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Best Video Card??????

M

MEANGUNS!

New member
I'm going to buy a new video card next week and i was wondering if you guys would help me out..

I 'm using Pj64 beta right now because it works better for me without a proper video card. I tried the new Pj64 and it was to slow, but the graphics are much sharper.

Games like NFL blizs and Exite bike work fine with my current system on beta version only! But, games like 1080 Snowboarding, golden eye, Toruk and Perfect Dark crash 60 secs into the game.

What is the best video card I can buy for the pj64 so all game s work smoothly.


AMD 1600
Ram 500mb
Onboard video card
Onboard sound card
 
james.miller

james.miller

HELL YES. IT'S ME!
the ATI r9700pro is the best card you can get right now. though the graphics card only does a small percentage of the work, so you really would be wasting your money of you brought anything over an ATI8500 if you only use emulators using your current setup.
Emulators are cpu intensive, not graphics card, meaning emulators are also cpu-limited. upgrading your cpu will bring you the biggest performance boost.
In any case, as your looking for a graphics card, i recomend either the ati8500 (not the 'le' version), a cheap gf3 or the 9500 or 9500pro if you can afford them:)
hope this helps


btw onboard graphics are extreamly poor - any half-decent graphics card WILL make a big difference.
 
C

Chibi Nick

Emutalk Member
well the best card you could get now would be the radeon 9700 pro... the gffx is on the way (but it has not so nice p/reviews)...

really, if all you were to use it for is emulation, then you could go for a gf3 or higher... the video card isn't a major part in the speed of emulation, it mostly depends on your processor speed...

but yeah... onboard crap isn't good....

does your computer have a agp port? if it has onboard video it might not... better check that out before you get a new video card... and if it doesn't, you might wanna look into a gf4mx card (I dno if any of the newer radeon cards come in pci flavour)...

yeah.. how much $ you looking to spend?

EDIT: I see most of what I said was said already... this is what I get for talking on msn while typing a reply... tsk tsk... still remember to make sure you have an agp port...
 
Tagrineth

Tagrineth

Dragony thingy
Again, the best video card out, period, is the Radeon 9700 Pro...

Best price/performance + features DEFINITELY goes to Radeon 9500 Pro though. I've had no real problems with mine thus far and strongly recommend the card, if you can find one :)

If you can't though then a Radeon 8500 (or 9100) is the other choice.

Don't buy a GeForce3 or 4... the main part a video card plays in emulation is adding extras like advanced filtering (Anisotropic and Anti-Aliasing; PM me if you want info on these), which the GF3/4 are SLOW at, compared to the Radeon series.
 
OP
M

MEANGUNS!

New member
Well. If it isnt my video card i should put more money into, to make the pj64 work better , where should i put it?
In the ram?
I have money , I just don't know what to upgrade?


AMD 1600
RAM 500mb
onboard vid
onboard sound
 
L

Lachp30

Guest
You have more than enough ram. If it's just for emulation, have a look at the Geforce 2 Ti/Geforce 3 ti/Geforce 4 MX range of cards out there. Get what ever your budget allows:)
 
james.miller

james.miller

HELL YES. IT'S ME!
MEANGUNS! said:
Well. If it isnt my video card i should put more money into, to make the pj64 work better , where should i put it?
In the ram?
I have money , I just don't know what to upgrade?


AMD 1600
RAM 500mb
onboard vid
onboard sound
Click to expand...

first of all you NEED a proper video card - you are extreamly lacking feature without it. You havnt answered Chibi Nick's question, so we cant offer you any advice on a video card.

secondly, Chibi Nick, and i have both said that the cpu makes the bigest difference, and Tagrineth also hinted at that, stating that video cards only real job is to apply advanced filtering when needed.

So, obviously, its the cpu. can you please read our posts again and answer all of our questions? thankyou
 
S

StuLTissimus

New member
the gffx is on the way (but it has not so nice p/reviews)...
Click to expand...

Well, then again, remember GeForce FX is running on non-final drivers, yet it is already beating p the 9700 Pro to mush in some tests. Yummy.

Anyway, just telling you, you will no longer find a Radeon 8500. You will find Radeon 9100. They changed the name.
 
Niggy G

Niggy G

HTAFC will rise again!!!
If you wanted preformance increase for N64 emulation then in most cases the CPU is the most important thing!

Being as you have a 1.6 Ghz, which is still quite fast id say you would be wiser spending money on a new graphics card. But as said in other posts make sure you have an AGP slot! - Just take the case of your computer and look for it (ive attatched a pic).

video_1.jpg


As for recomendations id say Geforce 3 Ti 500 or Geforce 4 Ti 4200.
 
james.miller

james.miller

HELL YES. IT'S ME!
then may i suggest getting an radeon8500 (or 9100) and spending the rest of the budget on the best cpu you can buy
 
thedaemon666

thedaemon666

Wraith
god damn u guys are fucking ignorant, his cpu being an AMD 1600 guessing he means the AMD Athlon XP 1600+ is perfectly fine, now if he is only using SD and DDR ram may cause problems and it is indeed his vid card that is being problematic because it probably doesn't even support some of the needed features of DX or more importantly OpenGL (looks better :p) therefore he should get the video card and AGP slots are better than PCI because they are faster and meant specifically for video cards hence the name of Advanced Graphics Port, I find it funny that everytime someone asks this question you guys immediately attack the cpu assuming that it is too slow even if its in the >1 gHz range, get a life
 
Niggy G

Niggy G

HTAFC will rise again!!!
Originally posted by thedaemon666

god damn u guys are fucking ignorant, his cpu being an AMD 1600 guessing he means the AMD Athlon XP 1600+ is perfectly fine, now if he is only using SD and DDR ram may cause problems and it is indeed his vid card that is being problematic because it probably doesn't even support some of the needed features of DX or more importantly OpenGL (looks better ) therefore he should get the video card and AGP slots are better than PCI because they are faster and meant specifically for video cards hence the name of Advanced Graphics Port, I find it funny that everytime someone asks this question you guys immediately attack the cpu assuming that it is too slow even if its in the >1 gHz range, get a life
Click to expand...

