Video cards? Help!

[Spider]

NOTE: If you don't feel like reading my crappy story all I want to know is what is a good video card. I don't want *THE BEST* I just want a good card, fast, up to date, card. It can be a few months old or whatever but not shit. I'm running a geforce2 right now. I want to upgrade. Right now I have 32megs ram so I want 64megs atleast on board. I dont need a card with 256megs on board, nothing crazy, just something that will run games. THANK YOU!

Sooo... 2 or 3 years ago I knew all about what computer crap was the best. Me and my buddy were both getting systems custom made. It was right at the start of 3DFX Voodoo's demise. My buddy got the new voodoo shit, I forget what it was at the time.. Voodoo3 I think. I got a GeForce2 card. At the time GeForce was just starting to dominate and my friend thought it might not be compatable with everything. Well, a few months later 3DFX went under, stopped patching their drivers, and NVIDIA went on to dominate. Turns out I made the right decision. I was at the top of my game, my friends computer cost more, and was not as effective as mine. I also got one of the new AMD processors (at the time they were better than what intel had and much cheeper, but I think intel has again come out on top I'm not sure). My computer was a few hundred bucks cheeper and it cranked out better FPS in every game.

Fast foward to now... My computer is starting to lag with the new games and I need to upgrade.. The problem is, I'm the poor sucker still hanging onto the old technology. I go to the store now and everything is ATI? Holy shit. I remember ATI used to lick donkey balls, and that was if they were lucky.

My question is: What is a good video card for a reasonable price?

Also, I don't need any TV-Tuner shit or whatever. I dont have a TV laying around to strap to my computer and I never will. I want one thing and one thing only: A decent video card. THANKS!



ONE MORE THING: I have 256 megs of ram in my computer right now.. Would I be better off getting a new video card (I have geforce2 now) or another 256 megs of ram?

Feel free to fedex some money with your advice. Email me and we can set something up. BIG MONEY BIG MONEY OH YAH


Oh one more thing.. Right now I have an AMD processor with 3dnow! and MMX and that shit.. Its 1.1ghz. Please tell me thats still good enough to run crap? Its much better than the minimum list on games ive seen... It isnt killing me yet is it? I cant afford to upgrade everything.....!!!!!

[Liquid Blue]

Radeon 9600 SE. You can get it for $130 bucks at Best Buy, and probably around that price in other places.

EDIT: Get more ram also. 512 is good enough for you, unless you like overkill. Then go for a full gig of ram.

[Spider]

Thanks hunny bunch!! More people give me advice if you have any then I can maybe look things up and compare them.

One more problem. I just installed Homeworld 2 and it told me that I have an AGP card running in 'PCI mode' and that it would work better if I change it to AGP mode. I know I have an AGP card... How do I put it into 'AGP mode'? Anyone know?

[Dameon Angell]

Radeon 9600 4 win

[Epinephrine]

www.tomshardware.com
www.anandtech.com
www.sharkyextreme.com

read away


I'd say your best bet is a Radeon 9600 as well. It's cheap, and it's good enough to run any new game out there. Also get more ram... another bar of 256 ram is like $50? maybe less?

You probably have a Riva TNT2 right? Because by the time the GeForce 256 came out (aka the GeForce 1) it was already faster than the Voodoo 3 and 3Dfx was already about to die.

As for your computer, 1.1 is a bit old... You probably want to upgrade to at least a AMD Athlon 2000 if you can.. I have a 1.7 but hell if you're buying new stuff get more. And while you're at it, get a gig of ram it's cheap.

It all depends how much you want to spend I guess. Give a price range instead of vague "I just want a better computer" Spider and it will help more! Also don't forget to let these folks know you're Canadian

-Epi

[Cops]

Geforce FX 5200 128 mb $69 (Futureshop and FactoryDirect.ca)
Radeon 9200 $69 (FactoryDirect.ca)
GFORCE4 MX420 64MB DDR TV/O $39 (FactoryDirect.ca)To be honest this is a good card, it's not the best card but for the price it does it's job and you can't go wrong.

For the type of computer you have (which isn't bad) and what you can play on it isn't worth buying a 200-400 dollar card. I also gave you shops that generally Canadian and you know of because you might not buy a card off the internet. What ever you chose don't spend over $200 exspecially when you could get a new cpu and motherboard with the money and make a way better computer.

