Hardware Requirements for VP?

[Tiger-Heli]

Sorry if this has been asked before ...

Is VP/VPM mostly dependent on:

• Video RAM
• Video GPU
• CPU
• Main RAM?

For reference, I have a:

• AMD XP Barton 2800+ CPU (2.0 Ghz single-core)
• Nvidia Geforce FX5200 128M AGP video card.
• 1.5M Ram
• Windows XP.

Most tables (like PacDude's) run pretty well with only mild slowing/stuttering on Multi-ball. A couple of JP's newer VP9 ones, I have to turn off hardware graphics rendering, and Scapino's Cirqus Voltaire looks great but is unplayable from slowness - I also get the infamous occasional "ball goes through the flipper" error.

The reason I am asking is NewEgg has an HD3450 512M AGP card for $50, which should be a good boost in the video performance, but obviously, I don't want to spend this if I really need a C2D processor, which would then require and new mobo and PCI-e vid card.

Thanks in advance!!!

 

[TheMcD]

From what I've read, VP9 doesn't like Catalyst's newer then 8.12, but I prefer ATI cards overall.

I would not rely on that. I installed the oldest drivers that were possible for my GC ('round 7.something) and it didn't do squat. For VP9, one should generally avoid ATI.

The McD

 

[Tiger-Heli]

That helps and kinda what I was looking for to decide.

I much prefer ATI (driver quirks and all) for other programs, and this will be used for more than VP.

I'll get the AM3 board, since there's no guarantee the AM2+ board would work with VP9. (I just didn't want to get the AM3 board and find out VP9 would have worked perfectly with older drivers and a less expensive motherboard.)

VP8 should work much better, and VP9 should work better even if I have to turn HGR off than it does with the 9200 with HGR off, and if not, we are only talking about a handful of tables that mostly have VP8 variants as well.

If I were building a computer for a VP arcade cabinet, then I would likely get an Nvidia card (but I could always do that with the PCIe slot on the new board).

Thank you for the advice!!!

 

[Tiger-Heli]

Just an update for others who might be following along – the advice I got in this thread was dead-on, but I realize now asking what PC I need for VP is a bit like asking what I need for arcade MAME – PacMan and DigDug will play fine on a Pentium 200 Mhz, and NFL Blitz needs a C2D overclocked to 4Ghz and then some.

The same is true somewhat with VP – Pacdude’s Circus Voltaire, The Getaway, Jamin’s Theatre of Magic, etc. really played very well on my Barton XP2800 at 2.0 Ghz with the 64M graphics card. Newer games like Scapino’s Circus Voltaire and quite a few others would mainly have problems with Multi-ball, but if the PC can’t handle multi-ball, the table loses a lot of enjoyment.

I know in Microsoft Train Simulator, I am having a problem with the CnQuiet not coming out of idle mode (or more properly, not taking both cores out of idle mode – so WinXP switches the thread from the fast core to the idle one that has to ramp up, then back to the first one that went to sleep, etc.) (A program called PhenomMSRTweaker fixes this). I think VP may be doing the same thing (and having tested it since installing PhenomMSRT) (i.e. the PC is running at 800Mhz rather than 2.8 Ghz, but I think VP is much more highly dependent on video RAM, so the tables play pretty well at 800Mhz with 512M of memory as opposed to the previous tables at 64M (and from running MSTS, the Regor with CnQ on at 800 Mhz and 512M of RAM is actually slightly faster than the old XP Barton system was).

The McD was also right on the money with ATI and VP9. The old card worked okay with VP9 with tables it could load – it just had problems b/c of the 64M loading more complex tables. The new PC with the 9.8 drivers will not load any VP9 table properly with Hardware Graphics Rendering enabled – however, it plays better with HGR off than the old PC did, and on more than half the tables I had to turn HGR off before. (You do lose transparent ramps which was one of the big improvements of VP9 - but I play more than VP9 on this computer.)