What graphics card is best for me? How to upgrade for X3?

EifionPipe · Post by **EifionPipe** » Tue, 6. Dec 05, 11:17

Thanks for that, I couldn't see a release date for it tho - it's currently pre-order only.

cheers, Eif

zeddius · Post by **zeddius** » Tue, 6. Dec 05, 16:10

Sorry for asking this question witch may allready be answered, but I am at a loss.

i am considering buying a new card, and I am unsure if I need a new PSU

XFX GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 eXtreme, PCI-Express, Dual-DVI, VIVO, 450MHz

I currently have the following components installed
Abit AN8
1 GB 3200 ram
78GB raptor 10000 rpm disk
100 GB western 7200 disk
SB live

Mu PSU is a 350 W with 80% efficiency. According to the PSU supplier I now use,

350 Watt continuous power the power supply is well proportioned and will provide sufficient power for the highest demands for many years to come. Numerous in house and independant tests have proven that today's PC consumes at most 230 Watt (P4 3.8 GHz, Geforce 6800 Ultra).

this PSU should be enough, but others have said I need a bigger PSU.

I was hoping somone may be able to clarify this for me???

The reason I dont want to change is that I am unsure if a new PSU will fit in my case, artic-cooling Silentium T1, since thay have placed the PSU in the bottom front of the case.....

withar · Post by **withar** » Tue, 6. Dec 05, 17:48

intresting
Need some help……. recommendations for a graphics card that only requires a 250w power supply or there abouts.
Thing is my new pc is a blessing an a curse!!!!!!!! fast

, sleek

, silent

,.....but very small

. the 450w power supply i had lined up will NOT FIT

so your help please......

other specifications if they will help is a Pentium 4 processor 3.2Gh 512MB of ram 80GB of hard disk memory and APG 4-8 slot and I will need to look at the specifications again regarding PCI features (just go it today.....yey)
Ho and a budget of £200

WitHar

Ecthelion · Post by **Ecthelion** » Tue, 6. Dec 05, 20:33

withar wrote:intresting
Need some help……. recommendations for a graphics card that only requires a 250w power supply or there abouts.
Thing is my new pc is a blessing an a curse!!!!!!!! fast , sleek , silent ,.....but very small . the 450w power supply i had lined up will NOT FIT so your help please......

other specifications if they will help is a Pentium 4 processor 3.2Gh 512MB of ram 80GB of hard disk memory and APG 4-8 slot and I will need to look at the specifications again regarding PCI features (just go it today.....yey)
Ho and a budget of £200

WitHar

Are you using one of those new micro ATX cases (think that's what they are)? If so, I'd look on review sites for PSU suggestions. 300W was recommended for the original Athlon, for what it's worth. I believe Athlon 64's recommend at least 400W. Not sure about the P4. If you can't go any higher, maybe a GeForce2 would work? I think anything newer than that would want a lot more power.

Ecthelion · Post by **Ecthelion** » Tue, 6. Dec 05, 20:38

zeddius wrote:Sorry for asking this question witch may allready be answered, but I am at a loss.

i am considering buying a new card, and I am unsure if I need a new PSU

XFX GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 eXtreme, PCI-Express, Dual-DVI, VIVO, 450MHz

I currently have the following components installed
Abit AN8
1 GB 3200 ram
78GB raptor 10000 rpm disk
100 GB western 7200 disk
SB live

Mu PSU is a 350 W with 80% efficiency. According to the PSU supplier I now use,

350 Watt continuous power the power supply is well proportioned and will provide sufficient power for the highest demands for many years to come. Numerous in house and independant tests have proven that today's PC consumes at most 230 Watt (P4 3.8 GHz, Geforce 6800 Ultra).
this PSU should be enough, but others have said I need a bigger PSU.

I was hoping somone may be able to clarify this for me???

The reason I dont want to change is that I am unsure if a new PSU will fit in my case, artic-cooling Silentium T1, since thay have placed the PSU in the bottom front of the case.....

