Pirates!

[magnetic]

Yes!

I've been following the development for months. It looks incredible. I actually built a pc lately for UAE and gaming. I'm a little confused about DirectX and gfx cards. I have a Radeon 7500 64mb DDR AGP gfx card in a Gigabyte motherboard, AMD 2.2ghz, and 512mb DDR Ram. Can I run Direct X 9 games with this? (specifically Pirates! and Call of Duty)

TIA

magnetic

It's a lower-end card (like my nvidia 5200fx) but it should work.  Check your manufacturer's Web site.

Wayne

[Ilwrath]

Eeek!  The Radeon 7500 is essentially a DirectX 7 hardware card.  You can probably run most DX 9 games (as they fail back to earlier standards) but essentially, you'll be software rendering a lot.  Performance is more on par with an old GeForce 2/4MX series card, rather than anything like the GeForce 3Ti/4Ti, let alone the FX lines.

The GeForce FX5200 is a (very low end) DX9 hardware card.  It renders the full DX9 spec in hardware (so there's no problem with compatibility there), but actually does it slower than most modern systems could perform it in software.  

So the end result may be similar framerate*, but for very different reasons.  :-P  

*- Framerate isn't everything in games -- the advantage of having the DX9 spec in hardware is that the CPU is under less load under actual game conditions and that may ease any bottleneck that forms on CPU time.

Well, considering all things, the 5200 I've got is about the only thing I can afford right now.  Does a good job at the Sims2 and a crappy job at the demo for what was it?  Doom 3?  Quake 27?  I can't remember.

What would one suggest for a reasonable card nowadays?

Wayne

[magnetic]

Thx for the posts guys. I'm new to the maze of PC games/gfx cards. So I guess my real question is:

Will I be able to run the new Pirates! game at full speed with nice gfx?

tia
magnetic

[Ilwrath]

Well, considering all things, the 5200 I've got is about the only thing I can afford right now.

Well, actually, I'm not suggesting anything bad by my comments.  Just because the GeForce 5200FX is the lowest end of the DX9 spectrum, that doesn't make it a bad card.  

The Radeon 7500 is in the high-end of the DX7 spectrum, and while these cards may give similar framerates, they're really not very comparable, especially in the field of compatability.  

Personally, I'd take the GeForce FX5200 over any DX7 series card, any day.

My wife's PC has a GeForce 5200FX, and while it's no powerhouse, it IS a reasonable performer and quite stable.  

I was disappointed by the fact that my GeForce 4Ti (a DX8 hardware card) gets better framerates, even on some DX9 tasks, though.

As for what card I'd recommend... Well, it all depends on what you want to spend.  

In the more budget conscious range, certainly the low end of the GeForce FX series (5200-5500) look nice, as do the DX9-based Radeon 9200-9500.  

Mid-range, nVidia doesn't really have a competitive offering - the ATi Radeon 9800 looks strong.  

On the high end, my personal favorite is the GeForce 6800 GT, though the Radeon X800 also looks nice.

[magnetic]

Ilwrath

Very interesting... but will i be able to play Pirates nicely with my DX7 Radeon 7500??

tia
magnetic

[Ilwrath]

Very interesting... but will i be able to play Pirates nicely with my DX7 Radeon 7500??

Well, I'm just now installing Pirates, which is why I was avoiding this question...  I haven't seen it, yet.  It sort of depends on the game (and how well it was coded), how much of a performance hit you take by not having full hardware support.

On average, I'd suspect a system like yours (good CPU, plenty of RAM, but DX7 hardware) should be able to play a modern game at about 800x600 and medium detail.  (should look nice, but probably not stunning.)  Unless this thing is a resource hog like Doom 3, in which case, you'll need 640x480 and minimum detail.   :-o

Anyhow, I'll let you guys know my thoughts on the game in a couple hours.  ;-)

[Argo]

Better than my Matrox G550, can't even play Half-Life 2.
Though it does run Sims 2 reasonably well at low settings.
What's your price range?

Radeon 9800 256M

That's what I'm looking at for bottom end, As I'd like someting that will be usable for a few years. I just have to get all this Christmas Shopping done before I feel okay getting myself something. Which means early next year. If I put it off til the tax return come in, I'll get something better. Radeon 700 XT maybe.

[Ilwrath]

Well, I just finished off a couple hours of starting out my Privateering career.... And I'm in total agreement with Whabang!  Brilliant game!  Sid Meier comes back with yet another great hit.  :-)  I don't know if it's better than the original, but it's surely worthy of the name.

As for it's playability on lower-end hardware... I see no reason why it shouldn't run quite well on most systems.  It was flawless at 1024x768 and full detail on a GeForce4Ti (DX8 hardware).  I don't see why a DX7 level card should have any serious issues, either.

Well, I'm off to buy the glossy box, now.  I can't support piracy unless it's against the lowly French!  Arrrrr!  Attack em' with the 14 cannon Merchantman, maties!  FIRE!!!

[magnetic]

Great!

Thanks for the feedback. I'm asking for Pirates! for Xmas from my girl..

magnetic

Something of partial interest is that Bestbuy.com currently has the Nvidia 6800 OC with a copy of Half-life2 for $354 with a $105 dollar rebate.  That means you can get a very high-end card for $249.00

[Ilwrath]

Something of partial interest is that Bestbuy.com currently has the Nvidia 6800 OC with a copy of Half-life2 for $354 with a $105 dollar rebate. That means you can get a very high-end card for $249.00

Yeah, that really is quite a deal.  The 6800 is decent bit off the pace of the 6800GT (less RAM bandwidth, and fewer pixel pipelines), but for the price difference, I'd have to say that is where the sweet-spot of performance vs. bucks is right now.  $249 is an excellent price for a piece of hardware like the 6800.  (I've been complaining that I didn't really want to spend the $399 for a new graphics card...)  

And, really, I'll get tossed out of my LAN party gang if I don't pick up HL2 soon.   :lol:

[whabang]

Very interesting... but will i be able to play Pirates nicely with my DX7 Radeon 7500??

Should work fine!
I run it perfectly with a Radeon 9200 PCI, and it doesn't lag a bit. An AGP 7500 should do fine, at least in 800*600.

Just to let you know.  Picked up a used copy of Pirates off e-bay for $24.00.  Started playing it last night (was sick and out of it most of yesterday).

For the record, gameplay (normal gameplay) is just fine on my 5200, but... There are sections of the game, such as duelling, where my video card is sorely lacking, meaning it's very slow animation.  (looks like the whole scene is slow-mo).  Overall, given that I've played it for about an hour, it's not bad at all.  Just not as exciting as I'd hoped.

Wayne

[Darrin]

I have to say that I've been using a Radion All-In_Wonder 9200 for several months ($129 from Walmart) and it does a damn nice job on the games front.  Doom3 runs well and looks good (with shadowing off) at a decent resolution and I've also been using it for turning VHS tapes into DVD's using the supplied software.  If you want a good graphics card and a reasonable proce then get one of these.  If you don't need the video input option then the plain 9200 is only $99.

Oh, and I'm using it on an Athlon XP2200...

Pirates for PC!  Got to get that!!!