Recommended GPU?

[Josh Blood]

What range of GPUs should I be looking at for best Pinball Arcade look and performance? I assume integrated graphics on my Core i3-4360 @3.7GHz is what causes my flipper delay. Happy to look into an Nvidia-based card. Wouldn't mind links directly to your recommendations. Thanks!

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

If you can still find a GTX750Ti (very small form factor, doesn't require external power), get one of those.

Failing that - those are probably hard to come by these days - a GTX950 or equivalent is going to be more than decent. I don't thing the GTX1050 has been announced yet but it's got to be around the corner.

Obviously if you're looking at something other than TPA, go bigger.

And my go-to reference source, Tom's Hardware, has just put out an update: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gpus,4380.html

 

[relaxation]

If you're at 1080p and want DX11, any card on here should do it. My GTX960 does 1440p for this game easily, so those 1050/ti variants should be on par for less.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Okay, so there is a 1050/1050Ti (announced after the Tom's October update and not slotted into their hierarchy chart yet). In which case a 950 is going to be available cheaper, soon, so save some $$ and get one of those.

 

[kaworu]

Okay, so there is a 1050/1050Ti (announced after the Tom's October update and not slotted into their hierarchy chart yet). In which case a 950 is going to be available cheaper, soon, so save some $$ and get one of those.

gtx 1050 ti (especially ti) or gtx 1060 3GB (cost only 10-20$ more)if want little "safety gap" of perfomance and play some other games. here no reasons to get 9xx series cards already (1xxx are more money/perfomance efficient).
got my gigabyte gtx 1060 mini 3GB yesterday - works smooth in DX11. before i tried dx11 on 750 ti - it was laggy
i play in 1920x1080

 

[Heretic]

why would anyone want less than a 1080? it doubles are a room heater! with lower tdp!

if your on a bugdet but still want to play modern games mostly confortably(30-60fps high/ultra detail 1080p) id say a cheap 950 or the 1050 ...if you wanna future proof and play any current game at 60fps invest alittle more in the 1060 ....it should last quite abit more than the others.....if your focus is on tpa and budget the 750ti should handle tpa at 1080p just fine

 

[codinghorror]

I can confirm 750ti handles tpa at 1080p just great. If those prices drop after the 1050ti (its successor and 40% faster at same watt budget) all the better.

 

[kaworu]

I can confirm 750ti handles tpa at 1080p just great. If those prices drop after the 1050ti (its successor and 40% faster at same watt budget) all the better.

are you talking about DX9 or DX11? i had problems with DX11 on 750ti

 

[kaworu]

why would anyone want less than a 1080?

when you use display with lower maximum resolution/diagonal - i have such in my house - here no reason to try 1080 on it - it just cant do it.

 

[codinghorror]

Worked fine with DX11 for me on the 750Ti at 1080p, this was as of a few weeks ago. I quickly replaced the card with the brand new just released 1050ti because I am super anal about stuff like that though, also, long story but I upgraded the pincab monitor to a nicer IPS model (TN is just .. ****) and it is 1440p which would definitely be pushing a 750Ti.

(Lots of details at https://blog.codinghorror.com/your-digital-pinball-machine/ if you are curious.)

 

[Mediumokra]

If you're experiencing delay, then it makes sense that the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is probably getting pushed too hard, or probably overheating. Integrated graphics cards are not usually the best. The last one I had overheated a lot and any good Integrated GPU usually is never cooled properly (which is what happened in my case). Really, it depends on your budget. How much are you looking to spend? Also, do you play any other games with more graphic intensity than Pinball Arcade? These will affect what can be recommended.

 

[Heretic]

since igp are well igps cooling soultions are never the issue....they are great for everday desktop tasks...this msi "powerhouse" i bought is a pain in my dick i should have stuck with a decent business machine

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Gotta say my new GTX 1060 is performing great, I can now push the DX11 back buffer to 4K resolution. DSR is annoying because it's a global setting and I can't get away with 4K rendering on, say, Witcher 3. But increasing the back buffer has a similar effect, or so it seems.

Sent from my SM-T710 using Tapatalk

 

[Crawley]

Gotta say my new GTX 1060 is performing great, I can now push the DX11 back buffer to 4K resolution. DSR is annoying because it's a global setting and I can't get away with 4K rendering on, say, Witcher 3. But increasing the back buffer has a similar effect, or so it seems.

With DSR enabled you can change your resolution within each game to whatever you want it to be. You should just have the additional higher resolution option choices in the graphic settings.

 

[xAzatothx]

thanks for the info about DSR - I'd never even heard of it. Just tried 4K with my 1060GTX on my 1080p 60hz display and makes quite a difference for TPA. Thanks

 

[MadAxeMan]

my 670 could handle DX11 PA 1080p max settings constant 60fps

I remember FS mentioning they had 660 on their machines

 

[shutyertrap]

I finally got TPA up and running on a laptop just given to me. It's a Dell Inspiron 15 from 2013, running Intel Core i3-3227U @1.90 GHz and built in Intell HD4000 graphics with 4gb of RAM. So run of the mill basic laptop. I have Windows 10 running, max resolution of 1366 x 768.

TPA runs just fine in DX9, but DX11 was what I was really curious to see if it could handle. The results?

MSAA Samples = 1
MSAA Quality = 100
Anisotropy = 16
Brighten Ball = On

If I kick up the MSAA sample to anything but 1, the ball just moves in slow motion, even if everything else is turned to lowest settings. I'm not sure if I see slowdown with Anisotropy at 16 compared to 8, so for now I'm leaving it at that. I honestly don't know what any of this stuff actually does in relation to each other, I just experimented. Point being, it is possible to run TPA in DX11 on a basic laptop. It doesn't look as pretty as a full blown desktop with dedicated graphic card, but so long as I don't have to play in DX9 I'm happy, cause I needs me some dynamic lighting!

 

[Heretic]

lol dude...id be high suspect if thats running smoothly but if ya cant tell the difference who cares

 

[shutyertrap]

lol dude...id be high suspect if thats running smoothly but if ya cant tell the difference who cares

I was testing it out using TAF, and even during multiball it didn't chug. Didn't have a fps counter going or anything but it was totally playable.

 

[Heretic]

well my experience with a system around 20-30 percent more powerful in most respects was very different....not that the game wasnt playable in dx11 its just i had to be wary of which camera angle i used with what table had to remove anything over alittle AA and turned of ball relfection entirely....try camera angle 1 on addams family it should chug alittle