Help me pick out a new video card for my computer!

[Ed Oscuro]

The basic problem for AMD is that in both their key markets their major competitor is outspending them on R&D - in that segment - relative to what AMD spends on both markets combined. Intel is outspending their GPU+CPU R&D on mostly CPUs alone, while nVidia is outspending them on GPU+CPU on mostly GPUs. Either they will have to find their way back from a period in the margins (and nVidia certainly have not seen the margins in i.e. game consoles lately, publicly dismissing their relevance recently) or we'd have to imagine that future product portfolios aren't going to be tied into R&D spends, which I don't believe is likely yet (if ever). Additionally I don't think they have any process advantages compared to nVidia, though it's mainly on the CPU side that this is a problem (and possibly a shorter-lived one, if Intel's current claimed lead doesn't hold over the long term, which does seem possible).

AMD might actually have better success on the CPU front here, as they could become an ARM outfit. On the GPU side I'd say it's fair to imagine more invention is required to keep pace - we'll have to see if their latest releases erase the recent features and efficiency gap, which I don't see happening. AMD can do downsampling, but what about Voxel Global Illumination? (Granted, doesn't seem to be ready for prime time yet with heavy computational requirements).

[blizzz]

There's a strange gap between Europe and the USA when it comes to AMD cards. Here in Europe they were dominating until the 970 came out. They were cheaper and faster in any category than Nvidia, only the power consumption was a problem. In the US the prices for AMD cards are way higher than here, so naturally they are less popular, except for Bitcoin mining.

My expectation is that AMD will once again be the more popular brand here in Europe with their 300 line than Nvidia. Just because they are cheaper.

[gray117]

Get the 750ti by all means to make the machine useful. Assuming you're not bogged down with crippling malware and/or overzealous anti virus and you should be good to goo for older stuff like silent Hill 3 and some of the better optimised/scalable modern PC games - like say diablo 3.

Your problem area is going to be anything that's a less well optimised and not a good fit for.dual core.machines or benefits from a bigger gpu overhead - a lot of the 360-ps3 era ports for example - but you'll probably find some mid / mid-low settings that could still work if acceptable.

But I'd just save a few bucks and see what you could get for your money on ebay or something if you fancy a bit of PC gaming at the kind of levels/freedom where you can pretty much pickup what you want from the last 6-8 years...

[evil_ash_xero]

I plan on getting this: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MW8NXAW/ref ... OQKOSXBZIM at the beginning of next month.

I'll let you guys know if it works with my PC or not. I'm sorta psyched to see if it enhances my Snes9x performance. It kind of chugs, unless I turn VSync on. Which makes it lag more.

[Ed Oscuro]

I'm sorta psyched to see if it enhances my Snes9x performance.

spoilers: it won't

the "chug" sounds like tearing to me. snes9x isn't demanding at all. Only a CRT or adaptive sync can really fix this.

[evil_ash_xero]

I'm sorta psyched to see if it enhances my Snes9x performance.

spoilers: it won't

the "chug" sounds like tearing to me. snes9x isn't demanding at all. Only a CRT or adaptive sync can really fix this.

Well, I thought so too. But I hooked up my PC to a VGA CRT. And it did the same thing! So, that's what gave me hope.
But maybe it's just a fool's hope.

It sucks, because I'm cool with Snes9x, but the lag caused from having to turn on VSync makes me almost never use it. I just go and play it on the real hardware.

[CkRtech]

hey ash -

Have you updated your drivers much for that machine? Just curious. I think it is this one, right? http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/ ... 80/drivers

[evil_ash_xero]

I certainly haven't, from that link. I'm going to do that now though.

EDIT: Gave me one update.

[blizzz]

No, a GPU won't help with Snes9x at all.

[evil_ash_xero]

Hrmm....well, what does help then?

[blizzz]

A faster CPU. That's pretty much the only thing that will help with 2D emulators, unless you want some special shaders.

[evil_ash_xero]

Ah OK. That'll just have to wait.

Hopefully the card will help with other things.

[gray117]

your cpu should be plenty fine for snes... and I'm not even familiar with the emulator question...

Most likely there's something amiss with either the emulator itself, or something very oddly configured/bunged up with windows in general. There's a chance the video card upgrade may fix some wierd/odd incompatibility... but I'd suspect the emulator first - a quick glance shows a forum with a couple of people with various problems...

At this point you could indeed add this to your technical things getting in the way of the hobby thread

... Are you confident your pc is 'clean' and not running a bunch of un-needed stuff? ... I always recommend https://www.malwarebytes.org - free version - to anyone in doubt about what kind of crap maybe on their computer and who are reluctant to simply wipe it and start over.

Try disabling/removing any anti-virus or anything that could interfere with normal operation.

On the off chance it's something wierd - check monitor is setup to 60hz (most likely to provide easy predictable sync) - typically control panel>display>screen resolution>Advanced>Monitor tab>refresh rate drop down>60hz

Good luck!

[evil_ash_xero]

Yeah, I have all kinds of anti-malware programs, including the one you mentioned.

I just checked, and it is 60hz.

[Xyga]

Right now after discussing stuff I'm thinking;

CPU - i5 4690K (3.5GHz)
GPU - GTX750Ti or GTX760
RAM - 4Gb single

Picking the 760 would put it a bit above my budget, I'm just wondering if it's worth it or not for what I want to do.

Reminder of some of the 'heaviest' stuff I'm going to do with it;

- PCSX2/Dolphin
2x upscaling and a simple anisotropic or bilinear are enough for me, I don't want the best looks, but smooth framerate for all games that are currently considered well-enough emulated, taking out those few problem games that are especially heavy for a particular reason (badly emulated/optimized) and require a monster pc.
Basically just a competent PC for those two emulators, not the 'best'.

