With SH3, you should be able to play with everything smooth turned up all the way on a 6800-series nVidia or X800 series ATI.

I personally have:

Pentium D 805 @ 3.8GHz
ASUS P5ND2-SLI
2x1GB G.SKILL 533MHz @ 667MHz
eVGA 7900GT @ 667/851
WD SATA 250GB 7200RPM

Hopefully with another video card inside for Christmas.

The best price/performance range are these:

7950GT from Nvidia

X1900XT from ATI/AMD

Both are almost the same in performance and price, and both give the best performance for their price range. The ATI card is supposed to perform slighly better with less card memory.

...but you might have to get a new MB as I think these two don't come in AGP.

Otherwise go with a 6800 Ultra or 6800GT, they used to be top end cards but should be cheaper than most newer mid range cards now.

That board has an AGP slot.

You can´t put a Pentium 4 on that board, it doesn´t fit. You could upgrade it with a faster AMD CPU for Socket 754.

Fastest AMD socket 754 CPU is the one I've got, an AMD 3000+; it's 2.0 Ghz.

ABBAFAN, do you know how fast your CPU is?

From what I've seen the fastest Athlon 64 for for socket 754 available is the 3200.

If you have that already, I might consider not even bothering with a CPU upgrade. If you have something like a Sempron, you might want a bit more power though.

If you just have to have the best, then know you have to get a new motherboard as well. This could turn out expensive though. If you want to buy all current generation stuff, then you will need a new motherboard, new graphics, new CPU, AND... new RAM, since the newer boards are DDR2.
That could become real expensive.

So you options are:

Buy an older but faster AGP card, keep the old motherboard and CPU.

Buy a more recent motherboard with PCI-E, that supports DDR1... maybe a socket 939 or something. They still have decent CPUs for those. This would stunt your future CPU upgrades, though the next gen graphics cards would run fine on this too, if you wanted to upgrade again sometime.

Finally, if you have money to burn, buy the latest stuff, new Motherboard, RAM, CPU and graphics card.

If all else fails...

STEAL SETH'S PC!!!!:lol:

:rotfl::rotfl:Well, i did some research...Have to change my motherboard to be able to use the GF 8800 GTX...... Will cost me § 150 more........ :nope:
So if you want to steal my pc, be my guest....I have insurance, and that would pay me enough to get a new rig in excellent conditions!!! :up::up:

my cpu is a AMD XP3400 64 bit is this powerful enough?


If i simply upgrade the graphics card to a more powerful one
which supports pci and works with a 64 bit processor which one is best?

how much more of an improvement would the 7950GT from Nvidia be over the current one? (fx6200 AGP)and does this have pixel shading?

I dont think you get the 7950Gt to PCI. (or the X1900XT)

The best AGP card is the nVidia 7800GS 256MB, which is a kick ass card. It is many times better than the one you have.

But the best thing would be to get a new motherboard that supports PCI Express. If you want to get it cheap, get one with AMD 939 socket. (Then you would have to change the cpu too, but the 939`s are cheap now)

Why do you have to change ur motherboard? It supports PCI-E doesn't it?

Btw, ABBAFAN, i'd suggest waiting a little more longer, there's no point in buying any card that wasn't designed for DX10, you need to think of this as a longer term investment (unless ur filthy rich and change ur GPU every month).

If it´s really an XP then it´s a 32-bit CPU. The "Athlon 64 3400+" would be the 64-bit version. AFAIK an XP3400 doesn´t even exist. The "Athlon 64 3400+" is a good middle-class CPU.

You need an AGP card, not PCI. Like stabiz said, the nVidia 7800GS 256MB is the best AGP card.

I have a Genforce 7600GT 256 meg card, uses PCI express. Good card for the price around $200.00 or less. I've been happy with it so far. Plus I have 2 gigs of memory Ram as well. few if any frame rate slow downs.

Frankly, I would save the money and buy a cheap out-of-date card. I´ve got a 2 year old plain GeForce6600 that came along with a standard PC and SH3 plus GW runs just fine. Considering Direct X 10 and Windows Vista coming your way I would sit and wait a couple of months and buy a DirectX10 card for cheap money then. You all know how fast hardware issues go...so be patient.

My two cents, AS

I just upgraded to a GF 6800XT 256mb 256 bit card from eWiz..... went thru PriceWatch.com. Graphics are great in SHIII, IL2 and FS9. I just found MOHA Pacific Assault and can't believe the graphics in that with this card. Card supports dual minitors and both connections are DVI. For 139.00US and change you can't go wrong. ;)

My old GF FX5600Ultra 256mb card was and is still good but I couldn't pass up a bargain like the 6800XT.

I somewhat disagree, AS. I would get a really good DX9 card now (check out auctions, the must-have-the-best-card-guys are dropping their really good top end cards like crazy these days), and put off Vista and DX10 for at least 6 months. Let the unreasonable prizes for DX10 cards drop, and let MS fix the unavoidable bugs first.

Games will be made for DX9 for a long time yet.

@Stabiz: That´s exactly what I was saying, maybe I expressed myself in a confusing way. :oops: I wouldn´t recommend any expensive D9 card, though, since SH3 is comparatively "old" by today´s PC-standards and doesn´t really benefit from a high-end a-thousand shaders 1600x 1200 resolution card, you follow me? :yep:

So my suggestion is: buy a cheap, "old" GeForce 6600 or similar, save the money, wait a couple of months till prices for D10 cards drop and Vista runs more or less bug-free and THEN look for something really fast to be equipped for future games to come.:rock:

Cheers, AS

Well, i talked to some "guru's" at the local computer-whizz store, and they told me that the 8800 didnt fit my motherboard...:nope:

Here is my board (from MSI webpage):
MS-7025
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/mb_image/MS-7025.jpg

PC-specs:
AMD Athlon 64
3200+
2.01 Ghz, 1.50 GB RAM

As a short term fix coz i really want to get this game working after owning it since release suppose i got the nVidia 7800GS 256MB would this be a sufficient upgrade to play sh3 as far as pixel shading etc goes?

will this card be ok for ship simulator?

More than just sufficient mate :up: Just make sure its AGP so it fits your Mobo.

Question: How do I change my resolution option? I don't like what I have...makes the game look.......ugly...