Pentium III 700 and G400 MAX ?

O

old.Mikey

Guest
What do you think of this upgrade

Pentium III 700 (100MHz FSB)
Matrox G400 Max

I'm currently running

C300A @ 450
256MB RAM
Abhit BH6 mb
Windows 2000
and a shit s3 graphics card


Mikey out!!

------------------
Remember!

Don't Take Life Too Seriously! :D
 
O

old.frankie

Guest
Hmm

TBH, get a diff card, a more generic one, say an NVIDIA one.

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DR_FRANKENSTIEN
 
O

old.Nosser-

Guest
AND THEN WHAT HAPPENS TO THE JAM FFS

THX BYE!

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:/
 
O

old.frankie

Guest
sound



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DR_FRANKENSTIEN
 
O

old.TUG

Guest
nosser you prick

U been hangin round with ppl like exor too long

'ffs thx bye'

like 'wtf?' hehe ;)

Anyway, G400 - nice card, but too slow now I'm afraid...

I'd recommend a DDR GeForce minimum - 150 quid now.

GeForce 2 GTS (creative) 32 meg is 217 at dabs.

G400 - looks nice, dual head, bump mapping but slow :(
 
O

old.Mikey

Guest
Tug glad it's not just me I was thinking wtf as well..

Anyway I tried a GeForce and it didn't like my m\b. It was a Elsa. I'm after very high quality though which I know G400 are good at and I'll be playing games at 1024*768 or 1152*864


Mikey out!!

------------------
Remember!

Don't Take Life Too Seriously! :D
 
O

old.TUG

Guest
Jus get creative and use generic drivers ;)

Doubt you'll have probs.
 
Y

~YuckFou~

Guest
Voodoo3 3000 here, celery 500, 128mb...smooooth.
I guess you can get better but that is always the case. I'm always hearing of driver/lockup probs with some of the bigger cards, mine works, was a snap to install, and new drivers available easily. Biggest bonus..... CHEEEP. I'm not cheap but why spend money when theres no need just to have the latest/fastest/biggest? New Voodoos due very soon, top whack model will be 250 squids. If it is as good as the spec looks it's gonna be hard to beat.
TUG is it easy to overclock the voodoo? If so lets have a tutorial :).
I'm pissed off with ya dude (MENSA bursturd :)), only 138 here, but I was 11 when I took the test ;).

Cheers

~YuckFou~
 
B

bodhi

Guest
Bodhi in giving friendly advice shocker :)

TBH I steer clear of geforce 2 atm. It isnt much faster than geforce and wont do anything special until the 64meg versions come out.

It actually appears that the best value GFX card atm is the TNT2u. Still well fast and dirt cheap for what it is. Other avenues to look at are V5 if you need glide, ATi Rage Fury Maxx if you want to play games and watch top quality DVD, or possibly a savage 2000 if they turn out to be any cop.

BTW speaking of ATi, check out the previews for Radeon 256. If what they are promising is true, Geforce 2 is looking a bit pathetic imo.

G400 MAX.....nice card, and shit hot if you want to run D3D stuff. Otherwise Id give it a bit of a miss.

Bodhi
 
O

old.Comatosed

Guest
From the current reviews there doesn't seem to be much point in waiting for the 64mb version.

Memory bandwidth appears to be the limitation, not quantity.
 
O

old.TUG

Guest
>>TBH I steer clear of geforce 2 atm. It isnt much faster than geforce and wont do anything special until the 64meg versions come out.

Memory speed is more of a limitation at the mo... and something else - 5.xx drivers have S3TC support so on heavy texture games (like Q3) the use of S3TC more or less renders the use of 64meg ram useless.

In a coupla months many manufacturers will be releasing cards with 400MHz DDR Ram as standard, that will help a lot with the cards performance... plus, overclock the mem a bit more anyway = bonus :)

>>It actually appears that the best value GFX card atm is the TNT2u. Still well fast and dirt cheap for what it is.

