Well, new videocard here

[Morety]

2 nights ago I would be on for about 3 minutes before getting the worst damn graphics bug ever. Was like the old days graphics bug that would make you re-log, but about 10 times worse. I'll post a screenie later.

After consulting my personal computer technician (Dape) it worked the rest of the night after I pulled the vidcard out of the mobo and reinstalled it.

Then last night, same damn thing 2 logins in a row. The second time I got bluescreened, and it said something about the nvid_mini.sys, which is a video driver for my Ti4600.

Well, it's 7:45 and the stores are still open. Instead of screwing around I ran out and got an ATI9800pro. Installed it and now it works.

Damn I'm glad it was the videocard, kind of an expensive supposition if it were the mobo instead ;) Anyways, here's to hoping I don't see any of them graphic glitches for a looooong time.

[YarrThePirate]

I hate you mo.

[Rooster]

I got a 9800 Pro a week or so ago..

OMG.. it's awesome.

I can run any game at 1600x1200.. or 1280x1024 and crank up the FSAA and/or AA. I get almost 18000 on 3DMark2001. :p

[Hammer]

Hmm, I have been running TI4600 for a long time now with no problems. Of course, that doesn't help you any.

[Figtoria]

I bought an ATI 9500 Pro about a year ago and have been very happy with it. Never notice it's there - which is to me- the mark of a great video card.

[PoxTheSmall]

My wife vetoed anything more than $100, so I was forced to go out and get a Geforce 4 5200 128. It only cost around $50, so I felt pretty good about the purchase.

[Rooster]

Except that there is no GF4 5200.. It's a GeForce FX5200.. and it's slower than a GeForce3 (3 year old card?).. BY A LARGE margin

[PoxTheSmall]

You're right, it is the FX5200...but it's not slower than my old GeForce 3 though, as the GeForce 3 was the worst POS ever on the face of the planet (it was even unsupported by Nvidia).

[Canidae]

*sighs at Roo*

[spyder913]

but the 5200 is DX9 so he'll get more tricks

[Rooster]

Uh.. yeah, at 10fps.

GeForce3 not supported? wtf are you smoking? Runs great on wife's computer - and ran fine in mine for a while.

Sorry hun. :(

[Boom]

So if i decide to upgrade from my geforce 4200 I should get the ati 9800? That the best bang for the buck these days? Is it enough better to be worth it, or is geforce 4200 still decent these days.

[Figtoria]

Pox, it's a perfectly okay card - don't listen to Rooster - he's a big meanie. We sell lots of that baby and people seem to really like it.

Booom - if you have the $$$ - buy the 9800 Pro.

It makes me drool...

:cheese:

[PoxTheSmall]

Let me put it this way, my Geforce 3 would basically lag to a stand still when I was in a high detailed area (underwater) in DAoC. Now with this new card, I don't have horrible FPS type performance like I did before, which is a much nicer thing for me :)

[spyder913]

boom if you want to spend less, get a 9700 pro. it can probably be found under 200 now

[Morety]

I love how whenever Boom is thinkin about buying something, he posts about it and hums and hah's for about a month or so.

Then there's me who goes to the porch for a smoke, and decides 'think I'll get a vidcard', hops in the car and grabs one. :D

Here's what I was looking at:

[Coplann]

dont use detonator 52.XX. Use 53.03.

With 52.XX my framerate would drop to zero and my cpu would be so overextended that I could type /q and it would take at least a minute to execute it.

[Coplann]

if you cant fix it with the better driver (also update VIA4in1 if you on VIA boards) then check the usually IRQ-conflict and BIOS stuff. then check D3D settings etc.

in doubt bring the card back (my first Rad8500 had lock ups and gfx errors in DAoC too, all other games were fine tho, I sent it back in, got a new one and it worked).

[Morety]

That graphic was from my Ti4600, and the reason I got a radeon. I had the 5303's in it, tried a couple of different versions of drivers, nothing was working.

So far so good with the Radeon. I think the 4600 just bit the dust is all.

[Rooster]

The Radeon 9700 Pro is probably the most bang for the buck.

And Figgy, I've seen the 5200 run and tested and it really shouldn't be allowed to be sold.

Everyone here knows I'll tell them my honest, professional & personal opinion on hardware regardless of who it is. I take great pride in knowing hardware inside out and keeping up on what's a good deal and what's not.

I wasn't trying to be mean in any way -- just a little ... brusque I guess. To help drive home the point without using 4 letter words. :)

Oh, here's a link that actually compares the two (amongst 78 others); http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/over2003/#p22

In no way do I think this guy has a clue on how to benchmark video cards, but - at least he's consistent (persistent?). You'll find that a GeForce3 Ti200 (underpowered GF3) actually performs better in most cases than a GeForce FX5200. (in cases where the 5200 is faster, it's by about 3fps).

