Video Card
 

Can anybody suggest the best but not expensive video card to use for SH4.
At the moment i am using an Nvidea FX5700 which works OK with SH3.

You'll get lots of opinions about this. There are a few people on here using NVidia 8500GT cards and they seemed pleased with them. They are very affordable cards.

I have a NVidia GeForce 8600GT/OC 512MB card (a PNY version) that does quite well. Cranking all the eye candy to max does bog it down (things like volumetric fog are a fps quagmire). For somewhat more money, a great value is the NVidia 8800GT - right now, I'd say it is the best price/performance card available (excellent performance at a superb price point).

These are all PCIe cards btw.

Someone else will have to chime in about Ati cards, as I haven't used one in awhile.

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My system:
ACER AMD Athlon 64x2 4800+,
Antec TruePower Trio 650watt PS
4GB DDR2 RAM, 400GB SATA HD
PNY GeForce 8600GT/OC 512MB video card
Samsung 216BW - 21.6" wide screen (1680x1050) LCD
Windows Vista Home Premium, 32-bit

You can try the ATI Video Card.

System specs
 

I'm currently using an AMD 64 3700+ (2.4Ghz) with 2.5Gig of RAM and an nVidia GeForce 7800 GS (AGP slot as I don't have PCI-e) and SHIV runs extremely well. My only disadvantage is that I can't make any movies with SHIV as I (cue Scotty's voice).."dinna have the powerrr!!" ;)

I have 2 home PC's which I play SH4 on.

The older one is an AGP interface - an Nforce 2 motherboard running the mobile Barton XP-M CPU at 200x11 (2.2gHz). I just bought a new video card for it 2 months ago just to be able to run SH4. I picked an EVGA (Nvidia) 7600 GS. I run the card overclocked at 560 mHz (core) and 440 mHz (memory). I run 1024x768, high quality, with 4x Antialiasing. I also run ROW which does give a FPS hit. In spite of all this, I get 20 fps or better at sea, on the bridge - which is playable. Going into or out of Pearl; the frame rate drops to 15-16 fps. For AGP, I'd recommend these cards in the following order: ATI Radeon HD 2600XT, Nvidia 7600 GT, and the Nvidia 7600 GS. All of these cards are in the neighborhood of $100 to $115.

For PCI Express, I'd recommend - hands down - an Nvidia 8600 GT card, which is what I run on my other PC. With all the above settings, plus 4x Anisotropic Filtering, I get 30-40 fps on the bridge at sea. I love it ! But, even though I make 85k + per year and have little debt; I can't afford the $200 + cards that everyone else seems to run. The 8600 GT will run $80 - $130 at Newegg depending on price and rebate.

I have a pair of nVidia 7600 GS with 640 each. :)

Graphics are just fine.

Well im using the nvidea Geforce 8600GTS 256mb, and i cranked everything up on high and the lowest FPS i got so far was 20FPS with the midway atack fleet in front of me, average of 60FPS in good weather, bad weather i have not really used it in yet, and actually you can get 2 8600s at 256mb for around 200$ wich aint bad if you got the slots on your computer. so you can buy one, and then get another later on wich is what i plan on doing.

sustem Specs

intel quad core @2.4GHZ
3GB RAM
nvidea geforce 8600GTS 256mb
Windows Vista home premium

Prior to release the 8800GT looked to be the best bang for the buck coming in at $249. Due to low availability the price on those has been higher than MSRP in many cases. It is a fantastic card though (i have one) and runs SH4 great with all the bells and whistles at 1680 X 1050

A really good alternative is the ATI 3870 card. They are performing very well in most games, support DX 10, and scale nicely in Crossifre. You can find these in the low $200 range.

Make sure you check if your computer takes a AGP video card or a PCI-Express one, the two are not compatible. If AGP then your choices are very limited; as mentioned above in another post a GeForce 7600 series AGP card will be your best value.

If you have PCI-Express video (this is different from PCI), then to find the best card that works depends on what resolution and quality settings you are playing on. 8800GT 512MB if you are running higher resolutions (1680x1050 or similar) or want to maintain a high framerate no matter what. 8600GTs (good) or GT (not quite as good) if you run lower resolutions. 256MB video RAM is enough for a game like SH4, but 512MB video is 'where its at', especially if you are running mods like ROW.

Thanks for the info guys, this is the motherboard i am using at the moment, A7N8X-E Deluxe Socket A, Can anyone tell me if this will take a PCi Express video card, as i like the look of the NVidia 8600GTs.
My system which i Built PC myself is:-

AMD Sempron 3000 MMX, 2.0 ghz Processor
Memory is 1024, "upgradinging to 2 - 3 Gig"
Sound Blaster Live 24-bit
Geforce FX5700 with the latest Driver 169.21

this is working ok with SH3 and my other games i.e.
Doom 3, and the Medal of Honor Series

If you look at the motherboard were your current card is, each type of slot has a different layout. The box the new cards come in usually have the three different types slots pictured on them. AGP, PCI or PCI-E. That is how I figured it out. Anyway, I just got a AGP Nvidia 7800 GS OS for a song and SH4 is just beautiful and FPS just quite a bit from my ATI X1300 I was using.

I think thats a AGP graphics card only ...

Though that motherboard has 5 PCI slots I don't think you can use a PCI card ... some motherboards are capible of usein' either AGP OR PCI but I serious don't think your's will ... IMHO !

I had a A7N8X Deluxe Socket A MB w/3700+ AMD 64 with a 6800 GT ( AGP NO/OC ) vid card an I played SH4 with out volumetric fog an everything on the right side of the display settings checked an got decent FPS.

I noticed you didnt specify if you want to stay with Nvidia or not. If your looking at ATI - there are a slew of cards that are reasonable. Anything at the X1600 level or above does well with SH4 - basically anything that is DX 10 capable. The new HD series are also reasonable.

I've the A7N8X deluxe MB with a 462 socket running the "Athlon XP 3200+" which is probably the same as yours except for the socket ( and you need to ditch that puny Semtron ) using 3 GB "Crucial Technology" ( MAX Memory on this MB ). Each memory stick is: 1 GB 184_pin DIMM 128X64 DDR PC3200 Unbuffered.

Memory is not just memory for not all 1 GB sticks are the same and some will not work correctly especially when playing games as they will make the computer crash severely as in System crash. This I know for I went for some cheapies and SH4 and a couple other games flopped royal, changed to the correct type of mem and walla no problems. Here is the link for the "Crucial" memory although there are different outfits of your choice.

Click here: http://www.crucial.com/index.aspx then click on Scan my computer. You will be given the correct amount of Ram sticks to use and what their values are, also just what your motherboard is etc.

As yours is almost a twin to mine you would be probably better off with a Nvidia GeForce 7800 GS OC 256mb AGP 8X. This is the max Nvidia video card your mother board can handle.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y11...56_AGPcard.jpg

Here is the link for the BFG 7800 GS ( just for reference ):
http://www.bfgtech.com/bfgr78256gsoc.aspx

These cards with enough memory can still do wonders for us that do not have that wonderful PCI-Express as mine does VERY well in SH4. :arrgh!: :yep:

Someday I hope to have a PCI-E hot rod computer but intill then....................:)


Good Luck.