best video cards for SH 4

[Harry708]

I'm in the market for a new computer with either windows 7 ot windows 8, does anyone know what the best video cards for running SH 4 wolves of the pacific 1.5 are?

Thanks for any advise.

[Snarf]

Well, my Nvidia GE8600 died from a combination of dust, old age, and taking a battleship into the middle of an enemy battleship group. This was in my laptop. It seemed to do alright, the FPS would drop when there was an excess of rendered smoke, but kept up well otherwise. Most newer desktop PC videocards should do just fine as long as you exceed the minimum requirements for the game

[Captain Dave]

I was running apair of 7600 gt's for years on an old Socket 939 system with no problems. Todays motherboards and video cards are light years ahead of what I had. This sim is 8 years old.

[merc4ulfate]

Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT

Been in the same computer for over five years now.

Never has a problem.

[Bubble Head]

If you are on a budget the newish GT 630 (Nvidia) is what I use - runs all of the SH games at very good frames, and is a low end gaming card.

Excellent for multimedia as well - very good if you watch a lot of digital video or do conversion.

I play a number of older and less demanding games at great frames - its cheap and has a very low power usage so you won't need to have a massive PSU.

[Harry708]

GT 630 (Nvidia) is what I use - runs all of the SH games at very good frames, and is a low end gaming card.

Yes I was looking at the NVIDIA GT 650 and also the AMD radeon HD 8570D. One of the computers I was looking at had the GT 650 and the second had a AMD Radeon HD 8570 D.

[TG626]

550gtx here, which I'd suppose from the lower number, is an inferior card to the 630 or 650. Runs SH4 fine.

[Bubble Head]

GT 630 (Nvidia) is what I use - runs all of the SH games at very good frames, and is a low end gaming card.

Yes I was looking at the NVIDIA GT 650 and also the AMD radeon HD 8570D. One of the computers I was looking at had the GT 650 and the second had a AMD Radeon HD 8570 D.

Best advice I can give is to do a good load of research on the net - I got stung a bit on my GT 630 which is a renbranded something or other that is lower... but didn't know it at the time..

There's a good site - www.gpuboss.com where you can do comparison's of prospective cards and look at their vitals.

The GT 650 is good but from what I have read for around the same price range there are better cards - can't tell you exactly what... but have a good shop and read around....

And good luck - buying a new gfx card is both daunting and fun! :arrgh!:

[Bubble Head]

Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT

Been in the same computer for over five years now.

Never has a problem.

One of the beauty's of the SH series really isn't it? - runs on fairly low specs and also isn't really that graphically intensive given the nature of the games..

Interesting that one of the least graphically intensive games is one of the ones that takes up the most of my time and also provides the best challenge.

[Snarf]

One of the beauty's of the SH series really isn't it? - runs on fairly low specs and also isn't really that graphically intensive given the nature of the games..

Interesting that one of the least graphically intensive games is one of the ones that takes up the most of my time and also provides the best challenge.

A good example, another Ubisoft game I bought around the same time as SH4, Assassins Creed would run at horrible FPS on the same setup and at the time for me a better graphics setup was cost prohibitive. Ever since, Assassins Creed has been shelved and SH4 gets tons of play.

[Bubble Head]

A good example, another Ubisoft game I bought around the same time as SH4, Assassins Creed would run at horrible FPS on the same setup and at the time for me a better graphics setup was cost prohibitive. Ever since, Assassins Creed has been shelved and SH4 gets tons of play.

I have owned top of the line graphics cards in the past, but as I have gotten older I have moved away from more twitch based games.. which definitely have their place among the young - but are fairly limited once you get past a certain vintage. This includes things such as FPS, RTS and racing games etc

I play simulators and strategy games primarily now - they are much more challenging, require careful brain work and also as a great side effect of this generally don't require either huge computing horse power, or graphics card power.

I even got out of flight simming just recently, mainly because I just can't be bothered playing the upgrade game anymore and when I got my GT 630 it was more in protest than anything else! :hmph:

Haven't regretted it though and the games I have been playing simply don't require it.

