I get to replace my video card. Long story. I've compared the Graphic card capabilities on the thread here and it seems that to get the latest shader support I should look for either an Nvidia FX5700 based card, or a Radeon 9600 based card. Any advice on which is going to give me the best shader support? Least chance for disaster?

The box is an Asus motherboard and an Intel 2.4 processor with 1G of RAM.

i am very happy with my radeon 9800 and radeon9600pro is very good, too
but i heard that there are new cards "x800?" maybe take a look at the ati page. however i am very very happy that i have a radeon and not a geforce, because gamestudio seems to work better with radeons

just what i've learned in the past

Thanks! That's the kind of feedback I'm looking for.

What do you think about ATI Radeon 9600 Pro EZ 256MB, TV, DVI, Retail? It's only about 100 Euros but the description sounds very good. Should I buy them?
For about 40 Euros there is the ATI Radeon 7000 VE 64 MB DDR TV retail. Would it be enough to buy this one for using shaders?

Radolfi

no the ati radeon 7000 has no shaders, then you would be better of with the 9600 pro

Radolfi

I looked through the thread on grapics card device info at the top of this forum section. If you look through all of the cards listed there are really only a couple of technology bases that support the latest shaders. The cards listed show version 1.1 for the highest version of vertex shader supported, and 1.4 for the highest version of pixel shader supported. At those levels, there are only a couple of well known technologies listed, the NVidea FX5700 and the Radeon 9600.

But this is just a listing of what people here are currently using. Higher level technologies may be available now, or just coming online. Personally, I'm just looking for a nice mid range card that will let me play with all of these wonderful new 3DGS toys, so this list is probably adequate for my needs.

I'm just checking here before I commit cash somewhere.

Nice mid-range card that will let you play with Shaders...

The 9600 and 9800 series are both pretty cheap in the States now.

As far as cards in general:
http://www.techlogic.ca/directx/caps/query.mv
Select Shader information and it gives a listing based off from the DirectX Dialogue of various video cards and the shader version supported by them. Unfortunately since it is based off from DirectX 8 - it only lists vertex shader 1.1 and pixel shader 1.4 or below.

The final choice was an ASUS RADEON A9600XT at around $160 USD. Installed over the weekend and working with all of the shader threads I've been following here. Absolutely perfect! I'm sure that support will trickle down to lower cards with DirectX9 and all that, but I had to replace mine anyway so it was opportune. Thanks to everyone for your responses and suggestions.