Minimum Vid Card Required for Bioshock!!?!?!?!???!

[teh_boxzor]

so my 6600gt is starting to show its age

and bioshock can't even play at low settings


so whats a good card that would let me play bioshock at medium-high settings on a 1024x768 screen.

budget is less than $200.



Thanks!

 

[Heyyou27]

Is it AGP or PCIe? You could give the X1950 Pro a try.

 

[sduneman3]

Is your motherboard AGP or PCI-e?

 

[lunyone]

x1950pro/xt if you can find one cheap. Currently it's getting harder to find them, along with an amost comparable 7900gs. Here's one to look at, if it's a pci-e card that your looking for.
7900gs for cheap! $126 shipped!!
PNY VCG7900SXPB GeForce 7900GS 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133186

x1950pro $166 shipped - $40 MIR = $126!! same as 7900gs, but just a tad better.
HIS Hightech H195PRF256DDN-R Radeon X1950PRO 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161060

That would be the best under $200 right now. Hopefully you have a competent PSU to handle the GPU, so keep that in mind.

 

[teh_boxzor]

Thanks guys its pci-e


lunyone - those 7900gs are clocked 50 mhz down to agp speeds for some odd reason i've checked them out

also will x1950pro work on a 570sli mobo?

and another thing...will it run bioshock on max or just medium-high?

 

[teh_boxzor]

my psu is 520Watt on 34 Ampere single rail config

it should handle it right?


if not i can get the thermaltake 5.25 inch PSU and shove it in my system to power just the card

 

[lunyone]

Thanks guys its pci-e


lunyone - those 7900gs are clocked 50 mhz down to agp speeds for some odd reason i've checked them out

also will x1950pro work on a 570sli mobo?

and another thing...will it run bioshock on max or just medium-high?

Don't know if it will run on max settings or not, since I don't have Bioshock . For the amount of $ that you want to spend, the x1950pro is the best bet. The 7900gs's don't require as much power, but are just a shade slower than the x1950's. Any PCI-e mobo should support either the 7900gs or x1950. Not sure why you would have a problem with either, unless your talking about doing SLI (which is nVidia's version of AMD's crossfire). If your thinking about doing SLI/Crossfire, I wouldn't do it. I don't think you can SLI two ATI boards, you would need a Crossfire board to do that. You would be better off getting a 8800gts for about the same $ of a SLI setup and still have better performance.

 

[teh_boxzor]

thanks for the help.

no im not going to Crossfire an ATi Card with a nvidia chipset.

i know better than that. haha.

i was just wondering since the chispet is an nvidia chipset that was made specifically to SLi Nvidia cards i thought it wouldn't take even 1 Ati card.

 

[lunyone]

my psu is 520Watt on 34 Ampere single rail config

it should handle it right?


if not i can get the thermaltake 5.25 inch PSU and shove it in my system to power just the card

Not a problem. I think I read somewhere that the x1950pro only needs something like 26-28A max on the 12V rail. So I'm assuming you would be fine. Someone else can correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[lunyone]

thanks for the help.

no im not going to Crossfire an ATi Card with a nvidia chipset.

i know better than that. haha.

i was just wondering since the chispet is an nvidia chipset that was made specifically to SLi Nvidia cards i thought it wouldn't take even 1 Ati card.

Nope. You can use whatever PCI-e card in that mobo. It's only when you want to SLI them is where you'll have a problem (as you noted earlier).

 

[marvelous211]

7900gs is terrible for bioshock

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/bioshock_mainstream_gpu_performance/page8.asp

go for 1950pro or 8600gts

 

[lunyone]

Here's a link for video card comparison between 8600gts and x1950pro. You will have to decide which works for you.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=725&model2=854&chart=276

 

[choirbass]

just finished the demo a few minutes ago (game was kinda creepy near the beginning, but still fun). XP pro x64 sp2, X2 3800+, 2GB PC3200, 7800GT (all at stock speeds), @ 1024x768 res, other ingame settings on high (they were all the default settings and res for the game), and manual driver settings as well (8x AF, gamma correction on, multisampling on, threaded opti on, AA and verticle sync controlled by app, etc). gameplay was around 20-25 FPS it seemed, so it was definetly playable either way, no stuttering that i noticed. if you want perfectly smooth fps though with a similar gpu (such as the ones that were being recommended), you may need to turn a couple settings down some below max.

