Hi I am interested in learning XNA I was reading and I found that I need a graphics card that supports directx 9.0c and shader model 1.1 (recommended 2.0) My graphics card is nvidia geforce 4 mx, how do i know if it supports these requirements ? and if it doesn't, what would you recommend for a new graphics card that is not too expensive ? Thanks guys

No, the geforce 4 mx doesn't support any programmable vertex and pixel shaders. If you have the DirectX SDK installed, you can open the caps viewers in the tools to check what your card support. Look for "VertexShaderVersion". Also, if you card doesn't support shaders doesn't mean that you can't use them, you can still use vertex shaders in "software mode" or vertex and pixel shader in "reference mode" but they are really, really slow.

If you have a GeForce 4, you probably don't have a high-end PC, so buying the good graphic card is useless and you'll probably need a AGP card since your board likely doesn't have a PCI Express slot.

Looking at my online store here, the only thing I can suggest is the GeForce 6200 AGP for 50$ (canadian) which support shader model 3.0 or maybe try to buy a old card from a friend :)

Thanks a lot for your reply

for an older AGP computer just looking for the cheapest modern technology cards that are not crappy, I recomment the:

NVIDIA:
7300 GT
7600 GS

ATI:
X1650 Pro

Or if you do have a decent computer with 1GB RAM and want to play at somewhat higher resolutions, perhaps the:

7600 GT
X1650 XT
(these cards are good enough for new systems even)

or even the:

X1950 Pro
(this card is great even for brand new systems)

These cards will get you all modern (non DirectX 10) features, at a good price, and usable performance.

My personal favorite $100 card is a 7600 GS, my favorite $120 card is a 7600 GT, and I haven't looked closely at the $65-85 range lately, so I'm not sure about those.

Quote:Original post by Moe

Quote:Original post by c3Dp
No, the geforce 4 mx doesn't support any programmable vertex and pixel shaders. If you have the DirectX SDK installed, you can open the caps viewers in the tools to check what your card support. Look for "VertexShaderVersion". Also, if you card doesn't support shaders doesn't mean that you can't use them, you can still use vertex shaders in "software mode" or vertex and pixel shader in "reference mode" but they are really, really slow.

From my understanding, the Geforce 4mx DOES support shader model 1.1 (or at least 1.0). Try running something that does take shader model 1.1 and see if it runs.

If I remember correctly, the Geforce 4 MX is about the same as a beefed-up Geforce 2. The Geforce 4 TI (Along with the Geforce 3 TI) supports Shader Model 1.1.

I had a geforce 4 mx, and it did have rudimentary support for shaders. I don't remember the specifics, but I do know it supported very basic vertex interpolation shaders.

I suppose it's possible that not all of them do. There's always variation in what chips video cards have, so who knows, maybe some of the later geforce 4's that were released had a slightly more advanced chip slapped in for whatever reason.

Regardless, I WAS able to use basic vertex shaders with mine.

edit- found this on wikipedia:

Quote:
It should be noted that older versions of the drivers (versions 53.xx for example) for the NV18 based GeForce4 MX and GeForce4 Go supported vertex shader model 1.1 via hardware assisted software emulation, however at some point this support was dropped completely. The newer drivers report that they support vertex shader model 0.0. On certain games which are able to take advantage of vertex shading, using the older drivers can actually result in a significant performance increase. Some games that require pixel and vertex shading will not run at all on these newer drivers.

[Edited by - gharen2 on May 19, 2007 1:30:40 AM]