AGP owners- Interesting for SH4

[swdw]

Hey AGP users, just found this article that ATi will be releasing the HD3850 in AGP!
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquir...100-agp-market

Next, for those wondering about upgrading to a less expensive card- stay tuned. I decided to upgrade my old system and use it for playing HD and Blu-ray movies on our TV (once BR drives drop). The MB uses AGP so I needed a AGP card that could decode h.264

In this pursuit I bought a HD2400 and took it back for an HD2600. In another couple of days I'll post a review here on the useability / feasability of this option and what I'm learning. Guess you already can figure out the verdict on the 2400

Anyway- looks like things are looking up for AGP users with fast enough CPU's.

Sorry for the delay, here goes:
Test systems:

Both running WinXP Sp2 32bit version with all the latest updates and AMD 32bit patch for 64 bit processors

Catalyst 7.10 for the x1950, and AGP ( AGP numbers are confusing, they are also called the 8.4 drivers and were released Nov 4th). On a side note, the card came with 7.7 drivers and upgrading to the lates gave almost a 30% increase in framerates

AGP
ECS MB
Sempron 3300+
1.5 GB DDR400
CT8780 based soundcard
ATi HD2600 Pro 512MB AGP card Agp 3.0 8x
ATA100 HD

Comparing it to
PCI-e
ABit MB
Athlon 64 x2 3800+
2GB DDR2 800
on board sound ( surprisingly, I tried a PCi sound card and it made no difference in performance, unusual for onboard soound to work this well)
ATi x1950 Pro 512MB
SATA300 HD

A note on the 2 systems. Overclocking was removed to give stock umbers as there are no utilities capable of overclocking the 2600 yet. The drivers/card are just way too new.

There are XT and XT OC versions of the HD 2600.

Test missions:
Submarine school- torpedo attack
Ambush at Palawan Passage
Sailing out of Pearl at the start of a career

SH4 settings:
All settings on except for post processing. All sliders maxxed except LOD size set at 3/4
1280X 1024 32bit 70hz
Tested Stock and with all new ROW releases including sound mod.

Keep in mind that the AGP system has slightly less memory and the memory bus is half the clock speed of the PCI-e system.

In the school mission, the external view was positioned on the cruiser and the lead ship with as much water in the screen as possible to lower the frame rate. Periscope view was on the cruiser.

For the Ambush mission I switched to the external camera and positioned it on the Japanese fleet. The camera was then moved to get as many ships as possible into the screen. Several views were tried to get the LOWEST framerate I could achieve. This usually occured with the camera fixed on the Yamato. The avg value is with only a couple of ships in the view.

For the Pearl mission the outside view was positioned to show as much of Ford Island and battleship row behind the boat as possible.

Stock:

School
outside view- lowest value
AGP-25 fps
PCI-e 30 fps

Periscope view of cruiser- lowest value
AGP- 35 fps
PCI-e 41 fps

Ambush
outside view
AGP- lowest- 16fps, average 20 fps
PCI-e lowest- 20fps, avg 25 fps

Periscope view
AGP- lowest 23fps
PCI-e lowest 36fps

Pearl
AGP- lowest- 17fps
PCI-e lowest- 24fps

ROW:


School
outside view- lowest value
AGP-26 fps
PCI-e 39 fps

Periscope view of cruiser- lowest value
AGP- 35 fps
PCI-e 41 fps

Ambush
outside view
AGP- lowest- 17fps, average 20 fps
PCI-e lowest- 24fps, avg 25 fps

Periscope view
AGP- lowest 20fps
PCI-e lowest 31

Pearl
AGP- lowest- 16fps
PCI-e lowest- 19fps

All in all, not a bad performance considering the 2600 is clocked slower than the 1950, is an AGP card, and is on a system with slower memory and less memory.

In most situations, the framerates stay high enough to allow for smooth viewing. I think this bodes well for the HD385o AGP card which nas a LOT more horsepawer than the 2600.

Most surprising thing for ATi owners will show up in the following pictures:

Wait a minute- do you see what i see

How about this:

And then this


There is one drawback, there seems to be a problem in ROW with the sun appearing through the water once it's below the horizon. THis did not happen in the stock version, so I'm posting a message for Leo in the ROW thread.

[Greentimbers]

Thanks for the info, that is good news for us AGP card users, I currently have an ATI X800 256MB card,

[leovampire]

ATI will still not give you all the effect's people get from an NVIDIA card.

BFG Technologies GeForce 7600 GS OC Video Card, 8x AGP, 512MB DDR2


- Product Number: 341271
- Mfr. Part #: BFGR76512GSOC
- Brand: BFG Technologies Video Cards

[SteveW1]

Untill I can convince the other half to let me buy a new card my 7300 GT will just have to make do even though I still get good FPS with a full complement of ROW graphics running, no CTD's or slow downs even in the largest convoys I've run into so far.