Hold fire, if you actually know about N64 emulation (Not that I do, I just listen to wise people) then you would know that CPU speed is the most important factor, however in this instance I would suggest not upgrading your CPU. Purely because your graphics card is in greater need.

On the subject of why is AGP better?

I think it’s to do with the amount of throughput that APG will allow, i.e. more data can be shunted through at once.
 
james.miller

james.miller

HELL YES. IT'S ME!
thedaemon666 said:
god damn u guys are fucking ignorant, his cpu being an AMD 1600 guessing he means the AMD Athlon XP 1600+ is perfectly fine, now if he is only using SD and DDR ram may cause problems
Click to expand...

yeah? and your a fucking moron for insulting us like that. no, his cpu is NOT perfectly fine. do some research, will you? even xp 2000's and higher struggle with certain games, as i said before. so, with that, and the fact that he doesnt have a dedicated video card, means BOTH should be upgraded for the best results.

as we all know, pretty much anything faster than a tnt2 is more than enough for emulation. after that just fancy effects are all you gain.
heres an example: if run a limited test on resolutions and fsaa with my xp1800+ and gf4 440mx (a very crap card as far as pc gaming is concerned, as people will no-doubt agree)
i have found that the difference in frame-rates between 640x480 & no fsaa and 1920x1440 & 4xfsaa is as little as %30, even with my lowly graphics card. which tells me that it isnt the graphics card that is holding the emulation back, it's the cpu. getting an even faster card would simply allow me to up the resolution even more, not actually make the emulation noticable faster.
Now, even my xp1800 @1.7ghz with 512mb of DDR-ram can't keep up full pace with Pd and GEye.

its the cpu, plain and simple. now if he;s running sdr ram then yes, that would hold him back. but unless he has a board such as the ECS K7S5a, he's stuck with sd-ram untill he gets a new motherboard.

so that leaves us with: the cpu, AND the graphics card. since the r8500 currently offer the best performance for the moeny, and is very cheap, in my opionion, he should buy the r8500, and a new cpu.
 
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S

SoberAnalyst

Banned
thedaemon666 said:
god damn u guys are fucking ignorant, his cpu being an AMD 1600 guessing he means the AMD Athlon XP 1600+ is perfectly fine, now if he is only using SD and DDR ram may cause problems and it is indeed his vid card that is being problematic because it probably doesn't even support some of the needed features of DX or more importantly OpenGL (looks better :p) therefore he should get the video card and AGP slots are better than PCI because they are faster and meant specifically for video cards hence the name of Advanced Graphics Port, I find it funny that everytime someone asks this question you guys immediately attack the cpu assuming that it is too slow even if its in the >1 gHz range, get a life
Click to expand...


AGP only has 1-4% increase in performance over PCI ... please don't give me heck over this, as i lost a bet on this myself to my brother. after doing some research, i found this out. the reason for checking for AGP would be because most video cards in stores now are only AGP compatible. i also run 3 various computers which have all changed in specs over time ... i can tell you that CPU is deadly vital for this (or any i've tried) emulator. the only problems i've experienced were improper coloring ... and these problems were fixed in the settings of the emulator. i run the emulator on my laptop at work and on my PC at home ... (several PCs) ... for a very long time now. i also have a CPA certificate so i'm familiar with everything about computers hardware/software if you're questioning my expertise. what he should do is get a budget video card (if he's not planning on playing any real PC games) ... or his tastes might change so he might also want to look at something for an investment into the future. check what the multiplier has a limit on, on your motherboard and what you can upgrade to (your CPU) ... also get a videocard ... the RADEON 7000, if you don't plan on playing real PC games. also, what are the problems with the games you're playing? ... some games just won't work. the only games that show the most improvement with a faster CPU is goldeneye and perfect dark. if you had a RADEON 7000 compaired to a RADEON 9700 ... there's no performance difference running this emulator ... the emulator doesn't exhaust the resources of the RADEON 7000 even ... but it's your basic card that won't burn a hole in your pocket.
 
Tagrineth

Tagrineth

Dragony thingy
SoberAnalyst, were you perchance looking at an AGP/PCI comparsion of a Voodoo series card? They don't use AGP for anything except improved vertex data transfer speed from the CPU... so they don't get any more than 7% (highest delta I've ever seen).

I can say for sure that on any GeForce or Radeon, AGP makes a much greater than 5% difference. Even the lowly GeForce2 MX200 shows a 10% or greater performance difference and it only gets wider as you go up the technology ladder.

That of course assumes at least AGP 2x functionality.

If you're using a Radeon and your AGP is unstable, SMARTGART might disable it altogether (I've seen it happen; my AGP works fine except for FastWrites which SG disables automatically after I enable it and try to run anything - mostly because my system crashes when I do).
 
scotty

scotty

The Great One
That depends on your system, if you have a fast AGP interface; get any 64 MB or 128 MB graphics card (I hear the ATI radeon 9700 Pro is the best). It depends really on how much money that yu want to spend, but if you want good quality, and one that will last for awhile, get one that is at least 64 MB. If you only have access to a PCI interface, like I did, then get a GeForce 4 MX 420. Not many good graphics cards are out there for the PCI interface, many companies strive on using the AGP interface.
 
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