Video Card Upgrade Report

[etheberge]

To people considering upgrading their video card for SHV:

I upgraded my old Nvidia 8800GT video card to an ATI HD5850 and the results are absolutely spectacular, I could hardly believe my eyes.

My system:
Intel Core2Duo E8400 / 3ghz
5gig of good old DDR2
Windows 7 x64

with the Nvidia 8800 GT:

I spent a while trying out different combination of settings to find something that was adequate, I eventually settled on 1680x1050, everything enabled/maxed except shadows off / vsync off / AA at one click above off. But I wasn't really satisfied, the shadows I could live without and they were the major FPS killer, but I really need high AA since I can't stand those jagged edges.

Anyway, even with the setting above, I was getting atrocious performance while standing in the pen, (about 18-20 fps min, max about 30 depending on where I looked) and also in the control room (about 18 to 25 fps). Everywhere else was playable about 30 to 40 fps on the bridge in Kiel harbor, about 10 fps more when at sea.

with the ATI HD5850:

First thing I did was to max out AA and max out the shadows. I figured I would see how it ran with both settings maxed and work my way down to find acceptable performance. All other settings were the same.

So I load a save game that has me standing in the pen and now I'm getting a minimum of about 35 to about 45 fps depending on where I look. Wow, pretty good I think. I then start a patrol to see how it runs on the boat. Standing on the bridge with the boat still within the pen, I'm getting 37-40fps. I go down to the control room and I'm getting even better performance about 45fps, super smooth and stable. I did a walk around of the boat and performance is the same everywhere, at least 45 to 50 fps.

And that's with shadows and AA maxed! Before I couldn't even run 1 click of shadows without the fps going down into the teens.

When at sea during a historical mission with a convoy (PQ17), performance is even better. I'm getting about 70-75 fps on the bridge during a heavy storm and get this, about 90 to 95 fps in the control room and 100 to 140 fps anywhere else. Still with shadows and AA maxed.

Some other numbers: during the tutorial, I'm getting about 80fps when you get woken up and facing the control room. Then about 50-60 during the attack against the ships.

I'm very impressed so far, I didn't expect such a big jump in performance. I would have been happy to get a stable 40 fps with shadows off and mid range AA but these numbers I'm getting are spectacular.

I can't recommend this card enough if all you care about is SHV. Don't know about other games though.