The effect of excluded volume (EV) and hydrodynamic interaction (HI) on a dilute solution of flexible polymer chains situated in a shear field has been studied by means of a Brownian dynamics simulation. The polymer was modelled as a Gaussian chain, accounting for the excluded volume effect by means of an exponentially decaying repulsive potential. The hydrodynamic interaction was included by means of the Rotne-Prager-Yamakawa tenser. The parameters studied were the mean square radius of gyration, the intrinsic viscosity, and the differential polarizability and extinction angle that are parameters relevant in flow birefringence studies. The EV-effect is seen to be most important at low shear rate. This is followed by an intermediate region where EV falls off and HI still has considerable effect, ending up with a chain that is so stretched out that neither EV nor HI has influence on conformational or hydrodynamical properties, giving parameter values in accordance with theory for the no-EV, no-HI case.