- MAME/RetroArch
with heaviest customizable shaders like crt_royale and v-synced.

- no PC games
- no overclocking

[Ed Oscuro]

Yeah, I have all kinds of anti-malware programs, including the one you mentioned.

More likely than not the only programs you should have are Microsoft Security Essentials, and maybe one anti-malware specific program (like SpyBot, if anybody still uses that, or MalwareBytes). Don't run anything else at the same time, especially expired software demos! If you have an expired Norton, MacAfee, or whatever, uninstall it and verify that Essentials is installed.

[Xan]

I wouldn't buy any GPU at all for now, try running on the integrated one for a while to gauge the GPU requirements of your applications. Then you can still upgrade to a dedicated GPU if you feel the need for that. I'd avoid the 760 in any case as it's bad value from the prices I've seen. 960 is just around the corner as I've said and that would give you plenty of headroom even for MSAA.

If you are sure about no overclocking you don't need a K-model CPU.

[Xyga]

Aren't i5 overall smoother at similar clock speed thanks to the 4 cores and further, turbo ?
Overclocking won't be my thing for a while yes, but I actually don't exclude it 100%, the annoying thing if I consider it for the future would be the need for a capable mobo (still inquiring about that) don't those cost more ?

Regarding GPU, on the PCSX2 forums they do recommend a GPU though, as GPU-intensive, or say GPU-oriented games (not GPU-crazy I mean) aren't too rare.

For HLSL/RA shaders I still don't know the recommendations though... I'm imagining cvk1 + crt_royale @1440 + some v-sync method.
It requires both CPU and GPU but I don't know how good a GPU.

[Xan]

Yes, you'd need a good Z97 board and a good aftermarket cooler. So you really need to make the decision now, because if you don't want to deal with it you can save on this stuff and just go with a cheaper chipset+boxed cooler. And in your case there is the i5-4690 (without K) which is just identical except that the multiplier is locked, and it costs a fair bit less than the unlocked K chip.

[Ed Oscuro]

One other reason to put off buying a GPU for the moment - new monitor announcements might lead to a different conclusion on which GPU to get (though this obviously isn't a big deal if your most intensive application is an emulator), in addition to the reverse possibility. I'd like to see the total desktop graphics landscape in March.

[Xyga]

Well thanks for the advices, I can wait for the 960, I still don't know if there's need for so much power though, what are other known good price performance-ratio GPU's under 200€ ?

Until the GPU purchase, I'm still scratching my head regarding OC.

I'll pick an i5-4690K but I'm still wondering if I will really benefit from the possibility of OC'ing in the future or not.
From the rather crude benchmarks on PCSX2 forums, it looks like even a locked i5 (non-K) is able to run most games full speed without any trouble. Not at max upscaling/filtering quality of course, but I really am not looking for the best possible picture, just 100% speed.

[BuckoA51]

Highly unscientific observation but.. on my website where I write guides to getting old games running on newer PCs, judging by the comments it seems AMD cards have a lot more compatibility issues than Nvidia ones do. Something to keep in mind anyway.

I'll pick an i5-4690K but I'm still wondering if I will really benefit from the possibility of OC'ing in the future or not.
From the rather crude benchmarks on PCSX2 forums, it looks like even a locked i5 (non-K) is able to run most games full speed without any trouble. Not at max upscaling/filtering quality of course, but I really am not looking for the best possible picture, just 100% speed.

It's only really Dolphin that pushes even the top-end CPUs at the moment.

[Xan]

Can't have enough CPU when running emulators. There's always a certain accuracy setting, or a certain game, that's pushing whatever is on the market now. And from videos I've seen, even a current overclocked Intel chip struggles with some of the mid-late 90's 3D arcade games in MAME.

[Xyga]

Okay I know you're right about that *sigh* goodbye money.

Now for the right mobo, cooling, and RAM...

[Lord of Pirates]

The Noctua NH-D14 and D15 both offer great performance for CPU cooling but they're large, a bit expensive, and you'd need low profile memory.

[SGGG2]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=944920

[Ed Oscuro]

Great thread link - hope they start updating stuff soon. There's a few areas (especially monitors, possibly keyboards as well) where the threads haven't caught up to what's available or will soon be.

The Noctua NH-D14 and D15 both offer great performance for CPU cooling but they're large, a bit expensive, and you'd need low profile memory.

I solved that problem by removing a heatsink on the pair of modules sitting under that heatsink. Also had to remove one of the fans which left the cooler a bit lopsided, but it works still

I can't quite believe that SNES9X is having performance problems. That CPU is anemic, but SNES9X gave very good performance for years on *really* ancient systems. It sounds like the system is loaded up with stuff (accidental membership in Lizard Squad?) that's not obvious but still sucking down CPU cycles. That, or you're noticing glitches / hitches that are based on video tearing. Getting tearing on a CRT apparently can happen. Perhaps that thread's discussion of resolution / framerate issues could have some clues, but it doesn't sound like you're getting framerate cuts that bad.

[evil_ash_xero]

Ah man, don't make me go to NeoGAF.

[Lord of Pirates]

Ah man, don't make me go to NeoGAF.

You're all set unless you decided you wanted to upgrade your CPU as well. You might consider checking out OCN though, they're always helpful and polite when I need something. When was the last time you opened the PC up and cleaned it?


At Ed: Still way better performance than Intel's stock junk .

[Ed Oscuro]

Oh, for sure, I've used Noctua coolers in at least my last couple builds now. I wasn't impressed with their complete failure to send an adapter kit that I requested once (there's another $7 I wasn't supposed to pay) but besides that things have been good.