Hi All,

I am just looking for a bit of advice really.

I have recently upgraded from A6 Extra to A6 Com, mainly to take advantage of shaders and the upcoming A7 release.

I have run into a bit of a problem though.

My system has 2GB of Ram and a Pentium D Processor, both newly purchased and it works quite quickly for most tasks.
However, my 3D Graphics card is an NVIDIA Geforce 5500 which is a bit slow when it comes to shaders (like the new NM Shader on the forums) so I am going to buy a new one in the next few days.

I can get an NVIDIA Geforce 7900 or an NVIDIA 8600 for under £100.
The 8600 is one of the first DX10 cards on the market and looks like it would be the best choice for "future proof" game development but I think the 7900 could be more powerful, even though it is older.

Of course, there are also ATI Cards out there too

I just want to know what you guys would recommend as I am buying it solely for use with GameStudio, Carrara 5 and Hexagon.

Any help or advice will be most appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Marc Wakefield
www.marcwakefield.co.uk

First, if you don't have a Vista machine then DX10 isn't going to be an issue.

Without giving too much away, Conitec is looking at DX10 but it's really hard to say if and when we'll add it to A7.

IMHO: If you plan on using your PC for the next 2-3 years, and you are interested in using Vista, then I would look at the 8600. But, if you plan to buy a new Vista PC in that time, the 7900 is probably all the power you'll ever need for XP development.

BTW: I am NOT a hardware guy (I had to look up the specs on the 8600 and 7900 before I wrote this ). So don't take my word for it.

Better option is 8600. Maybe the same capacity as 7900 but You'll be ready for DX10.

Thank you both for the advice.

It has been very helpful and has definitely influenced my decision.
This is one of the many reasons why I think GameStudio and the whole community is so great.

I have just seen a good deal on the 8500 so I am going to go for one of those instead.

Still Dx10 ready but a little bit easier on the pocket.

I will let you know how it performs.

I would take the GF7900 in your case, even if it's not a dx10 card,
it has a much better bandwith and technical capabilities:

http://www.nvidia.de/page/geforce_7900.html

compared to

http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce8.html

If you go for DX10, dont go for something below a GeForce 8600 GTS.

I've already paid for the 8500 unfortunately.

It is a Sparkle 8500GT 256MB DDR2 HDTV DVI VGA DX10 PCI-E.

Does the manufacturer make any difference?

Oh well, I guess I can try it out and if it doesn't fulfill my expectations I can always send it back or put it on eBay.

I am planning to use Normal Mapping a lot as well as other shaders.
Is it up to the challenge? For example, Could it run something like The Elder Scrolls, Oblivion at a decent frame rate?

Thank you.

Manufacturer is almost doesn't matter this days.
About games... sure.. I've been playing Oblivion on 6600GT AGP/1GB ram with 1024x768 and medium detail... but without hdr
Try something harder... TDU or STALKER

There are some A and some B brands, yes.
Some manufacturers use the reference layout from nVidia for the card-design,
others develop their own designs which can have advantages.
Some add video decoders, some not; others use cheaper condensers, others better,
some overclock their cards, some not, (to be continued...)

Personaly, I wouldnt go with the cheapest, but anything above midrange is mosttimes ok.