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Water Ripples??

Tasman Perth
Geekette Extraordinaire
Join date: 7 Jun 2005
Posts: 225
01-05-2006 07:56
I'm looking for a pointer to exactly what card I need to see the new 1.8 'water-ripples' feature. I currently have an nVidia GForce MX420 64mb card, with the 'water-ripples' box greyed out. While at Frys last week, I picked up an nVidia GForce MX4000 128mb card, thinking this might what was needed, but alas! not to be.. I've since returned the card as it was defective. Now before I go out on another shopping trip, I'd like to find out exactly what I need for this feature.. The host machine is a P4/2.53ghz w/1gb Ram, and its performance with the current 64mb card is not too bad.. Now another interesting datapoint: I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 2200 laptop (CeleronD/370,w/768mb), which of course, has Intel integrated video.. Since this laptop was replacing an old IBM TP600/P2 machine, and the price was too good to pass up ($447 on Dell outlet), I figured.. what the heck .. lets try SL on it.. and found that SL works just fine.. and now the interesting datapoint... The 'water-ripples' checkbox is not greyed out here.. Of course, if I check it, water doesn't ripple, it disappears...
Since the support wiki only gives minimum requirements, its no help on this...

Thanks
Tas
Nathan Stewart
Registered User
Join date: 2 Feb 2005
Posts: 1,039
01-05-2006 08:18
Hi ya

For water ripples you need a GeForce 5200FX or higher, or an ATI 9500 or higher, this is the lowest end cards and will reduce fps with the setting enabled so try for a higher card

If you are able to tick the checkbox then the card supports the water ripples but the drivers arent uptodate with whats required to provide them, so try and find some updated drivers

Nathan..
_____________________
Tasman Perth
Geekette Extraordinaire
Join date: 7 Jun 2005
Posts: 225
01-05-2006 08:37
From: Nathan Stewart
Hi ya

For water ripples you need a GeForce 5200FX or higher, or an ATI 9500 or higher, this is the lowest end cards and will reduce fps with the setting enabled so try for a higher card

If you are able to tick the checkbox then the card supports the water ripples but the drivers arent uptodate with whats required to provide them, so try and find some updated drivers

Nathan..


Ok.. Now I know what to get.. In the case of the laptop, it has the latest (per Dell) of the Intel video drivers. I realize I'm not gonna get ripples on the laptop.. I guess I should be thankful that SL works in general as well as it does on the unit.. Were this not the case, I'd be in a severe case of SL-withdrawal, as I'm on a extended trip right now, and my only machine is the laptop, and whatever wifi access I can get....

Thanks
Tas