I would go ahead and upgrade your Power Supply. Any decent current-generation card is probably going to want a 400W at least. Your motherboard is an Athlon 64 board, and I believe they recommend at least a 400W PSU. I'd go with a 500W if it was me.

withar · Post by **withar** » Wed, 7. Dec 05, 13:35

emergency over, a mate has given me his 6200 256mb 3D card as he has just bough a 7800 256mb card........lucky basted
Nice bloke

Any problems I’m sure to let you all know ....... by

DemaeRamen · Post by **DemaeRamen** » Thu, 8. Dec 05, 04:07

Harro,

Sys is as follows:

AMD64 3200 Venice 939
1GB (2x512) DDR3200 Dual channel RAMs
X800 256MB

One time I noticed in Task Manager that X3 was using 670 of those RAMs. Anyone know if that's normal? And, moreover, anyone know if I'll see much increase going up to 2GB?

General Dave · Post by **General Dave** » Thu, 8. Dec 05, 04:09

I'm running @ well over 2GB and the system still CTD's, and lags with the BPSG running, so you'll see an increase up to a point

area2000 · Post by **area2000** » Thu, 8. Dec 05, 04:09

DemaeRamen wrote:Harro,

Sys is as follows:

AMD64 3200 Venice 939
1GB (2x512) DDR3200 Dual channel RAMs
X800 256MB

One time I noticed in Task Manager that X3 was using 670 of those RAMs. Anyone know if that's normal? And, moreover, anyone know if I'll see much increase going up to 2GB?

cant say if you see a big increase, but i can say it runs playable for me.

g04tn4d0 · Post by **g04tn4d0** » Thu, 8. Dec 05, 07:04

My setup runs X3 just fine... except when you start a new game. There's a little stuttering for a few moments. Annoying but it soon passes. The game and any programs/services running don't use all my RAM anyway. Increasing RAM really shouldn't make a difference unless you have some bloated crap running in the background which would cause Winblows to swap more often while X3 is running.

Ecthelion · Post by **Ecthelion** » Thu, 8. Dec 05, 15:06

DemaeRamen wrote:Harro,

Sys is as follows:

AMD64 3200 Venice 939
1GB (2x512) DDR3200 Dual channel RAMs
X800 256MB

One time I noticed in Task Manager that X3 was using 670 of those RAMs. Anyone know if that's normal? And, moreover, anyone know if I'll see much increase going up to 2GB?

Yeah, that sounds normal. I don't think you'll see much increase going to 2GB either. It won't hurt anything though.

Malfunctionh · Post by **Malfunctionh** » Sat, 10. Dec 05, 22:51

Thanks for that. I have now found a 6600 GT card with 256mb memory, which I will now be purchasing.

shamusX · Post by **shamusX** » Mon, 12. Dec 05, 20:35

So there is no chance that my Inno3d geforce 2 mx400 whould run X3?

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Tue, 13. Dec 05, 07:38

shamusX wrote:So there is no chance that my Inno3d geforce 2 mx400 whould run X3?

None at all--no pixel shader support.

Iron Giant · Post by **Iron Giant** » Thu, 15. Dec 05, 16:46

My system is a

AMD Athlon 3200 + (1.79g) with 512 mb ram and a Geforce 4000 Ti 128mb video card.

I already own the game, but its choppy. I think the bottleneck is the RAM and possibly the video card.

I just ordered another gig of ram and I'm willing to upgrade the video too.

The budget for the video card is $100 - $200. I like Geforce, but will concider whatever.

Is there anything in that range that will be all that much better than the current card? I'm only doing this for X3 so other games are not a factor....

I'll probably not buy the card until the 1.3 patch, but I want to be ready incase the patch doesn't get me to where I need to be. I can trade, but the game is just too choppy for combat, even at 1024x768 with graphics turned down.

I've already scrubbed the TSR's. There is nothing running in the background, its got no antivirus even.... Its in the ultimate DMZ, no connection to anything else what so ever..

Thanks for advice...

