Anybody using ATI?
 

just wondering what the optimum card would be. I use an AMD processor and like matching with ATI cards. Currently i have the x1550 which many people say is a lemon. Works great for me except in LARGE task forces. ie. battleships or carriers.
Anyways wondering what you other ATI guys are using.

I use the X1300 512 mb but I also have 2 gig of RAM. What is your RAM? Convoys run smoothly for me. Maybe an extra gig of RAM will help. Might be less expansive than a new card. What AMD processor also?

thanks for the speedy reply. AMD64 f/x 3700+ 2.2 GHz 1 mb of L2 cache. 2gigs of RAM. ATI x1550.

again i am generally happy with current configuration. Its just with ROW and everything goin on at once my mouse gets really slow. to the point were when im setting up a spread i have to fire torp, pause move mouse over next tube, unpause open tube, pause move mouse over fire button, unpause, fire, argh.

however this only happens with taskforces involving capitol ships or lots of land mass.

That is strange. I run a 3200+, 2 gig ddr400 and the X1300 XGE 512mb card and my mouse is good. Even around convoys. Anyway, I have been looking at the new ATI cards that offer AGP as I have the AGP board. They look good and the price is not bad at all. In your BIOS, is it set up for X8 on the AGP slot? That is if you are using a AGP set up.

negetive im using PCI express. it is really screwey it must be a an issue other than my vid card because at the start of a patrol thing run pretty smooth (not great) it's only after lots of contacts and reports you know. But my drive is 75% empty ad gets defraged by buzzsaw and DirMS-S daily.


p.s. screen res is 1440 x 900

Are you looking at AGP or PCI Express cards? If AGP, I'd wait and see what ATI is planning to do as far as supporting AGP cards. Their last two or three driver releases gave many AGP card users problems. A potential work-around for this is to use Omega drivers . . . I haven't tried them yet, though, but might when Crysis is released if ATI don't fix their drivers.

EDIT: Never mind about the AGP question.

Anyway, I'm using an X1950 Pro with 512 MB RAM. It runs SH4 nicely with all in-game graphics options maxed except post processing is disabled (a matter of preference for me). I'm also using the ROW mod with high resolution sea foam. My screen resolution is 1360x768 and I have 2x FSAA enabled. The only time I have any slowdown is the first time the hi-rez sea foam (ROW mod) gets loaded.

I was talked into an ATI 1550 and have only had one crash but have kept the graphics on low. I've been in the middle of a couple of large convoys and task forces without problem. So far, I'm still happy with it, even though my RAM is only at the 1.0 meg level, but I have two hard drives and have all the VM on the lesser used drive.

I run a x1650 Pro (512 onboard) and an Athlon 4200 (Dual 2.2 Ghz) with 2G's of Ram. Running ROW with graphics maxed out I get no slowdown in major convoys. Although - I noted your running alot higher res than I - being "old school" I run everything at 1024x768 still (heck I remember balking when everyone told me to ditch dos - I still have my 6.22 disks! - nevermind rez changes.) Remember that the higher the resolution -the harder the pc and vid processor have to work - which could be your bottleneck. Try dropping the resolution down would be the first thing I would look at doing - the true visual difference isnt major and the card your running should be perfectly comfortable with a "base" resolution like 1024x768. *When you do the math your actually asking the vid card to do what - about 25% more work pixel wise with that resolution...*

The second thing is to make sure your not running alot of stuff in the background. There are a number of process viewer apps out there - find one and kill everything you dont need. Its amazing the stuff that runs in the background that just sucks up CPU cycles. Once you know what you can kill and what you can't msconfig and the regedit app are great to get rid of the extraneous drag. Use some common sense - disconnect from the internet (ipconfig /release works great for DHCP machines) and kill your firewall and antivirus stuff temporarily - but make sure they are back up and going before you reconnect (ipconfig /renew in case you needed it)

There are a few other tricks - but these should help get you started. :arrgh!:

Drop your resolution to the standard and see how it runs. I run the standard. If I take it up a notch I start with FPS loss.

I agree with above comments. Reduce your resolution and kill as many programs from memory as you can. I bet you can improve on your current performance.
SH is a road hog though. If you want to run the game options at max, you need the highest end card you can afford.
-Pv-

thanks A LOT guys. dropped the res down to 1024 x 768 and mouse moves damn near perfect. oddly enough i did all kinds of tweaking but for some reason never thought of dropping re screen res. Amazing the diffrence this made. THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR INPUT.

The same for me , but my case is different, i´m using a gf 6600gt card, only 10 fps in big task forces . i want buy a new card the next days, perhaps a 7600gs

If you were playing at 1440*900, it means you are using a 16:10 LCD.
Running at 1024*768, you will notice the round dials are not round any more. You could try the 1280*800 resolution which has the correct aspect but with 26% less pixels.

I've found that a combination of my 7600GT video card and 2 GIGs of RAM allows my mid range rig to play SH4 smoothly at the highest graphical settings. I get between 26fps and 40fps on the external shots, depending on how busy the environment is. I have the event camera and volumetric fog disabled.

I did notice when I tried the 'Midway' mission one time that my fps dropped to about 17 on the external shots. I won't be trying that mission again. :D

Your welcome Skipper. Now sink a ship!!!:up: