard is sensless when your cpu is too slow...

greetz, Jaeger

[maerean_m]

ati 9600 and 9800 use AGP (8x).

I suggest going for a card with 256 mb of ram and at least 1 gb of system ram.

Do note that SH4 uses Shader Model 2 and works on cards like Radeon 9600 (which are a few years old (maybe even 5 years)).

[swdw]

And what's your budget? This changes what you are looing at. For example, for $150 to $200 the ATi 3850 is the most bang for your buck (AGP and PCI-e versions available). Less than $150 would require some very careful shopping, but you'd be better looking for an nvidia card than an ATi card in that range. In the $200-$250 range you can choose between flavors of Nvidia cards (some AGP and PCI-e, some PCI-e only) or an ATi 3870 (PCI-e only).

What I can tell you is go for the 256MB of ram. these are graphic intensive games and too little video card memory will slow them down quite a bit.

[seafarer]

Also be sure your power supply can handle any new card, and that you have sufficient cooling in your case. Certainly for the higher end new cards, power supply of 450Watts or more may be necessary, and they do tend to run hot, so an extra fan or two will not hurt.

I am running an GeForce 8600 GT 512MB card (I replaced my stock 300Watt power supply with an Antec 650Watt unit first) and it works very well with SH4. I have pretty much all the eye-candy going, except for volumetric fog (that does bog my card down) and the pp filters (just because I do not like the look they give), and I am running at 1680x1050 wide screen resolution.

A better, cost-for-performance wise option would be a GeForce 8800 GT. These can be had for as little as $270, will run with a 450Watt power supply, and offer much of the performance of a much more expensive GeForce 8800 series card. They are a bit hard to find in stock yet, but are around and availability will improve with time.

pfft :damn: I should have read your original post more carefully. Forget what I said, those were all PCIe cards, and it looks like you need AGP.

[singingwinds]

Oops, I have 8x agp
P4 3.06ghz processor
1gb ddr 400 pc 3200 ram (going to 2bg soon)

My budget is less than $100 and closer to $50. Pitiful.

Edit* and a 350 watt power supply
I do have an extra case fan, plus an upgraded case fan (2 total case fans)

[AVGWarhawk]

2 gigs would be a good idea on the RAM. Helped me quite a bit. I use DDR 400. You are kind of limited to ATI cards as you have AGP set up. I bet you can get a nice ATI x1600 card with the budget you have.

[seafarer]

Go to www.newegg.com and search the video cards. You can filter your browsing by AGP-only cards and a price range (eg. $75-$100).

[Teh_Diplomat]

Best AGP card: ATI X1950Pro

Best Value AGP Card: Nvidia 7600GS

[Torps]

Oops, I have 8x agp
P4 3.06ghz processor
1gb ddr 400 pc 3200 ram (going to 2bg soon)

My budget is less than $100 and closer to $50. Pitiful.

Edit* and a 350 watt power supply
I do have an extra case fan, plus an upgraded case fan (2 total case fans)

Ran across this at newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131043

Might want to take a peak $64 for ATI X1650 AGPX8 and they have great prices on memory.

[Rockin Robbins]

Best AGP card: ATI X1950Pro

Best Value AGP Card: Nvidia 7600GS

or 7600GT. Don't know if you'll see any difference between the 2. Both do quite well with SH4.

[swdw]

Best AGP card: ATI X1950Pro

Best Value AGP Card: Nvidia 7600GS
or 7600GT. Don't know if you'll see any difference between the 2. Both do quite well with SH4. :rotfl:

Had to laugh with as much fun as you've had ribbing me about the sun glare in ATi and nvidia cards. ( And yes I know it ws all in fun, so not complaining at all)

"Don't know if you'll see any difference" :rotfl:

OMG, that was a good laugh- you very funny guy RR:D

[mcarlsonus]

...Your husband is a VERY lucky man!