Gotta have an ultra or it's a waste of time. I had an Ultra for a week - wasn't impressed. So, I sold that to nosser.

They are still 100 quid tho... that's not that cheap. V3 2000 = 55 squid + 5 quid fan card + overclocking program = 170MHz = faster than V3 3k. Plus, you can use glide and that = fast UT :)

V3's are good cards, it's people who haven't used em who moan about pic quality blah blah... they are speakin balls IMO.

The latest drivers with alpha blending do wonders for 16bit image quality. Bit like simulated 32bit and banding is minimal.

>>Other avenues to look at are V5 if you need glide, ATi Rage Fury Maxx if you want to play games and watch top quality DVD, or possibly a savage 2000 if they turn out to be any cop.

R.F Maxx is slow for what it is and ATI make utter shite drivers. Steer clear. Savage 2k - cheap now but some people moan of funny image quality... not sure bout that card.

>>BTW speaking of ATi, check out the previews for Radeon 256. If what they are promising is true, Geforce 2 is looking a bit pathetic imo.

Yea, but it ain't out till august :( Kinda puts it out of reach.

>>G400 MAX.....nice card, and shit hot if you want to run D3D stuff. Otherwise Id give it a bit of a miss.

GeForce DDR is still faster and only 20 squid more.

Did I mention I is a hardware guru and overclocking genius? No? Well, I am. Ask anyone :)
 
O

old.TUG

Guest
Overclockin' the V3? As Ali G would say - 'peece a piss!' :)

All you need is a proggie called 'Gary Peterson's V3 Overclocker' probably available from www.3dfxgamers.com or www.3dfiles.com (or some other hardware site)

Run it, choose wot card you have (so it sets the proper default speed) then overclock it bit by bit till it starts fucking up ;)

Fan cards certainly help - try ya local pooter fair or www.clockspeed.co.uk (0wned by meh!)

V3 3k you have? 183MHz easy - thats V3 3500 speed.

Not bad for nowt eh? ;)
 
Y

~YuckFou~

Guest
Thx doood,
Checking for the software now. I've got one of those isa slot fan cards sitting right next to the agp voodoo sucking it cool :), that what you mean?


~YuckFou~
 
Y

~YuckFou~

Guest
Same thing exactly, and its right next to to Voodoo.
If I go over 183Mhz does it fuck the card or do you just have to turn it down again?

~YuckFou~
 
O

old.TUG

Guest
Nah it won't fuck the card :)

OC till you get image artefacts, then knock it down a bit till it's fine...

should be good for 183 at least... maybe upto 200 :)

Just make sure u got the fan turned on whe overclockin the bugger - they cook ace! :)
 
O

old.TUG

Guest
Why? PIII's (coppermines anyway) are quicker for gaming.

About 100 reviews come to the same conclusion.
 
O

old.Necro

Guest
Unless you take 2D very seriously (Matrox have always been good in this area), then the G400max is really a bit dated. Get a GeForce instead.

Otherwise, looks nice.. :)
 
Y

~YuckFou~

Guest
TUG, thx for the tips dood, owe ya a pint. Looking at the performance increases though its like 5/10%, ya reckon its worth doing?


~YuckFou~
 
O

old.Mikey

Guest
I'm after quality and the performance of the G400MAX can't be that bad with games. I'll be playing Half Life to start with, I've been out of the gaming market for about 6 months so have noo idea what is around at the moment. I realise the GeForce is quicker, but the quality issue and I've heard that there are probs with the Abit BH6 and the GeForce.

I'm staying with Intel as I've got a perfectly good computer otherwise and I'm not willing to spend money on m/bs etc.

Mikey out!!!

Mikey out!!

------------------
Remember!

Don't Take Life Too Seriously! :D
 
O

old.TUG

Guest
Ok. Well, lets just say the G400MAX will not cope with the next gen of games.

