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EVE New Citizens Q&A

 
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I need a new graphics card. Which one should I get?
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Henry Montclaire
Guild of Independent Pilots
DammFam
#1 - 2012-08-16 23:32:50 UTC
I'm running EVE Online on a Mac Pro with an unsupported graphics card. It is an ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512 MB and by all accounts seems to be a terrible terrible graphics card. I think that the card is preventing me from doing some basic things, like PI and scanning (I cannot select the structures on a planet, or the arrows that move probes around).

So, does anyone know what the minimum graphics card requirements for EVE Online are? I'm a college student, so I have a very limited budget.

I would have posted this in the Macintosh forums, but that place is a ghost town.

Thanks!
Zanzbar
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#2 - 2012-08-16 23:52:27 UTC
yea that cards a bit on the old side, im not familiar too much with ati model numbers these days but as far as nvidia goes you will be extremely pleased with eve on anything 460 GTX or above. im running 2x 460s and i get about 200 frames with everything maxed so a single 460 or better would be fine.
Henry Montclaire
Guild of Independent Pilots
DammFam
#3 - 2012-08-17 00:03:38 UTC
Thanks. I'll go check and make sure it works on mac.
Rams Trouput
Doomheim
#4 - 2012-08-17 00:22:49 UTC
As far as I can tell any(half new) card runing 512mb on up looks like it runs it will run just fine.

I'm planing to build me a puter in the next few months and I was leaning towards an AMD 7750(it will run Skyrim and close to max setting), that should run EVE like butter. But did a lil more looking and decided to go up to a 2gb card so I can play Skyrim in all its pretty'ness.
Adam Junior
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2012-08-17 00:40:38 UTC
To simply run EVE without graphical glitches? Anything discrete at all. Of course, if you want decent framerate at nice quality settings, we'll want a budget. I reccomend nVidia over AMD, as AMD cards have a reputation for terrible drivers and ******* up with OpenGL (which OSX/linux/anything-that-isn't-windows-ix) uses a lot more than Windows).
Akita T
Caldari Navy Volunteer Task Force
#6 - 2012-08-17 08:59:25 UTC  |  Edited by: Akita T
Henry Montclaire wrote:
Mac Pro [...] I'm a college student, so I have a very limited budget.

Critical reality incongruence detected.
On the other hand, the good new is that this means you should be able to use any standard desktop PC graphics card with a PCI-E slot.

Quote:
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512 MB

Hmm. 6 and a half year old graphics card. Should not be very fast, but still borderline adequate, as far as raw performance goes.
Theoretically, it supports DirectX9.0c, but it "doesn't support Vertex Texture Fetch, hence it does not fully comply with the VS 3.0 model, instead, they offer a feature called Render to Vertex Buffer (R2VB) that provides functionality that is an alternative Vertex Texture Fetch", so that could be the problem for PI and other subfeatures.
Getting just about anything above entry level from a newer generation should suffice.

Quote:
limited budget.

How limited exactly ?
And what country are you from ?
Taxes which apply make the same video cards cost significantly different prices in different countries or even states inside the USofA.

For instance, a Radeon HD 6670 with 1GB of RAM should cost about 65$ in the USA, be faster than the old card, support all the mandatory EVE features for the next 4 to 5 years minimum (DX11), and also not consume any significant amount of power (it doesn't even need a separate power connector, all power is provided by the PCI-E slot itself) - and be able to run a single EVE instance at max graphic detail in FullHD resolution at well over 60 FPS in most situations.

A Radeon HD 7750 with 1 GB of RAM could cost even just 100$ and be faster than the previously mentioned one, while supporting even more features (DX11.1) and consuming even less power (so still powered just from the slot directly, no extra connectors).

A GTX 460 could just as good, but there aren't many up for sale lately, usually only older back stocks for some retailers. You might be able to purchase a refurbished one for around 100-120$ too. It's not guaranteed you can still get one though. And you need a separate power connector, because it eats more than the PCI-E slot can provide.

A GTX 560 SE would be in about the same performance ballpark to the HD7750 (about 10% faster, actually), but cost a minimum of around 130$. Same story about power consumption though.