[Adeon]

Originally posted by Dameon Angell
Radeon 9600 4 win

Yess.. yeeessssss... > Succumb to the donkey ball lickers! Muhuwhahahahh!!1

[Louis XV]

I have an athlon 900 with a geforce 2 GTS (extremely high-end geforce2) and it runs everything just fine. My new computer has a radeon 9500 pro in it and it's never had problems.

Your cpu is fast enough.

[Stabwound]

Originally posted by Cops
Geforce FX 5200 128 mb $69 (Futureshop and FactoryDirect.ca)

I bought that at Futureshop today (same price- boxing day thing).

[Blood]

i just got myself a club3d radeon 9600 pro 128mb, it seems ok, the comp just wont start up with the new 3.9 catalyst drivers. 3.8 seem to work fine.. im gonna reinstall my windows anyway and i think thatll help

[Troll King]

3.10 is out, maybe that will work for you.

[Bilange]

Shit, I went to Futureshop yesterday, it was SOO jam packed :S

Anyway, Id stick with ATI for now, i have one right now (8500 128DDR) and works fine with most games.

As for your processor, i suggest to pick another one, its so cheap. I got a 2000+ for (already?!) a year, and I have no problems at all, except for the memory...

Be sure to have more than one memory card plugged in, just in case one of them burns. I didnt even do that, I have only one 512mb card, so I pray it wont die soon Also, be sure you buy from well known (for stability/quality/reliability) memory brands, cause mine is Noname(TM) and I cannot run it at 333Mhz anymore; it was usually runing at 333Mhz, but now at that speed it is so unstable. I have to run it at 266Mhz now

If you wanna test your memory just for the fun (?) of it, or if you feel that somethings wrong with your mem, test it with http://www.memtest86.com/

[ClawzOfFate]

do NOT get a 9200SE...its a terrible card. what other games do you play? i know for ss you dont really need anything more than integrated video....also, how much money are you willing to spend?

[Spider]

Ehhh

Wells I went out shopping.. I don't like to buy off the net because I get ripped off even when I shop at a real store! Damn you future shop!!

About what games I play: I used to play games all the freekin time then it was just SS. My pappy got me Homeworld 2 for xmas so I'm doing some upgrading so I can play it better. When It starts it gives me like 5 warnings about how my graphics card is outdated... Wants more memory, new drivers, AGP, etc, etc...

What I found when I went out shopping was a good deal (compared to the other prices at the stores) on a ATI Radeon 9600 with 128 megs o' ram. Sounds good? It's going to cost me about $200 bucks Canadian unless I find a better deal when I go around to the other stores and see what they have.

After that I'll get another 256 meg ram chip and I think I'll be flying. I don't want to upgrade my processor unless I have to. I don't think I will though.. Doubling my ram and upgrading my video card from Geforce 2 with 32 megs of ram to Radeon 9600 with 128 megs of ram should have SOME effect right?

I'm getting a addicted to upgrading though. EEeepers! Maybe I could get a new processor... later though. Right now I can only afford the gfx card and ram!

What do you think of a Radeon 9600 w/ 128 megs? No comments on the price because I KNOW you will ALL think I'm paying too much. Everyone on the net always tells me "MAN I COULD GET THAT AT www.EVILINTERNETSTORE.com for like 12 bux!!" Spare me please I don't like the internet! I'd have to get one of those special internet credit cards before I shop online.

Keep in mind I don't want 'features' like TV-out or anything. All I want to do is run games on my computer. Also keep in mind I can't afford anything better, only stuff that is worse. This would be a good time to say "GREAT JOB SPIDER THAT WILL WORK AWESOME". If there is a known problem or something, then tell me now before I buy it

[Cops]

FactoryDirect.ca has some Radeon 9800 pros for $300 Canadian, the problem with shopping for anything in general is you always see something just a bit better for just a bit more money which makes your initial reasons for getting the original product worthless. Well maybe not worthless but you'd rather pay a bit more to get a bit better product.

Spider: Switch the drivers files, and if you don't know what I'm talking about as DoCk>, I'm pretty sure he switched two driver files for two radeon 9600's.