Pretty sad IMnsHO.

[Boom]

Hehehe, wish I could argue with you Mo, but you got me.

I think it all stems from my very first upgrade. When yall told me that 8fps in UT wasn't good I ran out and got a voodoo3 card. About a week later the company went out of business. Now I scared to buy stuffs.

Daoc on unsupported voodoo3 card was a pita. I had to walk backwards into ardee or I would crash.

[Rooster]

HAHA

Radeon's rock.

nVidia can't do AntiAliasing right with the FX hardware. (they lose too much quality.. and isn't that really the whole point?)

[Coplann]

the only thing GFX cards cant do is 24 Bit processing. its either 16 bit or 32 bit.

radeon runs 24 bit so is a tad faster here and there.

but price/power nothing beats my Gainward Golden Sample

[el Gato]

I was lucky enough to get a 9600np for $90AR on Black Friday from Best Buy. Or maybe it was stupidity as I waited in line for 3 hours. :bang: :fuct:

But like Pox, it was all about getting the best bang for the budget and being happy. :yes: :)

[PoxTheSmall]

What would you all recommend though, as being the minimum for TOA without experiencing horrible constant lag that leads to LD? My 5200 seems to lag still as did my Gforce 3. I have a Pentium 2.4 with 512 megs of RAM and a Gforce 5200 card atm. I dont know if I'm having hardware conflicts though.

[Rooster]

GF3 > FX5200

Pick up a Radeon 9600 non-pro if you can find it.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-289&depa=0

$112, shipped.

It'll be real good. Promise.

[Rooster]

the only thing GFX cards cant do is 24 Bit processing. its either 16 bit or 32 bit.

radeon runs 24 bit so is a tad faster here and there.

but price/power nothing beats my Gainward Golden SampleIt's not so much a matter of WHAT they do, as HOW they do it... it's a sloppy implementation.

[Grundy]

Ali and I running GeForce 4400. In trying to break the daoc addiction we decided not to upgrade our computers so we are running on 700mhz machines. But alas the addiction is back and the machines now feel like they are limiting our gaming enjoyment. I actually play on a 15 in screen too.

What is the current spec? would 3 ghz with 1 gig ram hold up for another year?

Buy vs build is almost a wash these days. Rebuilding my current system with 17 lcd ($400), 3 ghz mobo ($440), gig ddr ram ($160), 200gig disk ($100) , dvd ($150) and xp upgrade ($100) is $1350 while the Dell 8300 with a gig ram is $1500.

[PoxTheSmall]

I'll try to sneak that past the wife. She's kill me if I got another card right away, after buying one 2 weeks ago and all...but if I can somehow not deposit $100 on the next paycheck and do something sneaky :)

[Hammer]

I bought Neha one of the lower end dells about 6 months ago and it seems to run SI just fine. It's just a p2.4 256/geforce 5200(128) Around $900 I think?? Not completely sure about the gfx card there. Bottom line is that if you buy anything close to there top of the line machine you should be golden. I'd have to take Roo's word on the gfx card since I haven't upgraded in a while, but I have needed too. Never really seen my TI4600 bog down. With DOAC it's always communications that seem to be the cause of my lag. In fact, I pretty frequently run 2 instances of SI/TOA on my main machine which is a Dell 8200.

[Rooster]

Ali and I running GeForce 4400. In trying to break the daoc addiction we decided not to upgrade our computers so we are running on 700mhz machines. But alas the addiction is back and the machines now feel like they are limiting our gaming enjoyment. I actually play on a 15 in screen too.

What is the current spec? would 3 ghz with 1 gig ram hold up for another year?

Buy vs build is almost a wash these days. Rebuilding my current system with 17 lcd ($400), 3 ghz mobo ($440), gig ddr ram ($160), 200gig disk ($100) , dvd ($150) and xp upgrade ($100) is $1350 while the Dell 8300 with a gig ram is $1500.Not to mention, the 8300 from Dell will be S_L_O_W. Their timings for memory are pitiful.

Btw, you could do a P4-2.8GHz (800MHz FSB w/HT) & ABIT IC7 (875 mobo).. = $300. But you'd want good memory, 1GB of PC3200 @ 2-6-3-3 = $185. It makes a big difference at these high speeds.

[Rooster]

Hammer said: "DOAC it's always communications that seem to be the cause of my lag."

You'd be surprised. BF1942 looks like network lag when the graphics are up too high (w/my GF4 4200)... then with the 9800Pro - it's all smoooooth.