What graphics card?

[david656]

hey i got a mame box ready to go in my soon to build cab and its all set up and ready to go at current its

2.2Ghz AMD CPU
768mb DDR RAM
40gb HDD
NVIDIA TNT 64mb

with out the graphics card the games hardly even run ! the onboard is pants !! but with it quite a few run very well. but all the decent ones don't, what graphics card (with TV-OUT) should i be looking at?

i hear ATI is good

[david656]

any one?

[david656]

don't all flok at once ey ! 

[psychotech]

So, you're in no hurry... 

Still, yes, ATI cards are great! If you're going to play Visual Pinball you may (..might) have some problems though..

Three completed builds so far, all with some form of ATI graphics..

psychotech

[david656]

kk im gunna be mame with all the cool games and wincab and mamewah

so what spec would i be looking at

[ideft]

I have got a 2 ghz, 512 md sdram and a ATI Radeon 256 AGP 4x
It runs stuff like mortal kombat 2 good(with an older version of mame)

newer stuff is choppy

The video card i bought works good,  plus it was only like $40. 
plus the over/under stretching works very well(if you are using a TV)

[david656]

yeh i will be using a TV

i'd love to run smash tv but is that possible with my set up?

[mrserv0n]

Yea smash tv isnt nothing, you can run basically anything unless you get into ZINC and most of the CHDs

[Dazz]

So, you're in no hurry... 

Still, yes, ATI cards are great! If you're going to play Visual Pinball you may (..might) have some problems though..

Three completed builds so far, all with some form of ATI graphics..

psychotech

So, what's the deal with ATI  & Visual Pinball?  I just got a new mobo and it has an ATI chipset and onboard ATI Xpress 200 32mb.  It does fine for classics and seems to run Visual Pinball fine right now.  I'd just like to know what you mean by "may have some problems" since Visual Pin is one of my favorite emus.

I am going to get a new video card shortly since I want to run Future pinball.  The 32mb just will not cut that.  I want to stick with ATI since the south bridge is an ATI.  This is the first ATI product that I have ever.

[david656]

Sapphire Radeon HD 2600PRO 512MB AGP  i think i will go for this.... any objections ? any comments?

[ideft]

is it just for mame??

[psychotech]

Just meant that while the ATI graphic cards are -the best available- IMO, at least some of the older cards were notorious for having problems with quite a few of the Visual Pinball tables. At least the ones with ..Oh, probably just a problem with only the older cards/drivers ..I wouldn't worry about that with your new(ish) card & drivers. Should be "a thing of the past".

All the best with your project 

psycho..

[david656]

mamewah
mame
wincab

thats it MAYBE and i mean MAYBE i will boot into windows to play some dos box games !! (like that was worth writing about !)

[lanman31337]

I run nvidia cards, love em.  My board in my arcade cab is set up for sli, might do it one of these days.

[Dazz]

I run nvidia cards, love em.  My board in my arcade cab is set up for sli, might do it one of these days.

I love nVidia cards as well...  The only reason I got what I did because it was $65 for the mobo and A64 3200+ processor.  My last ATI product was many many many many years ago and their drivers sucked back then.  So far it doesn't look like their drivers are any better as it took me nearly 2 hours for it to enable TV out.

[david656]

ohh ! !! well my main pc aka this one is a NVIDIA and im very happy with it i mean it works ! it plays mame and you plug a s-video lead in and it auto detects and go's over to it ! but as i need my arcade machines graphics card to be AGP not PCI-E i heard ATI was better

[S0L]

Hello,

I built a Mame in a box - that plugs direct into a TV, and started off like you with a Riva TNT. TV out on it didn't work right, and since it was Sunday, popped over to PC World and picked up an AGP GeForce 5200.

Usually I'd not touch the lower GeForces with a bargepole for any serious gaming (certainly nothing that requires Pixel and Vertex shaders), but I'm massively impressed with it.

Works fine for Mame (baring in mind the rest of the PC is an antique, think it's a P3 600) and no-trouble with drivers. As a bonus the TV out is really nice too - it's only got an S-Video output, but we rigged up a splitter to do both composite and S-Video.

Think it did me for £40 (like I say, it was Sunday and since the rest of the machine worked...) but you'll likely pick one up way cheaper online. Ebuyer in the UK lists this: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/136164 - which is more like £17.00 - so pretty much half the price.

So err yes. If you're not looking to go mad with the cost and not after serious 3d performance (which I don't think you'll need for most Mame stuff), I'd recommend a GeForce 5200.


Hope this helps!

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S0L
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[MrMojoZ]

ohh ! !! well my main pc aka this one is a NVIDIA and im very happy with it i mean it works ! it plays mame and you plug a s-video lead in and it auto detects and go's over to it ! but as i need my arcade machines graphics card to be AGP not PCI-E i heard ATI was better

Better at what?