New MB graphics question

[foamy]

Hi guys, got my PC back after it fried, now has a MSI 915GVM3-v MB and my previous AGP NVid graphics card can't be used.

The guy that repaired my PC says the integrated graphics card in the MSI MB is really good and should work well for me.

Well I can't get it to work well - it has no 3D features only the open GL.

Can someone help me choose a suitable graphics card for this new MB that will work well with Combatt midssion (That's all I ever use this computer for)

Thanks in advance.

[Schrullenhaft]

The 915's integrated graphics (called the Grahpics Media Accelerator 900) should work for the CMx1 series. I believe the only feature missing will be fog, though there is a possibility that transparent buildings may not work properly. Supposedly the GMA 900 even supports some DirectX 9.x features, but I'm not absolutely sure about that. Here are the latest drivers (version 14.25.50, dated 1/17/2007).

Anyway, while the GMA 900 can do a moderate job on some video games it will definitely lack for many others in terms of performance. The next question is how much you want to spend on a PCI Express videocard. Keeping under $100 you can get some videocards based on the Nvidia 7300GT or 7600GS, which should be moderate performers. In fact they should be quite a bit better than the GMA 900, which requires some of your main memory (if you have 512Mb of memory it may need 32-128Mb of it, reducing what you have for other purposes). The 7600GS will probably be a slightly better performer of the two.

If you want to spend more or less or need a specific recommendation, let us know.

[foamy]

Thanks for the inforamtion Schrullenhaft - as I now have a really good rig (1GB PC3200 RAM, P4 processor at 3.4 Ghz) I don't want to skimp on the graphics card.

So maybe $250 - $300 for a PCE graphics card for CM playing, what would you suggest for that kind of money.

[Schrullenhaft]

In that price range ($250 - $300) you could afford a GeForce 7950GT with 512Mb of DDR3 memory. eVGA (Newegg listing) and BFG (Newegg listing) both make some good cards with respectable performance, reliability and warranties.

There are some good ATI videocards in that price range too, but they will lack fog effects for CMx1 games and for CMx2 the current ATI drivers have a few shadow issues (though there may be workarounds or driver improvements in the future for this).

[Redwolf]

What's your power supply, foamy?

[Schrullenhaft]

What's your power supply, foamy?

I had neglected to think of that. Foamy you may need a new power supply to power that GeForce 7950GT and keep your system stable. You can typically find the power rating on a sticker on the power supply itself. Probably one of the more important features is the amount of amps for the +12V rail.

You may be looking at anywhere between $50 to $150 for a decent power supply. You'll most likely want one with 450W or more total power and possibly around 22 amps or more on a single +12V rail or 15A or more on each rail if there are two +12V rails (usually denoted as 12V1 and 12V2). You'll also need a power supply that has a 24-pin ATX connector (with some models saying '20+4'). Seasonic power supplies (Newegg listing) are highly regarded.

[foamy]

The power supply they put in is a 300W A/Open brand model FSP300-60GT

The 12V is rated at 12.0A

Seems like this might be a bit underpowered ??

[Schrullenhaft]

Yeah, the 300W power supply you have may not work consistently with a higher powered videocard. Both your CPU and the videocard depend heavily on the +12V power, so 12.0A is probably too little. It might work (or you may get a black screen when you turn on the computer), but your computer may get flaky (rebooting, shutting down, locking up, etc.) when playing games or doing anything that is video or CPU intensive.

[Redwolf]

FSP is Fortron, so it is a good (not great) PSU and might actually deliver the power it is rated at.

But as Schrullenhaft said, it's just not enough, in particular with that Netburst powersucker.

[foamy]

Hi guys, I took your advice and got a new power supply (Antec Truepower Trio 430 W) and a BFG GeForce 7950 GTOC with 256 MB.

Man what a difference !!! I am seeing things on a Tiger I never saw or noticed before, the little machine gun and periscope slot for example. I can fly around the battlefield as smooth as can be, no jerkyness at all - Its' great !!.

One question - my 22" wide format monitor runs at 1680 X 1050, when I fire up CMAK after deleting pref file the highest choice I get is 1280 X 1040, this give me a center square to play in - it's OK just wondered why I don't get the "Native" resolution choice.

[Schrullenhaft]

The CMx1 series only supported certain resolutions, which were typically 4:3 aspect ratios. The 1680x1050 resolution is one of the newer widescreen resolutions that some videocards don't even support (older ones that is). 1280x1024 is the closest resolution to 1680x1050, so that is what CM uses initially. 1600x1200 has too large of a vertical resolution to work, the '1200', and therefore it doesn't get used. Luckily your display preserves the aspect ratio of the resolution being used, so you're not subject to 'stretched pixels' that can make some game elements look a bit blurry or just plain wrong.

[foamy]

OK, so I got it as good as it gets, that's fine - thanks.