Put simply, a DDR GeForce is twice as fast in Q3 than a G400MAX - thats a BIG difference.

If you have a fast CPU, you have gotta make it worthwhile by having a fast vid card... I mean a celly 450 + DDR GeForce would easily out do an athlon/PIII 700 with a G400 MAX.

DDR geforces have good image quality - one of the best. Plus, they can run basically every game out in 32bit smoothly.

Your choice at the end of the day... but I think you'd be wasting money on a G400... It's a shame to see ppl wasting money.
 
O

old.TUG

Guest
Sure it is :)

It ain't gonna do no harm at all if you have that fan card running...

I overclock all my CPU's and vid cards, any performance increase is worth it as long as it's a stable overclock :D

I mean - I'll soon be selling little celeron II 566's @ 952MHz (when a supplier in the UK actually gets em in). I'll guarantee em to be stable for 1 yr @ an overclocked speed - simply because I *know* they won't fuck up :)
 
O

old.Mikey

Guest
Ok Tug I'll look into the Creative DDR GeForce. Either way I NEED a new graphics card!!!


Mikey out!!

------------------
Remember!

Don't Take Life Too Seriously! :D
 
S

stu

Guest
Mikey

There are NO "compatibility" problems with Abit Motherboards and GeForce's. In fact, of all the different makes, Abits seem to cope with the chipset the best.

What there IS is a power issue. Basically, a lot of the problems with GeForce come from the fact that it sucks up a LOT of power. Some motherboards have problems supplying it.

I got an Abit BE6-II and a Creative Annihilator DDR. Fine in Q2, but got flickering and lockups in Q3 and other games. Swapped it for a Prophet DDR DVI, same result.

Seems that the board wasn't giving the card enough power. All I needed to do was increase the I/O (not the core) voltage from the BIOS (piece of piss with Abit Softmenu) by 0.1v, and it worked fine. LOADS of other people have done this. It does not damage your puter in any way shape or form.

I'm VERY happy with my Geforce. In my machine (Coppermine 550E, running standard - can't be arsed to clock it, basically) I get a handy 120fps in Q2 at 1024x768. I don't remember what I got in Q3 (deleted it, hate the game), but it was smooth as silk in 1024x768 with full options on and 32bit colour. Basically, with this card, your graphics will no longer be the bottleneck - your internet connection will.

The only other problem is that the graphics in some games (notably Q2 and Q2-derived engines, like Half Life) can be very dark - these can easily be fixed with config settings though, and the end result is a much richer and cleaner palette than the rather washed-out 3DFX look.

My friend bought an identical machine, but with a V3, and gets about half the FPS I do.
 
O

old.MeddlE

Guest
Does anyone like Q3? Actually, that sounds like a new topic.
 
O

old.Cornholio

Guest
No I did not like Q3 really.... the overall feel of the game was pants... all the geeky futuristic type bollox that started to piss me off in about 2 secs! And the shite sound fx's... Almost as shite as UT!!

heheheh

I was impressed however with the engine.. nice... I hope that the mods that come out for it will be better than the normal game!
 
O

old.TUG

Guest
You're right about sometimes having the need to increase the I/O voltage on some Abit boards stu... For some reason, my Abit BM6 defaults the I/O to 3.58v which is a fair whack over standard :) Suffice to say me DDR GeForce runs fine.

Stu m8! Overclock ya friggin CPU - it would do 733 sooo damn easily - if you reckon your CPU could burn out I wouldn't be too worried cuz it wouldn't happen :) Get a good CPU cooler and you will have no probs - geforces can take 89MHz AGP bus speeds with ease at 133MHz FSB.

Wow even my celeron 366@578 can get 140fps in demo1.dm2 and demo2.dm2 with everything on @ 1024*768...

But me geforce is overclocked aswell (to 140/340)

I have seen DDR GeForce's (creatives) in OEM guise for a tiny 135 squid - bargain! :)
 
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