Quick Graphics Card Question

[NipRing]

Ok, i'm building my first pc for my machine (i'm excited  ) in the past ive used whatever preconfigured pc (dell, compaq, ect) junk. Anyway, i'm using a mobo that utilizes SLI and i was wondering if buying a higher end card (the GTX460 infact) would be a huge factor in performance over say an 8800GT? Both have sli compatibility that i want, but one is $160 and one i can buy for $50. Thanks for a quick reply, i have the guy on craigslist with the 8800 kinda waiting for my response.

Bill

[ahofle]

You haven't mentioned what this machine is going to be used for.  If MAME, don't waste your money on a high end graphics card or SLI because most everything is done in the CPU.

[NipRing]

Yes, I'm going to run 64 bit mame as well as hyperspin and various emus with vid intros etc. I'm using a phenom quad core CPU OC'd.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

it's the 'various emus' that makes the difference. Also what type of monitor you'll be displaying on. If you're using a standard res arcade monitor then even a low end on-board ATI or nVidia chipset would probably drive all the true 3D emulators at 640x480 full speed.

[NipRing]

I'm using a 31hz tri-res monitor inside a sega blast city cab

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

So still nothing you're going to be running any super high resolution on (eg: PC video modes like 1280x1024, 1920x1080, etc).

I think almost any (relatively modern) video card you end up with will be more than sufficient.

[Donkbaca]

Just don't get a super old card, make sure it supports at least pixel shader 3.  Model 2 just went from pixel shader 2 to pixel shader 3, and my games went from color to black and white 

but that shouldn't be a problem with any thing decently recent

[NipRing]

Looks like I'll be getting at 9800GTX+
 for $50.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Looks like that $50 card will be fine.  I have an ATI Radeon HD4670 (cost me $60 at the time) and it works perfectly with Street Fighter IV (PC version, not MAME) which needs a decent card to work.  Everything else fell into place.  MAME works great, Dreamcast Emus work great, etc.

Good Luck!

D

[NipRing]

Thanks for the help everybody. I think I'll be satisfied with what I got, and I saved over $100 (to spend on something else of course ).

On a side note, Delusional, what the heck is going on with MA and mameseer? MA was practically in a beta every other week for a while there. I haven't heard of an update in quite awhile. Hope it doesn't die out, it's too awesome!

[DJ_Izumi]

Just don't get a super old card, make sure it supports at least pixel shader 3.  Model 2 just went from pixel shader 2 to pixel shader 3, and my games went from color to black and white 

If you look at the forums, he released a new binary with SM2.0 support, and started that 1.1 will have SM2.0 and 3.0 in the same binary.

[DeLuSioNal29]

On a side note, Delusional, what the heck is going on with MA and mameseer? MA was practically in a beta every other week for a while there. I haven't heard of an update in quite awhile. Hope it doesn't die out, it's too awesome!

Unfortunately it's pretty much dead. Mameseer has stopped support on the project.  (As far as we can all tell).  Last year he stopped responding to any e-mails at mamemeer@maximusarcade.com.  I was a moderator of the forums and one day the forums were "locked" and I have not been able to contact him since.  However, he did mention a couple of months before it happened that he was dealing with "personal family issues".  Whatever that means.

So to make a long story short.  I gave up trying to contact him.  I was only a moderator of the forums so I do not have access to any registration generation.  I only notified him when someone needed it.  But since I can't contact him any more... Well you know the rest.

However, some people have had success contacting him on www.linkedin.com .  His real name is Lance Endres so you can look him up that way.  Chances are slim that he'll respond but it's worth a shot.  

So since the forums are dead at maximusarcade.com we revived them as best we could over here.  Currently myself and Nickynooch are moderators for that new forum:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?board=46.0

D