[Colonel J Lee]

I am wondering about getting the new Dell XPS410 machine and it has the following video card:

256MB nVidia Geforce 7300LE TurboCache3; will this give me fog graphics? FOG is important to me while playing CMAK and CMBB.

[Colonel J Lee]

I am wondering about getting the new Dell XPS410 machine and it has the following video card:

256MB nVidia Geforce 7300LE TurboCache3; will this give me fog graphics? FOG is important to me while playing CMAK and CMBB. The information on the XPS410 can be found at:

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx

[Redwolf]

The 7300LE will do CMx1 fog, but make no mistake, it is a really lame duck, much slower than most 6x00 cards. Should be fine for CMx1, but not for ToW or CMx2.

[Colonel J Lee]

Will it do for CMAK and CMBB. I don't plan on getting theatre of war or CM2. Just me and my boys playing good 'ol CMAK and CMBB. What do you think, Redwolf? Should I pay a couple hundred extra for one of Dell's better graphics cards, or would that be a waste seeing that I'm only going to play CMAK and CMBB?

[Schrullenhaft]

If you're certain that you aren't going to be playing newer games, then a GeForce 7300LE should work fine with CMBB and CMAK to my knowledge. While you could get better performance from a videocard upgrade, you may have to be careful in what Dell offers. For the CMx1 series the ATI videocards will lack the capability fog effects (however much of an issue that may be for you).

Tom's Hardware has some VGA Charts that show some of the performance differences. The GeForce 7300 TC is at the bottom of the stack in terms of performance, but that also takes into account a lot of things that newer games require (such as lighting and shadow effects, etc.) that the CMx1 series doesn't. So the performance in terms of CMx1's requirements/abilities may not be as great as pictured in the charts.

I believe a GeForce 7300LE should work fine for you, unless you want to use some higher level anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering on the display (which can improve the appearance of CM). If you would like to use such effects, then upgrading to another GeForce would probably be a good idea.

[ May 06, 2007, 12:58 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[Colonel J Lee]

Thanks so much for the response, Schrullenhaft. The reality is I don't have enough time to get tired of CMAK/CMBB and buy another game. I love the CM1 series enough to busy with if for a long time.

Two more questions: 1) Is the nVidia GeForce 7300LE better than the FX5900 XT?

2) how is the GeForce 8600 GTS compared to both? That will be all I need to know at this point. I believe all three, being nVidia technology, should display fog, right?

Dell offers both ATI and nVidia cards for the XPs410. I am thinking the 7300LE will be it. Later I can upgrade to the nVidia 8600 GTS.

[Redwolf]

You need to read that link Schrullenhaft posted.

Upgrading a Dell video card can be tricky as the smaller video card system might be shipped with a fitting PSU when the better video card also comes with a better PSU.

[Schrullenhaft]

As Redwolf pointed out, you may want to purchase the videocard upgrade at the time that you get your Dell since it might offer a power supply upgrade at the same time (though I don't necessarily see that in Dell's sales info).

The GeForce 8800GTS will give you quite a bit more performance over both the 5900 series and the 7300 series and it is quite a bargain at only $200 extra. One major caveat though is that there are people on this board who are having problems running the CMx1 titles with Windows Vista and the 8800 series (the game won't run at all graphically). That is something you'll want to take into consideration. It may take Nvidia quite awhile to sort out some of the issues with CMx1 under Vista with the 8800 series (possibly a very long time).

Comparing the 7300 series to the 5900 series is a bit interesting. The 7300 series only has a 64-bit memory bus while the 5900 series has a 256-bit memory bus which speeds moving textures around in memory. The 5900 series GPU isn't native PCIe and it requires a 'bridge chip' to talk to the PCIe bus. I'm not sure how much of an issue this may or may not be; if there's any performance hit, it is probably pretty small. The 7300 series has half as many 'texture mapping units/pipelines' as the 5900 series and that may have a noticeable effect on CMx1 performance.

This Wikipedia GeForce Family comparison will give you a few more details in comparing the two chips (though the 5900 series PCIe board isn't specifically mentioned).

I ran a GeForce 7300GS PCIe videocard with an Intel Core2 Duo E6400 and CMBB 1.03 showed fog fine under Windows XP SP2 with the latest WHQL 93.71 driver. The performance was pretty good at 1280x1024, even with 4x Antialiasing and 8x Anisotropic filtering, though the fog showed a bit of banding (which I've seen a number of times with Nvidia drivers). The 7300GS is just slightly faster than the 7300 LE, so the comparison should be pretty valid. The big caveat here is that I'm not absolutely sure of this result under Windows Vista since I haven't used the released version of Vista as of yet with any Nvidia cards.

A GeForce 7950GT PCIe board would be a good purchase, since it probably won't have the same problems as the 8800 series under Vista. However I still don't know the exact compatibility of the drivers under Windows Vista. Plus if you purchased this card afterwards you would probably need a power supply upgrade and you would have to be careful about that since Dell has used custom pin-outs on their power supplies in the past (a very annoying feature).

