is my video card bottlenecking the rest of my system?

[uhcm-9]

hello, all. I recently upgraded eveything except for my video card. I now have a

Intel P4 1.6
640mb DDR RAM
Win2k Pro
IBM Marlin motherboard(dunno if that makes sense/exists)
and...... a GeForce 2 MX400 64mb.

when i look around other websites i see people with comparable systems, save for the vid card, getting much better framerates than me. for example, I was playing America's Army yesterday and noticed my fps go down into the 17s as the draw distance increased. in inside environments my fps are usually smooth in most games(keep in mind i never go over 1024x768, my monitor sucks).

Is it my video card that's to blame for it?

 

[iss]

your G 2 mx400 is almost three generations behind the lates cards. and was a budget card even when it was new. it is also only a Direct X7 card.

you would see tremendous increase in performance with a Radeon 9500 Pro or a G 4 Ti4200.

in fact if you wanted to stay in the budget category you would still see a big leap in performance even going with a Radeon 9000 Pro.

 

[SNGX1275]

Yep, its your video card all right. Upgrade it to a GF4 or a Radeon anything above 7500 and you will see big increase. There are many threads you can check out in this forum on what cards are best under circumstances such as your other hardware and what you can afford.

 

[Vehementi]

The best card you could get concerning price vs. performance right now would be the 9500 Pro, IMHO. nVIDIA isn't doing very well in these days. They neither have the top spot, the middle spot nor the budget spot. Most of their cards are horribly overpriced, and a cheaper ATi card can very possibly offer alot higher performance.

 

[uhcm-9]

oh, good. i'm very glad to hear my nice new system doesn't mysteriously suck.

i have my eye on a Radeon 9500 pro. it's a bit pricey for me, but it sounds like i'll be saving money in the long run by not having to upgrade for a few years.

btw, is the 25$ between a 9500 pro and a 9500 worth it?

 

[iss]

yes the cost difference between the 9500 and the 9500 pro is worth it. but you can look for yourself.


http://www.xbitlabs.com/video/radeon9500-9700/

 

[Vehementi]

I second that, iss.

 

[uhcm-9]

thanks for the link. it's mostly greek to me, but i got a few things out of it.

thank you all for your help. 9500 Pro, here i come...

 

[hdmk]

Except if you get the radeon 9500 [non-pro], you can change it to a Radeon 9700 [again, non-pro] using software [RivaTuner].

The radon 9700 is faster [about 1000 3dmarks faster] than the Radeon 9500 Pro. You know which one to go for now ...

 

[JSR]

yes

it is the card.............things will get worse as games get more demanding...stay away from radeon...problems..........good g4 tis cheap......or the fx is coming......either way

 

[NV30]

Yup, that would be a huge bottleneck. I have a system comparable to yours but with SDRAM, I upgraded to a GF 4 Ti4200 and frames almost tripled, not to mention a 3d mark score 6X higher!

 

[uhcm-9]

wow, FPS tripled? that's awesome.

now, about the 9500... i can overclock it to the power of the 9700? is that safe? are you sure? sounds like quite a deal.

oh, and getting a radeon will mean problems in the future?

jeez, this video card bussiness is complicated.

thanks again to anyone who's helping me out

 

[young&wild]

The drivers for Radeon are getting better lately, i see no reason why radeon will be having ptoblems in the future provided they slack in the drivers area.

 

[BetaNu961]

I just snagged a 9500 Pro and I instantly fell in love with it. My old card was a Hercules 3D Prophet II MX so this is definitely a huge difference.