olefarte said:
Tweak420, I keep reading this thread and trying to think of a way to help, but you only say that certain cards are not compatable. Are you just looking at the list of compatable cards from your manufacturer? I looked at that list, and it's pretty old.
As far as I know, and someone jump in here if I'm wrong, you probably have an AGP 2.0 slot for 2X,4X AGP at 1.5 volts. So I think any of the newer AGP, note AGP, cards should work, depending on other things, such as a large enough power supply. I have a 4X AGP 2.0 slot and a brand new BFG 6800GT OC and it works just fine. To back up what I said, here's a quote from nVidia.
And I also wouldn't buy anthing less than a 128 MB card. Most all of the newer games are ever more demanding, and you need at least that much, as long as you can afford it.
As far as an earlier statement about a older $100 card being as good as a new $500 card, that's just not so. The improvements in graphics cards in the last two years has gone by leaps and bounds. Is this $500 card 25% better? No, it's probably more like 50% or more. Even the lower end cards in the new lines are a whole lot better.
The two cards you mention in your last post are probably pretty good choices. But if you could afford just a little bit more, your choices open up a lot more.
Its the age old debate over who has the bigger unit
Cost v.s performance.
Yes Oldfart is right a 100$ card is definatly inferior to a 500$ card.
128 meg is the standard on todays vid cards as well.
However if you can play a Fps game and get 80-100 frames/second- this is good ..yes? How much are you willing to spend to achive this? I have a Radeon 9700 in my gaming rig. I play soldier of fortune 2. Among others.
I can crank the AA and AF so everything is rendered beautifully - in the game i can adjust the quality fx settings such as blood -gore -shell ejection etc...to make it more or less visual appealing. At the cost of my gpu working hard. But thats what i bought it for. On the flip side.
The human eye can only see at 30 or so frames a second anyway so who cares who many frames we get from a 200$ card or a 700$ card.
I have a Radeon X800- magnificent card. Renders everything so pretty.
When i loaded Soldier of fortune on it i cranked the AA/AF and jacked all the details up to maximum. I never noticed any difference from the 3 year old radeon to the brand new cutting edge radeon. I have felt the need to justify 400$ more on a card that outperforms it predecessors by a small % difference. We all do lol.
Real world Bench and synthetic Marks - should never be a direct reflection on a users decision to buy these massive voltage heat exhausting monsters. In addition to both nvidia and ati "altering driver software" notably the most recent jaw dropper - Futuremarks allegation against nvidia for driver optimization. So where does this leave the consumer - how and with whom do we decide to spend our hard earned money.?
If you can play a game with your 150$ card - run it at 80 fps and rendering/gameplay is nice - no artifacting- beautiful. you just saved yourself 350 bucks. Granted the newer cards are a % mark better no matter if its 25 or 50 % ...peanuts. Is it worth the cost for this performance boost that you wouldnt prob never notice - especially from a direct X 8 rated game. Most of these games are getting older and are run on older engines. Not until DX9 games will u begin to notice a diff in game quality, Doom 3 can be played on a 3 year old ATI Radeon at 8X600 res. -and still get 60 fps or so. This card is 3 years old.!
A new Radeon/Nvidia Card which costs astronomically more will let you play the game more to its potential. Yes. But- back to the point Cost. v.s Performance....
If you are using an 8x slot has a bandwidth of about 2.2GB/s. 4x has somewhere around half that. AGP 8x slots can utilize 8x gpu optimizations and the higher bandwidth and mathematical calulations per second. 4x slots cannot period. A geforce 6800 GT cannot use a 4X agp slot to its fullest potential. not even close. It would be like dropping a Hemi Cuda engine in a K- Car or Chevette. This is Massive bottlenecking at its finest.
I saw a little bit- (little bit) of an increase in my video cards performance when i got my new motherboard., but that could be from a faster chip I dropped in there..
You will find that everybody has an opinion when it comes to hardware/software in todays rapidly changing enviornment. Just like anything else go with what you and your budget are comfterable with. There is no right and wrong- just dollars and Sense