 

[slickku]

20-25 fps and it was smooth?!? =) lol

with 200$ i think u can get a 1950xt 256mb .. wich is a pretty damn good card. I played STALKER 16x12 with all maxed with it.... wasnt perfect smoothness but it was definately playable... after i switched it with 8800gts 640.. to be honest i didnt see much improvement if u can believe that...

 

[choirbass]

20-25 fps and it was smooth?!? =) lol

lol, well, it was definetly playable overall, there were only a few places where it could actually be considered smooth though (40+ fps or so im guessing, given what the settings were). with fraps i could probably give more accurate numbers.

edit: well, i was fairly close anyhow... fps hovered around a high of 30 fps on average, but rarely above that, and dipped to 19-20 on occasion in more demanding areas, capped at 60 fps max in non demanding areas, due to vertical sync (verticle sync tends to reduce performance some when enabled, so either way). yeah... with driver options disabled, fps is around 30-40 on average, so smoothness is there, but you sacrifice additional visual driver settings to get that consistantly.

 

[impreza]

7800gt is just playable @1024 x768 with high settings

 

[ferdy]

i play the full version it with a gainward glh 7800 gs agp(570-1500) a 3700+amd @ stock windows xp 32 an a nforce 3 ecs motherboard muskin level one pc3500 @221 mhz ..all setting were on high after install and i dit not need to change them..lovely graphics but do not my frame rate..see y and good luck

 

[ferdy]

sorry forgot mention:monitor samsung 940 bf 2ms @ 1280-1024!

 

[marvelous211]

Here's a link for video card comparison between 8600gts and x1950pro. You will have to decide which works for you.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=725&model2=854&chart=276

those are old drivers.
They use drivers from 6 months ago and run a vga chart. They need to update their charts so people don't get the wrong idea.


Hardware
Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800, 2.93 GHz
Motherboard: Intel 975X - Intel D975XBX2
Memory: Vitesta DDR2 800 4-4-4-12 533 MHz
Graphics Card: PCI Express Card
Hard Disk: 2 x Hitachi 120 GByte SATA, Cache 8 MByte
Network: Intel 1000 Pro
Audio: Intel High Definition Audio
Software
OS: Windows XP, Build 2600 SP2
DirectX: Version: 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Chipset Driver: Intel 8.1.1.1010
Graphics Driver ATI Catalyst 7.1 / Nvidia Forceware 93.71 / Geforce 8 Nvidia Forceware 97.92
Network Driver: Windows default
Audio Driver:
Other Driver: none

We are up to 163.44 drivers. ATI is 7.8?



modern drivers and recent tests


http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/video/g84-3-page4.html

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_8600_gts_roundup/

 

[lunyone]

Here's Anandtech's benchmark results. I found this in the forums section. Seems to be about the same as firingsquad's, but has more info, like dx9 vs. dx10.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=31&threadid=2090204

 

[blade85]

I have the x1950 pro on AGP and I play bioshock at 1024x768 as thats my normal res. At that res i max out the in game settings and its flawless...no jitter or any such thing. Runs nice and smooth. The lowest my fps has got was about 35 but its usually in the 50-70 range going upto over 100fps at places. If you get the XT it will be ever better. so your call.

 

[Ironnads]

I got Bioshock up and running on my ZX speccy! Only works on low res though - (1.5" pocket Casio TV..) Ahem.. Anyone seen the man with the cold beer yet?? Cheers!

 

[lunyone]

I have the x1950 pro on AGP and I play bioshock at 1024x768 as thats my normal res. At that res i max out the in game settings and its flawless...no jitter or any such thing. Runs nice and smooth. The lowest my fps has got was about 35 but its usually in the 50-70 range going upto over 100fps at places. If you get the XT it will be ever better. so your call.

What's the rest of your specs? My son's computer is needing upgrade on the GPU to streach the build another year or so. He's got a P4 3.2g Prescott, 2gig's DDR 3200, 9600xt (was 9800pro until it crashed ), Asus P4p800se, 450w PSU with 28A on 12V rails .

 

[marvelous211]

bioshock loves dual core processors. You will get low base frame rate if you have single core cpu

 

[lunyone]

bioshock loves dual core processors. You will get low base frame rate if you have single core cpu

How's your FPS on your GTS that you have?