Game play is king. Not graphics - graphics + game play are nice - but not if I have to run a zillion dollar dual titan setup to get smooth FPS (I'm looking at you Arma series... yes you :/\\!!).

In the end with strategy games - (and I consider the SH series to be a strategy game - you can play it without ever going to 3D view really.. maybe the Bridge - but it can be played primarily on the charts....) graphics are just a distraction from honed and sharp gameplay... :arrgh!:

[merc4ulfate]

I have yet to find a modern game that the Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT can not handle. Tomb Raider 2013, Inversion, Dishonored ... I test out different games all the time and I have yet to find a game that this card will not work with.

[Snarf]

Sounds like you would really enjoy Harpoon then Bubble Head. Great strategy game, no graphics except the map and little kill screens of skinking ships, and a picture of your officer relaying contact information. I've played it since the early 90's and I still go back to it every once in a while.

[bybyx]

I'm in the market for a new computer with either windows 7 ot windows 8, does anyone know what the best video cards for running SH 4 wolves of the pacific 1.5 are?

Thanks for any advise.

If you did not already aquired a videocard by now, my advice would be to decide on a budget for the pc and then choose the components based on the budget you have.

[Harry708]

Well after a lot of searching and reading about cards and all the good advice from the SubSim community I have decided to get a ATI Radeon HD 5570 2GB Video Card for the computer I am going to have built. I located one at a good price. I know it will work with SH 4 and is DirectX 11 and windows 7 compadable.
:)

[merc4ulfate]

People have computers built for them???:har:

:shifty:I couldn't resist.

[bybyx]

Well after a lot of searching and reading about cards and all the good advice from the SubSim community I have decided to get a ATI Radeon HD 5570 2GB Video Card for the computer I am going to have built. I located one at a good price. I know it will work with SH 4 and is DirectX 11 and windows 7 compadable.
:)
I would advice to buy a latest generation video card. It does not have to be the top of the line model. The HD5000 series are old and they may run SH4 but you will have problems with newer games, i guarantee you that. On top of that HD5570 is a low end video card and not designed for gaming and i am not sure if AMD are making new drivers for it and if that it is true you will find yourself forced to use very old drivers from years ago. Just for the sake of it, what is the budget for your pc? You need to buy everything from scratch or you can use something from your old pc like the case, or the dvd writer?

[jpm1]

i recently purchased a GTX 650 2 Gi and i run SH4 on ultra very smooth . only thing if you decide to go for a 650 be sure to avoid the cards with DVI-D connectors these are extremely difficult to find

here my very first screenies on SHIV :sunny:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b264/jpm1/th_sh42014-03-3101-21-41-32_zpsff7a66c2.jpg (http://s21.photobucket.com/user/jpm1/media/sh42014-03-3101-21-41-32_zpsff7a66c2.jpg.html) http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b264/jpm1/th_sh42014-03-3118-06-00-14_zps90ed1978.jpg (http://s21.photobucket.com/user/jpm1/media/sh42014-03-3118-06-00-14_zps90ed1978.jpg.html)

[Harry708]

I'm not overly worried about the high end cards, In the past 5 t0 6 years I have only been playing two games on the PC, Silent Hunter Commanders Edition and Silent Hunter wolves. Do really get into the other games out there.

I may check into the gtx 650 video card but will have to see if I can get one for a reasonable price. The DVI out put bothers me some, I don't know if the adapter I see it comes with will work with my older VGA moniter and I don't want the additional expence of the new one when the one I have is fine.

[bybyx]

Here are my 2 cents about a PC::D

1.cpu: intel core i3 4130 haswell: 124.99$- i consider this the bare minimum for just about anything.
2.mb:gigabyte ga b85 hd3: 94.99$
3.ram:g skill ripjaws 8gb(2x4gb):74.99$
4.hdd: western digital wd10ezex 1tb:69.99$ - if you have a good one already you can skip it.
5.video:sapphire radeon 270X:209.99$ - you could add a cheaper one but i would not go below 150$. if you have a big screen monitor with full hd resolution a more powerful card will help.
6.psu:corsair cx600m 600w:89.99$ a good psu with stable and plenty of output is essential. I paid for mine the equivalent of 150$ back in 2006 and it's still working.
7.dvdrw: asus dvd burner sata:19.99$ - this is added because if you have an older model on a ide interface you will not be able to use it on newer motherboards as these new models lack an ide slot.
8.case: i did not put a new case because i believe you can use the older case just as well. My computer case is from 2004 and still going strong.

