GFX Card Upgrade Options

[old.Wildfire]

I recently did a part-upgrade of my system, and am now running a 2.4GHz P4, with 256MB DDR RAM and my old GF2 Ultra. I've just managed to secure myself a nice little earner for the next month which will give me roughly a grand of disposable income. Most will go into savings but I will be able to afford a nice shiny new graphics card, to tie in nicely with SI's release sometime early next year. However, I have completely lost track of the graphics scene, and have no idea what I should be going for, or even where I can get a comparison of performances.

Advice wanted and welcome

 

[danskmacabre]

Depends on how much you want to spend oin the card.
If you want get the best card available at the moment, regardless of the cost, buy the ATI radeon 9700.

If you want the best card for your money. and you want to spend the least amount of money, get the Geoforce 4 ti 4200 128 MB RAM and overclock it to the speed of a TI4400.

If you want to spend a little more, get the Geoforce 4 TI 4600, 128 MB RAM.

and moved to the tech forum..

 

[old.Wildfire]

9700 looks good, thanks

 

[old.Xarr]

My system looks alot like yours Wildfire. Currently I'm running a p4 2.4ghz with 512ram and a radeon9700pro.. I'm very satisfied with this setup No problems or glitches so far whatsoever! Running windows2000 with sp3 as my OS.

 

[old.Zorewin]

Gforce FX nugh said wait a while it will be in the stores soon it will kick radeon 9700 but bigtime silly ati blokes

 

[noaim]

Of course depends on how much money you have to spend.

If you can afford, go for the best, and today that is the Radeon 9700.

However if you cant afford that, take a look at either Radeon 9500 Pro or the GeForce4 Ti4600, som brands, like Abit, Point of View and so on, sells very cheap atm.

You can get a Ti4600 at a cost around 200-250 bucks, at least in Sweden.

I dunno if I can post links to cheap online stores here, but if I can, tell me, and I will post some.

 

[danskmacabre]

Originally posted by old.Zorewin
Gforce FX nugh said wait a while it will be in the stores soon it will kick radeon 9700 but bigtime silly ati blokes

I wouldn't believe a word Nvidia says about their new card (FX)until it's on the shelves and has been reviewed at places like Tom's hardware or some such reliable site.

 

[Edo_Cotequinho]

I got some similar strange problems:

My system description:

Windows XP (service pack 1)
P4 2ghz
512 MB RAM
GForce4 TI 4600 - 128
ISP is OK (connection incredible fast)

When I'm near large buildings (like the teleport keeps for example) game is umplayable and I have a poor frame rate.

I try to upgrade/reinstall by zero:
Bios
VIA drivers
AGP drivers
NVIDIA drivers
The game
"Strange" utilities to optimize frequency card/monitor.

Nothing happens

 

[old.mattshanes]

Use nvidia they have less problems with games than ATI but if i were you i would wait for a geforce 5

 

[old.dittytwo]

Originally posted by Edo_Cotequinho
I got some similar strange problems:

My system description:

Windows XP (service pack 1)
P4 2ghz
512 MB RAM
GForce4 TI 4600 - 128
ISP is OK (connection incredible fast)

When I'm near large buildings (like the teleport keeps for example) game is umplayable and I have a poor frame rate.

I try to upgrade/reinstall by zero:
Bios
VIA drivers
AGP drivers
NVIDIA drivers
The game
"Strange" utilities to optimize frequency card/monitor.

Nothing happens

you will have to wait till the SI expansion comes out as it is morelikely due to the graphics engine being shiiiite

 

[Danya]

Originally posted by danskmacabre
I wouldn't believe a word Nvidia says about their new card (FX)until it's on the shelves and has been reviewed at places like Tom's hardware or some such reliable site.

I wouldn't believe a word tom's hardware says about their (oops I mean nvidia's) new card, wait for a reliable site.

FWIW, I have a Ti4600 and it's a really nice card, definitely recommend it.

 

[Onedda]

both nvidia and ati are nice cards, but as alot of peeps said u cant go wrong with either tbh, i use a ati 9700 pro i like it is as simple as that, and when i got it i wasnt playing daoc i used to play q3 non stop and the fps was stupid tbh.

i also have a gf4 in the kids pc which is nice daoc runs ok same as the ati 9700, but as i got the ati for future games to be released i.e SI , doom3 amongst others, then i would go for what u can afford.

yes i agree the drivers on the nvidia cards are nice and simple and the drivers on the ATI can be a pain (not experienced that yet).It goes on what u can afford at the time u want to buy.

the ATI pic quality is just a little bit better than the gf4 not alot in it though . on a 22" monitor ther aint much diff tbh when playing games at the same res but atleast i can play daoc in its top res with the ATI and its nice.

ther enough rambling .
go buy what u can afford its as simple as that , but i would recomend reading write ups on the card ur getting so u wont have any problems with ur mother board.

 

[dylan32]

I also have a geforce 2 ti, and will be getting a geforce FX as soon as its availble (which is supposed to be february in the UK).

 

[old.job]

Bench marks, hardware specs, In my experience mean nothing, to get a good GFX/motherboard setup you just have to be lucky, lots of people get terrible performance from seemingly uber components.
If your new GFX card is running crap and you have deleted every single trace of your old cards drivers, then swop it for another one, and rebuild again from scratch.
If you just have to keep the card then you'll need a new motherboard.

My system runs lovely now on a G-FORCE 2 after spitting out 3 different Radeons.

Hopefully SI should improve thing for a lot of people, the present engine really is a POS, my dreamcast can move that level of graphics better than that.