Upgrade vid-card for online gaming

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Newbie Question

I apologize for posting such an obvious newbie question, but even after sifting through the archives and doing some research, I feel lost. I have no idea what some of these specification mean and, more importantly, which will matter to me.

I'm looking to enhance my on-line gaming experience (Counter-Strike and C&C Renegade, mostly). I would like to put a 3D graphics accelerator in my machine - a Dell Precision running a PIII @ 866MHz, 128M RAM.

I have never upgraded a video card before and really don't think that I have a need for the latest and greatest. What I would like to find is a good upgrade from the resident NVIDIA TNT2 Pro 16 MB 4XAGP for a good price.

Basically, I need a budget card and would like to spend the least amount of money while still getting some bang for my buck.

Any suggestions in the price range of $99.00 or lower? Will I even get noticeable results for that kind of money?

Thanks in advance for your help.

-Jon
 
With your setup, you could upgrade to a Radeon 7500 for a mere 84$ ( TechSpot PriceGrabber ).

With that you'll be all set to improve your performance on CS & the likes.

For newer games, that card will still be pretty good but you'll need to upgrade your ram to 256mb to really be comfortable.
 
Welcome Jon,

I agree with Uncleel: the GF4 MX420 is a heck of a card for $70! I'm very tempted to get one myself, but with the recent developments in vid cards: I'm going to try to wait 'til the price comes down a little more. ;) [hope, hope]

If you can wait a month or so, I *think* the GF4 Ti4200 will be in your (& my) price range. Might even see the Ti4400's ~$100! :grinthumb

That MX420 is awfully tempting for $70 tho'. I notice prices on the ATI 8500's are starting to come down too. :D

Theoretically: the higher the #'s (250mhz vs 200mhz) the faster/better the card. Cards w/DDR Ram are slightly faster than SDRAM cards & more Ram (32 vs 64 vs128) allows for more 'storage' of info on the card (cuts down on accessing the hard drive as often). Some 64mb cards are 'faster' than the 128's tho'. The 128's are designed for the next generation of games, IMHO.

HTH,
 
as always, i like voodoo more than any other video card....huh? is it dead? damn, ok, ar.... ATI is not bad.

[IMO]
ATI = quality + speed
Nvidia = raw speed

there's no point running CS at 100fps cap while can't see a person hide in the dark place, or everything doesn't look as good as it can be.

i have a voodoo5 and a ATI 8500.
the voodoo5 has the best visual quality, but i can't keep saying to myself to wait for the next voodoo6 right?
so i got a ATI 8500. the speed is much faster, but the quality is not as good as voodoo.
last week, LAN, i compair my ATI to my friend's Geforce4 Ti4200.
the Geforce's speed is a little bit faster, but ATI does look better.
but ofcoz, many people love the nvidia cards for the speed.
[/IMO]

anyways, my suggestion to you is to get a ATI 7500
 
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