Upgrading my videocard based on emulation support, help me please

[Kyo Kusanagi 84]

Short question: is it better to buy an outdated nVidia card or an up-to-date ATI one if emulators support is my main goal?

Long question: OK, so I'm upgrading my videocard -a Radeon X850XT- mainly because I have a strange issue emulating Capcom VS SNK games, both Dreamcast and Naomi versions -in the first one sometimes I see grids of thin lines, in the second one I see them on the character who is facing right all the time-, but also because it's very old by now: its shaders are too old and I'm forced to use the 9.3 legacy drivers because AMD doesn't give support for it anymore in the latest drivers.
I have a doubt anyway: is it better to choose an nVidia card or an ATI one if I wanna be sure I will get the less issues possible in emulation? It looks to me like emu developers have a sympathy for nVidia cards and tend to blame it on ATI when an emulator has visual issues with ATI cards -I really read "blame it on ATI" on an emu readme for example, and we know something there are specific fix in emulators which need to be used only with ATI cards-, but buying an nVidia card now would mean choosing a card which isn't up to date, while a card like the ATI HD5770 would suit my budget perfectly and be technologically up to date at the same time. What should I buy?

As a side question, the issue I have with Capcom VS SNK games could be just caused by the old ATI drivers and doesn't exist anymore with the latest ones?

[masta.g.86]

Grid lines often occur when using bilinear filtering in 2D games or when running the game at a higher than native resolution.

Most likely, the problem is with your graphics configuration, not your video card. Upgrading your video card whilst using the same graphics config will still continue to give you the grid lines.

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[Squall-Leonhart]

Grid lines will happen regardless of GFX card or settings.

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[Kyo Kusanagi 84]

Thank you for your replies.
@masta.g.86: my issue is quite the opposite: I always run 2d games in 640x480 -even ST-V games, I must adjust the MAME settings now that I have a decent PC-, and Dreamcast/Naomi emulators make no exception, but I still get the grid lines. Besides, I don't know how to disable filtering in Dreamcast emulators, if I'm well informed bilinear filtering kicks in automatically in the Dreamcast hardware and the only possible choice is between bilinear and trilinear.
@Squall: but I saw a Capcom VS 2 video on Youtube where there wasn't a single grid line on characters, I commented it and the author told me he has never had that grid lines issue. Should I suppose he edited the video and is lying?

Still, my doubt remains: should I buy an nVidia card or an ATI one? My main concern is to get the less issues possible on emulators, PC native games are secondary since the only games I really want to play -Prince Of Persia, PES, Batman, to tell you some titles- aren't so heavy and picky on requirements. I don't like FPS's at all XD

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Last edited by Kyo Kusanagi 84; 3 Weeks Ago at 22:13..

[Kyo Kusanagi 84]

Excuse me, more than 24 hours passed and I still haven't received an answer to my question: should I buy an Nvidia GTX260 or an ATI HD5770? I know the latter is way more advanced than the former, but I would like to know what card is supported better by emulators, please.

[nanaya]

So far it's hit and miss, honestly i've never had problem using ATi here (emu played : epsxe, pcsx2, dolphin, desmume, no$gba and some others). :|
If i were you though, i'd buy 5770, just because it's a new technology to toy with .

[masta.g.86]

Originally Posted by Kyo Kusanagi 84

Excuse me, more than 24 hours passed and I still haven't received an answer to my question: should I buy an Nvidia GTX260 or an ATI HD5770? I know the latter is way more advanced than the former, but I would like to know what card is supported better by emulators, please.

That's because upgrading your video card likely won't fix anything.

I still think that it more than likely is an emulator configuration problem.

If you still want to upgrade for the sake of upgrading, the GTX260 is generally better because of its superior OpenGL ICD. The HD5770 is faster in just about everything else though.

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[Kyo Kusanagi 84]

OK, thank you both ^^ I'm oriented towards the HD5770 not only because it's more advanced, but also because if I buy it from a certain online Italian shop I will get a little discount -it's in promotion until November 1, so it was a good thing I didn't receive any answer because otherwise I would have ordered a card yesterday and not taken advantage of the discount XD
Since we're talking about emulation issues, the grid lines one isn't the only one: I also have serious problems with ePSXe, no matter what plugin combination I use the framerate drops periodically with awful sound crackling, the only way to fix it is to disable vsync completely but this is a cure that is worse than the original issue. I tried to keep only triple buffering enabled in the Catalyst Control Center -and vsync disabled-, but the awful tearing remains. I think it's a driver issue -the Catalyst 9.3 drivers are old, but I think I can't use newer drivers because my card has been moved to the legacy structure support-, and you?

[Cid Highwind]

Originally Posted by Kyo Kusanagi 84

Excuse me, more than 24 hours passed and I still haven't received an answer to my question: should I buy an Nvidia GTX260 or an ATI HD5770? I know the latter is way more advanced than the former, but I would like to know what card is supported better by emulators, please.

Go for the GTX260, seeing the PC games you listed you may actually like the PhysX support as well. I don't know if it's the new or the old GTX260 you mean, but it will anyway be a lovely fast card.

But that aside, demanding an answer is not done at the forums. People here have other things to do than answer questions full time, so they might as well have been busy with something more important than your videocard.

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[Kyo Kusanagi 84]

...I didn't demand anything, I repeated my question saying please and I DON'T tolerate netiquette lessons by anyone.

[Squall-Leonhart]

Tearing in epsxe is NOT caused by lack of vsync. it it caused by incorrect GFX settings...... but at this point your out of luck because i cannot remember the exact fix.

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[Kyo Kusanagi 84]

Every issue disappeared since I changed my video card XD No more grid lines on characters in Dreamcast emulators when running Capcom VS SNK, no more framerate drops in ePSXe, everything is fine now. I'm sure it's because of the drivers, since this card is currently fully supported by AMD I can use the newest ones at last.

[nanaya]

So what did you get in the end?

[Kyo Kusanagi 84]

Sorry I was sure it was clear from one of my previous posts ^^; I got the HD5770, still haven't tried PC games but it's doing great in emulation.

[nanaya]

Nice to hear that as I'm planning to get one myself

[Kyo Kusanagi 84]

I think it is a good purchase, just be warned that if you like bsnes as a Super Famicom emulator you could find the scrolling smoother over a VGA cable -there's a DVI to VGA adapter included in the box- than over a DVI cable, at least it seems to happen for me on my screen, an LG M227WD, so it can be a good thing to keep both cables connected between the card and the screen.
EDIT: after further testing it looks to me like I can get great scrolling over a DVI cable too if I set vsync "always on" in the Catalyst Control Center.

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Last edited by Kyo Kusanagi 84; 3 Weeks Ago at 20:53..