DrunkenPirate · Post by **DrunkenPirate** » Thu, 15. Dec 05, 16:55

Since you already run a GF4 then I'll go with AGP options.

GF6600GT - great mid range card should be in the $150 area.
GF6800 - Overall similar performance to the 6600GT but will do better at higher resolutions. similar price
GF6800XT - slightly slower than the vanilla 6800 but is cheaper too.
GF 6800GT - much better than the vanilla version but probably outside your price range. this is the card I have but I have overclocked mine significantly.
ATI X800GT - 6600GT Equivalent.

Iron Giant · Post by **Iron Giant** » Thu, 15. Dec 05, 17:18

DrunkenPirate wrote:Since you already run a GF4 then I'll go with AGP options.

GF6600GT - great mid range card should be in the $150 area.
GF6800 - Overall similar performance to the 6600GT but will do better at higher resolutions. similar price
GF6800XT - slightly slower than the vanilla 6800 but is cheaper too.
GF 6800GT - much better than the vanilla version but probably outside your price range. this is the card I have but I have overclocked mine significantly.
ATI X800GT - 6600GT Equivalent.

Awesome help, thanks.

In my price range, I'm looking at the GF6800 with only 128mb

So, will this be significantly better than my 4000Ti 128? I'm not against spending the money, but the Ti is no slouch... thanks again for the help.

Ecthelion · Post by **Ecthelion** » Fri, 16. Dec 05, 14:31

Iron Giant wrote:
DrunkenPirate wrote:Since you already run a GF4 then I'll go with AGP options.

GF6600GT - great mid range card should be in the $150 area.
GF6800 - Overall similar performance to the 6600GT but will do better at higher resolutions. similar price
GF6800XT - slightly slower than the vanilla 6800 but is cheaper too.
GF 6800GT - much better than the vanilla version but probably outside your price range. this is the card I have but I have overclocked mine significantly.
ATI X800GT - 6600GT Equivalent.
Awesome help, thanks.

In my price range, I'm looking at the GF6800 with only 128mb

So, will this be significantly better than my 4000Ti 128? I'm not against spending the money, but the Ti is no slouch... thanks again for the help.

For newer games you should see a good improvement. For older games that are already not taking full advantage of the 4000, there won't be a huge difference. On newer games your card will be able to take advantage of Pixel Shader 2.0 and 3.0. You'll also be able to use AA/AF with only a minimal drop in framerate.

It all depends on how you look at it but I'd say yeah, it'll be a significant improvement.

~sHaRpShOoTeR~ · Post by **~sHaRpShOoTeR~** » Sat, 17. Dec 05, 01:40

Im looking to get the above mentioned card to play X3 its Just in my price range but what Im wanting to find out is...Will it be good enough to play X3 cause ATM I have a Radeon 9200SE 128mb Atlantis and Its holding the game play back not to mention mission 2

So basically I have just been flying around capturing & selling Ships (getting boring)

Is the card worth getting ??

Thanks in Advance

Rikaelus · Post by **Rikaelus** » Sat, 17. Dec 05, 02:15

That's essentially the card I have, though for some reason I don't think mine's an XT despite it being 256mb. I blame third party developers. =P

I have trouble explaining how it performs because it kind of boggles my mind. I have it set to the lowest quality settings and 1600x1200 resolution. Now.. the weird thing is.. it seems to behave just as well at 1600x1200 as it does at 1024x768 (if I recall that res correctly).

It's usually always smooth (sorry, not sure what the FPS is), but can get pretty choppy when there's a lot of shooting going on in a sector.

On that note, I wish they had graphics quality settings for gun graphics.

Anyway. In the end I find it quite playable and enjoyable.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

What graphics card is best for me? How to upgrade for X3?

Availability

Worth going going up to 2GB RAMs?

Re: Worth going going up to 2GB RAMs?

Re: Worth going going up to 2GB RAMs?

X3 video card in the $100 - $200 range

Opinions on the 256mb Radeon 9600XT for X3