Card for emulator

[cantholdanymore]

As you can see in my sig I don’t game but I like the eventual PS2 game. The guys at the PSCX2 recommend at least a 9600gt/8800gt or HD4750. I know that the new 7750 will be ok but I don’t feel like spending $100 on that. Also I need a low profile card since I can’t use the top PCIe port (blame the huge Noctua for that). Lastly , I would like the driver to play nice with my current firepro driver. Am I asking for too much?

 

[Infraction Jack]

5570 or 6570 would work as emulators depend mostly on cpu speed

 

[wahdangun]

go with HD 5770/6770, its actually alot faster than 9800GTX

 

[Gloomy]

Do PS2 games let you turn the eye candy up like gamecube games? If so I would get a 6850. I love me some high AA on console games.

Oops, that's out of your budget. Ignore this post.

 

[Bryf50]

Do PS2 games let you turn the eye candy up like gamecube games? If so I would get a 6850. I love me some high AA on console games.

Oops, that's out of your budget. Ignore this post.

Yup. You can bump up the resolution and use AA. Some games perform better than others. But yea its more cpu dependent for sure. You'll definitely be fine with something in the 5770 range of performance.

Edit: Wait the firepro you have is basically a 6670. I'd imagine that it'd do just fine. Have you tried it?

 

[cantholdanymore]

Yup. You can bump up the resolution and use AA. Some games perform better than others. But yea its more cpu dependent for sure. You'll definitely be fine with something in the 5770 range of performance.

Edit: Wait the firepro you have is basically a 6670. I'd imagine that it'd do just fine. Have you tried it?

Yes I tried, I can play some low res games (like katamary) but if a try something like GT4 I can mostly see static (don't really know how to call it but it is just a bunch of colors an such in the screen).
I think it must be the drivers so tha's why I'm looking for a new cheap card

 

[-Slacker-]

The system in my sig runs Shadow of the Colossus very well at 640x480 with some speed hacks, although my specs aren't well balanced for emulation (what's most important is your CPU, by far)

As I understand, PSCX2 likes not only decently high bandwidth, but actually a high bit rate (don't ask me why, as bandwidth is dependent on it). I'd recommend a card with at least a 256 bit buffer, so while the hd 6770 is pretty fast in windows games, it's 128 bit buffer might drag it down.

Anyway, you don't need a high end card to run PSCX2 well, just something with more than 128 bits that's reasonably recent.

 

[peonyu]

I play emulation every now and then and Pcsx2 is one of the ones I have been using for a few years.

A few things to keep in mind with Pcxs2 is - its not always CPU bound. Some of the top tier Ps2 games will be Gpu bound if you bump the internal resolution to a smallish number such as 1000x1000 resolution on a midrange card. So the video card does matter, if you have one that is older you might have to deal with a pixelated low resolution display. DragonQuest 8 is one of these guys...It looks awesome at high internal res but your video card will quickly limit itself..Most games are Cpu bound though, dont get me wrong.

Also Nvidia cards utterly dominate for this emu. I had a HD4850 until last year and using DQ8 as one the test cards, I had 30 fps at 1080P. Moving to a 6950 increased that to 55 fps. Going to a Gtx 480 [and later a 580] raised it to 83 fps. My current card is a Radeon 7970 and it tops out at 72 fps in the same game, with the same settings and at the same area. So if Pcsx2 is about all you do game wise Id look at Nvidia cards first [if you are on a budget], they act as though they are a generation or two faster than AMD cards for it. Ofc a 6950~7970 makes it meaningless since 70+ fps at max settings is more than enough..

 

[Blitzvogel]

I would imagine any decent midrange card will do as long as it has the memory bandwidth necessary. Thinking about it, the internal connection between the PS2's Graphics Synthesizer (which was a 2D specific GPU) and the 4 MB eDRAM was a blistering 48 GB/s (it was literally 2560 bit wide). While that bandwidth was divided into specific parts for specific functions, I would guess that the emulator treats a PC graphics card's VRAM as the eDRAM and having the necessary graphics bandwidth would be crucial in order to emulate at full speed, and of course, you need the CPU horsepower to back it up.

Certain games are iffy, some work fine at this point with PCSX2 (it's been a while since I messed with it). I specifically remember Odin Sphere running beautifully with it.

 

[Anarchist420]

With your CPU, you can just run in software with the aa on. Even though it won't look as good under some circumstances, it will be more accurate in software mode.

 

[Obsoleet]

Judging from their benchmark thread http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-GPU-Benchmark-designed-for-PCSX2 any high end GPU will work well. I use emus on my 5870 and performance varies between different emulators. It's going to be tough finding a card that isn't borderline too weak at under $100. Emus tend to use excessive power compared to the original hardware. I'd buy the 7750 and be done with it.

 

[roland12321]

I actually have been experimenting with this recently.. I have around 45-65 FPS and I don't even have a graphics card. I've the i5-2500 CPU (non OC), and I'm running Direct3D10(Software).

I had a GTX 260 which was much more powerful than a HD5770, and I had a low FPS of around 15-20 on most settings. I'm guessing that the emulator is very CPU-based. But if a GTX 260 had trouble, then I'm guessing you might want to get an HD6850 or better..

 

[Rambusted]

I actually have been experimenting with this recently.. I have around 45-65 FPS and I don't even have a graphics card. I've the i5-2500 CPU (non OC), and I'm running Direct3D10(Software).

I had a GTX 260 which was much more powerful than a HD5770, and I had a low FPS of around 15-20 on most settings. I'm guessing that the emulator is very CPU-based. But if a GTX 260 had trouble, then I'm guessing you might want to get an HD6850 or better..

I don't believe a 260 is much more powerful than a 5770, my old 4870 beats a 260 and the 5770 was just marginally slower than the 4870.

 

[cantholdanymore]

Thanks for the reply. I follow roland recommendation and ran Direct3D10 in software mode and now I get 40 to 50 fps in GT4. I overclocked my cpu all the way to 4.9Ghz and manage something between 45 to 55 fps which is a lot better that the "noise" I was getting before.

@Slacker, I did some more reading at the pcsx2 and indeed looks like what it needed is more bandwidth rather that pure processing power.

 

[cantholdanymore]

Is this one a really good value?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

 

[-Slacker-]

That's a sucker edition gtx460, but if you can get the rebate, then yeah, it's good value.

edit:

wait ... there were no 1gb 192bit gtx460 second editons ... has to be 256bit if it has 1gb of vram (or rather the ram has to be a multiple of 256). That's probably a mistype...

 

[cantholdanymore]

Thanks slacker.

The MSI websites says: GeForce GTX 460 SE