Hardware transformation and lighting

[birhtnoth]

Hey all, I'm in the market for a new video card, pretty much just so I can play Age of Empires III. This whole "support for hardware transformation and lighting" thing has me a little bewildered. I'll be replacing my Kyro II, and the time I installed it was about the last time I researched any of this.

My question is: is hardware transformation and lighting pretty much standard now, or is it specific to certain GPUs, and, if so, how do I know which ones have it?

 

[dunno99]

Even on board solutions have hardware T&L. So yeah, it's "the standard" now. (Actually, software will do, as long as it implements the DX9 or so API...but that's technicality).

 

[MDE]

Pretty much any card you buy now will support Hardware T&L. Seeing that you're replacing a Kyro II, the rest of your system may not be able to keep up with AOE III though. Mind posting what you have now?

 

[postmortemIA]

TnL: any Radeon 7500+
any GeForce
intel 9xx series

 

[birhtnoth]

Thanks for the great replies. I've always liked this forum, there's a lot of knowledge here and very little attitude.

Sorry it's been a couple of days, but my specs are:

Shuttle AK35 with an Athlon 1.2 gHz and 512 MB DDR. I've checked it against the specs, so I think I'm ok.

 

[Nightmare225]

Originally posted by: birhtnoth
Thanks for the great replies. I've always liked this forum, there's a lot of knowledge here and very little attitude.

Sorry it's been a couple of days, but my specs are:

Shuttle AK35 with an Athlon 1.2 gHz and 512 MB DDR. I've checked it against the specs, so I think I'm ok.

A nice radeon 8000 or 9000 series should do the trick.

 

[aka1nas]

I'd pick up a nice cheap Dx9 card at least. Maybe a 6200 or 6600. He can have full shader support at least then.