So the 7300LE sounds like a safe choice at this point, since it most likely will work. Unfortunately I don't have all the answers regarding Vista, which is a pretty big issue.

[ May 07, 2007, 10:30 AM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[Colonel J Lee]

THANKS a lot Schrullenhaft, for an EXCELLENT and HELPFUL post.

I will try to stay away from Vista for now. Dell offers an XPS710 machine with an GeForce 8800 card but with XP, not Vista. I wonder if getting "Vista" out of the formula with the 8800 card will work for CMx1? :confused:

Their XP410 machine looked good (and cheaper!), and with an upgrade to the GeForce 8600 it would be a nice buy, but this machine ONLY HAS VISTA. Dang! The 7300LE comes with this machine but, again, it's the VISTA operating system. Should I Avoid VISTA altogether, or only with the 8800 card?

[Schrullenhaft]

Unfortunately I completely lack for hands-on info regarding Vista's compatibility. That's quite a problem with a vast majority of new PCs going out with Windows Vista on them now.

Most of the complaints that I can recall at this point regarding CMx1 titles and Vista centered on the GeForce 8800 series and some of the newer Radeon X19xx cards. I know people have been able to use the CMx1 series with Vista (Nvidia 7800 series and other cards).

If you go with Windows XP (32-bit), then you shouldn't have any problems (outside of some drivers on occasion) and the CMx1 series should be fine. The 8800GTS would work fine with Windows XP and CMx1 as far as I know (I got one, I just haven't assembled the system for it as of yet).

Going with Windows Vista (I believe both 32-bit and 64-bit) results in problems specifically with the 8800 series and possibly a number of the higher performance Radeons. The GeForce 8500 and 8600 series may see similar problems as the 8800 series, but I haven't heard of issues with them as of yet (but I wouldn't be surprised when they are reported).

It obviously sucks that the latest OS has problems with CMx1 and some of the higher performing videocards. With a bit of luck its possible that a future video driver will address these problems, but it isn't guaranteed (and I've seen a new driver break a previous driver's fix of an issue). It seems almost luddite-like to recommend going with an older OS, but in this case it will give you a bit more stability (and speed, believe it or not, especially for some games). If you can live without the feautres of Vista, then I'd say skip it if you have the option to use XP for now. Perhaps in the future Vista, Nvidia and AMD/ATI will work out the driver issues to make all of the CM titles work without problems.

[Colonel J Lee]

Schrullenhaft,

Another good post. Helpful again.

I just got back from Best Buy and they are offering the following machine: AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual-Core Processor 3800+ with vista as the OS. 1024 MB DDR2, 250 GB Hard Drive, & NVIDIA GeForce 6150LE graphics. This and a 19" LCD monitor will cost $800. I'm thinking about it since you wrote:

"I know people have been able to use the CMx1 series with Vista (Nvidia 7800 series and other cards)".

I would assume that 6000 series card (on board), like the 6150LE, would work. Best Buy says they will let me try it out and that I could return it if it does not work (with CMAK and CMBB); i.e., they have a 14 day return policy. I may try this...I need a new box anyway, but I really want CM to work and I can't seem to get a system under $1,000 that offers XP as the OS. Even Dell doesn't except for the XPS710 machine, and the best I can do there is $1,400 with the monitor.

[Schrullenhaft]

The GeForce 6000 series (on-board) should work with CM to my knowledge. It is a 'shared memory' system which means some of the 1Gb of system memory will be dedicated for graphics use (64Mb to 256Mb). It will be slower than the 7300 LE, so you'll probably be limited in the amount of quality settings you use (anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, mipmapping, etc.).

I'm actually surprised there are some dealers even offering Windows XP with their systems. As soon as a new OS is available, Microsoft pushes it hard on their OEMs to distribute it with their new boxes (and the OEMs believe that it boosts their sales, which it may or may not). As I said earlier, XP will actually perform a bit better than Vista with a number of games. That may not remain true with newer hardware and the optimized drivers that may eventually come out over the next few years.

That ABS system you were considering is actually only a single core system, whereas the Best Buy model is a dual core (but it has a lower clock speed than the ABS system). For CM itself the number of cores (CPUs) makes no difference since it will use only one processor, but for some other tasks a dual-core CPU may be helpful. The ABS has a higher clock speed (and a better videocard) so it will come out ahead performance-wise.

[ May 08, 2007, 09:00 AM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[Colonel J Lee]

Thank you so much, Schrullenhaft!....for your patience and informative responses.

My computer is for word processing, internet searches, financial records management, and CMx1 with my boys, so the ABS system may be best (sufficient). Newegg also had a monster HP box for $1,250 with everything, but it didn't include a monitor. Money is important so....it looks like ABS, but I will deliberate a little more before committing.