What kind of video card do I need for Mame's new HLSL effects?

[nitz]

I've been checking out the new CRT simulation effects in mame - very cool, looks like the next best thing to having a CRT! Tried it out on my machine and it works, but I take a massive performance hit - games generally run at around 10% with no frame skipping. Here are my specs:

AMD Athlon II X2 215, 2.71 Ghz
2.87 GB of ram (actually, I think it's 4 GB, but I downgraded from the pre-installed Windows 7 64 bit to TinyXP Rev9)

Video card: NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE nForce 430.

I'm guessing I just need a better video card, yes/no? Would my machine be capable of running these effects at full speed with a better card?

I know basically nothing about video cards. I've never bought one that wasn't just a stock one pre-installed in a PC. So I'm completely clueless about what to look for.

Any help is appreciated!

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

With that processor, if you're running TinyXP, you probably should be running something like "Superior X64XP". It's worth the performance boost running 64bit mame.

Likewise almost any videocard you buy would be more powerful that than built in one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814134089

That's a reasonably modest 'entry-level' card.

[Donkbaca]

You need a video card that supports Direct3d Pixel shader 3.0 or higher.  That card will work.  As a side note, you also need PS 3.0 or higher to play the latest M2 emulator to its full potential

[nitz]

Thanks Guys, appreciate the input. I think I'm gonna go with that video card then. I fiddled around a bit, and the one I have can actually handle it full speed if I drop the resolution to 640x480 (my monitor's native res is 1680x1050) and bump frameskip up to 5. Full speed, but less than stellar looking of course. So a somewhat better video card + upgrading to XP 64 bit is likely gonna do the trick.

One more noobish question: Do I have to worry about compatibility? Are video cards pretty well standard? My comp's about 2 years old. If I need a certain type of card to be compatible with it, how do I figure out what I need? And when I install it, is it pretty much just pull the old one out and plug the new one in?

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

With the specs you listed, you should have no compatibility issues with modern cards.

[nitz]

That's what I figured, thanks!

[Donkbaca]

just make sure you get the right card for the right slot i.e. get a pci express card if you ahve a pci express port, an agp one if you have an agp port, etc....

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

just make sure you get the right card for the right slot i.e. get a pci express card if you ahve a pci express port, an agp one if you have an agp port, etc....

You will only find PCI Express on a system using an AMD Athlon II X2 215.

[nitz]

You will only find PCI Express on a system using an AMD Athlon II X2 215.

Are you sure?

I was just getting ready to order a video card today and thought I'd double check what kind of port I have. I went to Control Panel->System->Hardware->Device Manager and then brought up the properties for my video card. Among other things, I saw the following:

Location: PCI Bus 0, device 13, function 0

It says PCI and not PCIe, so it doesn't look like PCI Express.

OK, maybe it has both ports, but the card that came with it is just PCI. I downloaded a utility called GPU-Z that gives you info about your graphics card and such, and it also says the bus interface is PCI, but again that's for the card that is connected, so I'm still not sure if it has a PCIe port or not.

I tried googling AMD Athlon II X2 215 specs, and looked at a couple sites including amd.com, and neither told me anything about bus interfaces.

Unless someone can point me to something conclusive that will tell me whether I have PCIe or not, I'm thinking my options are to

1) Dig through my pile of computer junk in the closet trying to find the manual that came with the computer, which I'm not 100% sure I still have or

2) Take my computer apart and compare the ports to online pics and see if it looks like I have a PCIe one.

Sheesh, I wouldn't have thought this would be so hard to figure out. Both options 1 and 2 kind of suck because I'm still not sure that would make me 100% sure unless I have the manual and it explicitly states in the specs that I have PCIe.

Would I see enough of a performance increase to get a regular PCI card if that's all I have, or should I just not bother? Can anyone point me to something definitive or give me advice on taking the PC apart and checking what ports it has?

Thanks in advance!

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

http://www.crucial.com/systemscanner/

This is an online scanner that will give you some details on your machine..
What i was meaning to say was you will not find an AGP port on an Athlon II. You'd only not find a PCIe port if it's a cheap oem system where it's been desoldered.

[nitz]

Thanks for the link, but I couldn't use it because when I downgraded to TinyXP, I simply could not find an XP compatible modem/ethernet or whatever the hell it was driver for my system. I didn't worry much about it because I wasn't planning on ever going on the internet with it anyway.

So I decided to open it up and have a look. I immediately saw two connectors very clearly marked PCIe 16x and PCIe 1x.

Now I just feel like an uber-noob. I had it in my head that it wouldn't be labeled and I'd have to know what it looked like to identify it. So I figured it'd be easier if I had some sort of software utility that could just tell me and wasted a bunch of time looking for stuff and trying it. I could have just opened 'er up and looked which took like a minute.

Anyways, I guess I've got it figured out now, so thanks again for all the help.