Akita T evewiki profile | | | Build your own EVE-ready PC
Radius Prime
Tax Evading Ass.
#7 - 2012-08-17 10:20:46 UTC  |  Edited by: Radius Prime
Henry Montclaire wrote:
I'm running EVE Online on a Mac Pro with an unsupported graphics card. It is an ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512 MB and by all accounts seems to be a terrible terrible graphics card. I think that the card is preventing me from doing some basic things, like PI and scanning (I cannot select the structures on a planet, or the arrows that move probes around).

So, does anyone know what the minimum graphics card requirements for EVE Online are? I'm a college student, so I have a very limited budget.

I would have posted this in the Macintosh forums, but that place is a ghost town.

Thanks!


Never get a mac unless you want to pay more for aged hardware. It looks shiny but is rotten inside. First of all check what your laptop is compatible with. Most laptops will have specific fitting requirements spacewise. Can name 20 cards that fit your description but unless they fit they are useless.

Nevermind the laptop **** , I misread.

The 460 advised above will run Eve fine. Still watch the dimensions tho. Newer cards tend to be longer. Make sure it fits in your older mac where space can be tighter.

Reopen the EVE gate so we can invade Serenity. Goons can go first.
Angmar Udate
#8 - 2012-08-17 10:52:32 UTC
Radius Prime wrote:

Never get a mac unless you want to pay more for aged hardware. It looks shiny but is rotten inside.


Cheers, that quote went into my bio \o/
Henry Montclaire
Guild of Independent Pilots
DammFam
#9 - 2012-08-18 21:48:12 UTC
Bah, Mac hate to be expected. Akita, thank you for the in depth response! The computer was a gift, hence why I have a very expensive computer and no money to properly fit it out.

Also, I am in the US. I'll check out that Radeon HD 6670. It sounds just like what I'm looking for!
Kacer Xenro
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#10 - 2012-08-19 00:26:07 UTC
the 680gtx, eve cant get it below 60 fps :)
Amarra Mandalin
Pandemic Horde Inc.
Pandemic Horde
#11 - 2012-08-19 19:21:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Amarra Mandalin
I recommend Nvidia/jGeForce if you play other games that support Nvidia as (most?) mainstream games seem to.

If you don't need/want Nvidia, I see rave after rave about the Radeon HD 6850 for the price/performance.

As for the 460 -- it was a nightmare to shop for recently as the naming convention for cards is a mess. Finally, I realized there are 2 460 1GB models and one is obsolete -- allegedly it was too good for the price. They altered/lowered the specs and continued to label it 460 though. I ended up with the GTX 460 v2 by EVGA.

It was a gift and I'm quite happy with it. I was going to recommend it with a caveat: You cannot SLI it with anything but the SAME card.

Too, I see it has gone up in price about $40-50 since last month on Amazon??
There are a handful that run similarly though (see below).

There is a decent listing here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html


P.S. If you buy a cheaper/older card just make sure it supports your monitor resolution. I had a 250 GTS and it was decent up to 1440 X 900 -- resolutions higher than that posed problems with many games.
Genpatsu Date
Doomheim
#12 - 2012-08-19 19:34:25 UTC  |  Edited by: Genpatsu Date
I have an Intel Core2 Duo PC with an AMD 4670 in it and EvE runs fine with it considering its a 4 year old build. I won't hide it though, I do get low fps on heavily populated rooms but I can mostly play through them. There are alot of second hand hardware that others are trying to dispose of for very very cheap. Check local availability on popular hardware sites like newegg or the like.

Ah and yeah.. go PC, would be alot cheaper.

Want to read more about current video cards? Check out the Tom's Hardware article Best Graphics Cards For The Money: Aug 2012.
Steve Ronuken
Fuzzwork Enterprises
Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM
#13 - 2012-08-19 23:42:00 UTC
Kacer Xenro wrote:
the 680gtx, eve cant get it below 60 fps :)



Even with the pesky dust clouds?

The 560 hits 60 all the time. Except for when there's a dustcloud

Woo! CSM XI!

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter
Peri Simone
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#14 - 2012-08-20 11:24:27 UTC
Henry Montclaire wrote:
So, does anyone know what the minimum graphics card requirements for EVE Online are?


System requirements here:
http://support.eveonline.com/Pages/KB/Article.aspx?id=124