[MONOLITH]

Originally Posted by swdw

Anyway- looks like things are looking up for AGP users with fast enough CPU's.

Any more info on this aspect?

AMD/ATI sight has no specific specs on this yet, but under their 3800 series specs (which only lists PCI express at the moment), there are no CPU minimums.



My first thought when reading your quoted line was that would be a big issue; because most people with an AGP slot (like me) means it's an aging motherboard. Aging motherboards usually means a slower CPU or limited RAM. Plus many are 4x times only, no 8x times support.

However, based on no CPU parameters listed in the 3800 spec requirements, perhaps it doesn't matter.

If any knows, please chime in.

[Rockin Robbins]

EVGA has a superclocked AGP 7600GT 512mb available for under $200. http://www.evga.com/products/moreinf...9-TR&family=18. This thing should really cook for AGP. Also, EVGA cards come with a lifetime warranty with teeth!

It needs 18 amps on the +12 volt rail. Wonder why I'm so careful about that nowdays?:hmm:

[MONOLITH]

I actually have two power supplies hooked up to my rig at the moment. This occurred because I bought an X1950 Pro card, which is notoriously a power hog. Along with it I bought a 550watt PSU, and it turned out even that wasn't enough to run the card and the rest of my rig.

So I have the 550 watt powering my motherboard and the X1950 pro, and the stock 350 watt running my disc drives, sound card and Agiea physics card.

A dual power sytem works great, you just have to make sure the mobo and the vid card are on the same source, or it doesn't work.

[AVGWarhawk]

Read here in general topics:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=125128

[Rockin Robbins]

Isn't that also a PCI-E card? Poor AGP guys are being forced to update their motherboards, memory, CPU, graphics cards....... they're just getting destroyed here.

Now if you have a slot 939 AMD chip you can get away with updating the motherboard and keeping the CPU, but any way you look at it, hard compromises have to be made, either with lesser equipment or lesser wallet.

[Hartmann]

how works this 7600gs card in sh4 ?? i want to replace my 6600 for a better card and 7600gs is really cheap now:hmm:

Originally Posted by leovampire

ATI will still not give you all the effect's people get from an NVIDIA card.

BFG Technologies GeForce 7600 GS OC Video Card, 8x AGP, 512MB DDR2


- Product Number: 341271
- Mfr. Part #: BFGR76512GSOC
- Brand: BFG Technologies Video Cards

[donut]

EVGA 512-A8-N559 GeForce 7600GT 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 AGP 8X Video Card - Retail <H3 class=zmp>$124.99>>http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130099&Tpk=512-A8-N559-TR</H3>Let me know what you deside,Old 6600,having trouble rendering these days?>Donut

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by donut

EVGA 512-A8-N559 GeForce 7600GT 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 AGP 8X Video Card - Retail <H3 class=zmp>$124.99>>http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130099&Tpk=512-A8-N559-TR</H3>Let me know what you deside,Old 6600,having trouble rendering these days?>Donut

That is my exact card (mine is PCI-E version) and it works well. I get 25 fps with external camera with stuff going on, about 80 in map and control room view. It is possible to slow the card down with high TC in high traffic areas. I'm running graphics WFO at 1152 x 864. I have a slot 939 Asus motherboard and Athlon 64 3700+ CPU, hardly state of the art.

[jazman]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Isn't that also a PCI-E card? Poor AGP guys are being forced to update their motherboards, memory, CPU, graphics cards....... they're just getting destroyed here.
:

And possibly power supply as well.

Yeah, I'm stuck at this giant upgrade step. I'm just going to have to wait awhile, fortunately I get just good enough FPS (21-28) to be playable. Yeah, that's playable for me. When my ship comes in, I hope I don't sink it.

[donut]

Originally Posted by jazman

And possibly power supply as well.

Yeah, I'm stuck at this giant upgrade step. I'm just going to have to wait awhile, fortunately I get just good enough FPS (21-28) to be playable. Yeah, that's playable for me. When my ship comes in, I hope I don't sink it.

EVGA 512-A8-N559 GeForce 7600GT 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 AGP 8X Video Card - Retail <H3 class=zmp>$124.99>>http://www.newegg.com

[jazman]

Originally Posted by donut

EVGA 512-A8-N559 GeForce 7600GT 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 AGP 8X Video Card - Retail <H3 class=zmp>$124.99>>http://www.newegg.com

I have an XFX 7600 GT. The last upgrade for this box.