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minimum GPU needed for full frame rate?

Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2023 11:05 pm
by gumbyaz
Any recos on what a good minimum spec would be? My arcade computer only has a ~10 year old CPU in it with Intel integrated GPU, clearly not cutting it. I would like to see if I can just pickup a GPU on the cheap that would give it enough horsepower to run at least native res at ~60 Hz, maybe even higher resolution. So of course I am curious: what does it take to run 1080P resolution?

Re: minimum GPU needed for full frame rate?

Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2023 11:27 pm
by Bart
This is increasingly a hard question to answer. Minimum GPU specs are a moving target as the rendering engine becomes more accurate (at the expense of performance). I would say just grab a GTX 1080 or something but then saw the prices on NewEgg. Maybe a 1660? A discrete Nvidia GPU is strongly recommended in any case.

Re: minimum GPU needed for full frame rate?

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2023 2:49 am
by gm_matthew
I'd say even a GTX 1050 should be enough. My GTX 1060 3GB runs games fast enough at 1440x1080 very comfortably.

Re: minimum GPU needed for full frame rate?

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2023 2:54 pm
by Ian
I believe on intel gpus especially older ones the bottle neck is the fragment shader, so running at a lower resolution will help with the frame rate. Quad rendering I think has more of a hit on intel and amd especially older cards so turn off for those cards and use the triangle renderer. It's not as accurate but good enough in most cases. I think scud race looks the worst with the triangle renderer.

Buy for everyone else the bottle neck will be the cpu.

Re: minimum GPU needed for full frame rate?

Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2023 10:40 pm
by k_rollo
If it helps benchmarking for devs, I run 1080p/60fps on Ryzen 7 5800H without a dGPU.

Re: minimum GPU needed for full frame rate?

Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2024 7:15 pm
by gumbyaz
Update: I tried finding deals on nvidia cards in the model range suggested, but in the end settled on an AMD RX570 that I was able to find NIOB for about $80.

Results: working great. Supermodel running at 1080P, 60 fps, and radeontop is reporting GPU usage in the range of 20-30%. And it looks beautiful. :D

I went back and looked at the CPU specs also just to be specific about what wasn't working on its own: it is an i3-3220. No surprise that it was a little too weak on its own.