Radeon HD 7850 overkill for GroovyMame?

[CanadianRyGuy]

Can pick one up locally for $50CAD or someone else is selling a Radeon HD 6450 for $20CAD.

Wondering if the latter is worth the extra money or is the $20 card ok?

Alternatively I already have a HD4350 that I could use as well.

Just want everything to load up super quick and not have any issues running stuff.

Cheers
Ryan

[psakhis]

It depends.

For 2D (groovymame, mednafen, retroarch...) HD 6450 it's better in terms of silent and TDP (watts).

If you want 3D emulation, 7850 it's a lot of better (ps2, wii, wii u, gamecube..)

[schmerzkaufen]

Also if some day for whatever reason you're going to use a flat panel display (lcd or whatever), the 7850 will do better for GroovyMAME's Frame_Delay lag reduction feature.

(because frame delay is hella lot more demanding on high resolution outputs than on low res crt's)

[Recapnation]

If you want 3D emulation, 7850 it's a lot of better (ps2, wii, wii u, gamecube..)

In the case he'll be using the best possible display for those emulators ('cept the Wii U one, I guess, which I'm not sure how usable it is anyway), a 31-kHz CRT at 640 x 480, does it really matter if it is an HD-6450 or an HD-7850?

[psakhis]

HD7850 have vulkan support (cemu) and it's a bit faster for pcsx2, dolphin (directx). For dreamcast (readream) or ps1, HD6450 works fine.

No problem with a CRT with 640x480i, or 640x240p for these systems.

[CanadianRyGuy]

Appreciate all the responses guys!
I’m not so much interested in 3D console emulation, though the idea of having a few titles playable on my cab is intriguing. But was more thinking about being able to smoothly play some of the more demanding mame titles like Blitz and Golden tee and what not, tecknoparrot, etc.

[donluca]

Bear in mind that, apart from pure performance (and the required performance for GroovyMAME is very very modest on CRTs), the picture quality increases quite dramatically with newer cards.

When I went from an X700 to an HD4350 I was absolutely blown away by the increase in sharpness and color rendition, like not even close.
I don't know how the DAC quality varies from manufacturer to manufacturer though, so YMMV.

[Recapnation]

HD7850 have vulkan support (cemu) and it's a bit faster for pcsx2, dolphin (directx). For dreamcast (readream) or ps1, HD6450 works fine.

No problem with a CRT with 640x480i, or 640x240p for these systems.

So no problems either at 640 x 480 progressive. That's the display mode one should be using ideally with DC/PS2/GCN/WII (in general).

[Calamity]

I have a R9 270 which is almost equivalent to the HD 7850 and I wouldn't consider it overkill at all.

The consideration is more about size and power comsumption (heat), whether or not it's a good idea for a cabinet.

But a fast GPU will benefit your frame delay performance, at least in theory (experience seems to confirm this although it's not as direct as one would expect).

[schmerzkaufen]

was more thinking about being able to smoothly play some of the more demanding mame titles like Blitz and Golden tee

That in MAME will depend mostly on the CPU, since MAME doesn't feature hardware 3D acceleration.
(need a pretty fast one for some of these games)

tecknoparrot

I don't use it but it seems that one is more for the GPU.

[totozero]

I have a R9 270 which is almost equivalent to the HD 7850 and I wouldn't consider it overkill at all.
The consideration is more about size and power comsumption (heat), whether or not it's a good idea for a cabinet.
But a fast GPU will benefit your frame delay performance, at least in theory (experience seems to confirm this although it's not as direct as one would expect).

FWIW, I haven't seen any difference, performance wise between an HD5770 and an R9 270X paired with an i3 9350K and windows 10.
While monitoring the gpu running gm, it was barely used on both cards if the numbers were correct.
Frame delay reacted the same way, I couldn't push it more with the most recent gpu
Regarding the picture quality, didn't see any improvement or degradation with one or the other (direct VGA for the 57770 and DVI to VGA for the R9).

But both gave a superior picture compared to my former hd4570 though I don't know if it was related to the driver or a better DAC.

[Calamity]

While monitoring the gpu running gm, it was barely used on both cards if the numbers were correct.
Frame delay reacted the same way, I couldn't push it more with the most recent gpu

I didn't mean you can push fd any higher thanks to a more powerful gpu, that's only cpu dependent. However, the frame presentation that happens inside the gpu (once the cpu has successfully emulated the frame within the constraints impossed by fd and passed the job to the gpu) also needs some processing time, and if it's not allowed enough time, you'll see static tearing on your screen. Here is where a fast gpu helps. You probably won't notice any difference on low resolutions. But the higher the resolution is (specially the vertical resolution) the longer it'll take for the gpu to complete, and the more likely you'll get tearing. Fixing this tearing with vsync-offset works but at the same time degrades fd performance.

That said, there may be no direct relation between advertised gpu performance vs fd performance, because probably performance compared between different gpus might be based more on parallelization (=more polygons per second) than anything else, and that's not what we need.

[schmerzkaufen]

Most review-ratings are biased towards 3D and effects perf yeah, though I'd say Passmark's score roughly reflects my experience for frame delay + vsync offset performance.

(they're not all here but here's some cards I've tried all on the same computer and full-hd display)


In short you can pout them in three groups;
the 750 & 260X were a little weak/limiting with some games (iirc)
the 380X and 570 were fine but still requiring some vsync_offset.
Only the Vega 56 crushed them all almost not requiring vsync offset anymore or barely (like 20~50 if not less) whatever I did with GM.
Haven't tried on QHD and 4K yet tho.

Maybe it's not the score or speeds we should look at but the pixels fillrate ? or the gflops? or bandwidth? I dunno.

Anyway, GPU perf is a concern mostly to the few 'classic' flat panel (VRR-less) users like me, not so much to CRT users.

[totozero]

I didn't mean you can push fd any higher thanks to a more powerful gpu, that's only cpu dependent. However, the frame presentation that happens inside the gpu (once the cpu has successfully emulated the frame within the constraints impossed by fd and passed the job to the gpu) also needs some processing time, and if it's not allowed enough time, you'll see static tearing on your screen. Here is where a fast gpu helps. You probably won't notice any difference on low resolutions. But the higher the resolution is (specially the vertical resolution) the longer it'll take for the gpu to complete, and the more likely you'll get tearing. Fixing this tearing with vsync-offset works but at the same time degrades fd performance.

That said, there may be no direct relation between advertised gpu performance vs fd performance, because probably performance compared between different gpus might be based more on parallelization (=more polygons per second) than anything else, and that's not what we need.

Yeah I get your point.

As for now, I'm almost sure that for our use, i.e on a 15khz crt, even a dirty cheap low level entry 5xxx ati is plenty enough, which is nice ! Less power consumption and less noise.

BTW I can't recommend enough the i3 9350kf for emulation purpose.
Kind of a a little beast for the price, worth every penny.

[schmerzkaufen]

BTW I can't recommend enough the i3 9350kf for emulation purpose.
Kind of a a little beast for the price, worth every penny.

I actually own one new I bought on sale and haven't used yet (new pc build extreme procrastination). I assume it is a monster indeed.

Though some weeks later I saw the i5-9600 at nearly the same price and kinda regret missing that one.

[xbrunox]

I Use with good result with teknoparot, dolphin and supermodel  too a radeon HD7970

[cybermat]

EDIT : i posted on a more useful thread. Sorry!