I am from Europe but the prices are from newegg and are without any sort of discount that they may offer.

[jpm1]

no need to put 200 $ in a card when as Harry said he'll play almost only SH . there are very powerful GTX 650 or 7850 for 100 $ maybe less . the PSU is very good it's the one i have and my OS is very smooth with it . high resolution IMHO are useless for gaming unless you want to put 2000 $ in a rig which it's not the case of 90 % of us . high resolutions are good for work only , and for this you can buy a second cheap 60 Hz screen . for gaming for me most important in monitors it's not the resolution but the refresh rate i think for gaming you need at least 75 Hz . concerning the HDD for a game like SH i don't know but maybe a SSD could be nice . i have one and loading times never take more than 5 - 6 s (you install OS on SSD and game on HDD) . this is very nice especially when you do some modding

[bybyx]

no need to put 200 $ in a card when as Harry said he'll play almost only SH . there are very powerful GTX 650 or 7850 for 100 $ maybe less . the PSU is very good it's the one i have and my OS is very smooth with it . high resolution IMHO are useless for gaming unless you want to put 2000 $ in a rig which it's not the case of 90 % of us . high resolutions are good for work only , and for this you can buy a second cheap 60 Hz screen . for gaming for me most important in monitors it's not the resolution but the refresh rate i think for gaming you need at least 75 Hz . concerning the HDD for a game like SH i don't know but maybe a SSD could be nice . i have one and loading times never take more than 5 - 6 s (you install OS on SSD and game on HDD) . this is very nice especially when you do some modding

:hmmm:It is true what you say about playing older games like SH4 or maybe the veteran SH3 but if you buy a new pc it is good to buy the newest generation of components that you can afford.
I think that a decent video card is always welcomed especially if are able to buy a new generation that just came out. You don't buy a cheaper one every year because it will cost you more in the end to upgrade.:yep:
Regarding the the monitor, an lcd is always best kept at maximum resolution because at lower resolutions the image will look bad. Try playing SH4 or SH5 in 1920x1080 and then lower the resolution at 1280x720 and see how the quality changes. Concerning the refresh rate, most of the monitors out there are set to 60hz at 1920x1080 and in gaming achieving 60fps at full hd you need a decent video card. You may have a 75hz or even a 125hz monitor but you'll also need a more powerful card to reach those hz. What I am trying to say is that you need balance between the parts of you pc. One more important thing about gaming is the response time and gaming wise you need under 4ms.
About an ssd, you are 100% right.:salute: Those suckers can run fast and only use a couple of watts in energy. My brother has a 120gb one and it only uses around 5 or 7 watts.:rock:

[Harry708]

Well I took the plunge, I got a XLR8 GeForce GTX 650 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Card for a great price. Best thing is it has three outputs, the VGA I was looking for plus a DVI and HDMI. I'm going to get a 500 watt power supply, 3.5 quad core processor and 8 gigs of ram, 2 TB hard drive and all the usual with Windows 7 home premium. I'll let you know how it works out once it's built in about a week or so. :)

Thanks for all the imput guys. :yeah:

[bybyx]

Well I took the plunge, I got a XLR8 GeForce GTX 650 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Card for a great price. Best thing is it has three outputs, the VGA I was looking for plus a DVI and HDMI. I'm going to get a 500 watt power supply, 3.5 quad core processor and 8 gigs of ram, 2 TB hard drive and all the usual with Windows 7 home premium. I'll let you know how it works out once it's built in about a week or so. :)

Thanks for all the imput guys. :yeah:

Well done sir.
I would have taken a more powerful card but it is your choice and i respect that. However get a bigger power supply because in the future if you upgrade you PC you might need more juice than 500w. I recommend one from Seasonic, Corsair or Antec of at least 650w. As a PSU gets older its efficiency gets lower.