guys I need a kick bellybutton video card. which one is the one?

[Citabria]

i dinae.
computer is getting outdated and my voodoo 3 3000 16 bit looks like vomit when playing aces high especially at twilight  


my computer is low end at that too.

p3 550mhz
256mb ram
asus p2b mb not sure what speed agp 2x or 4x  

[hazed-]

cit ive always upgraded and built my own systems and ive not done too bad with each upgrade.If you give me a budget ill suggest the best motherboard/processor upgrade and give you a breif rundown on some of the best buys ive come accross  

my last upgrade was about 4 months ago. an abit Ka7a-raid mobo with 900 athlon thunderbird with a GF2 MX dual display (because i found it £30 cheaper ).the whole upgrade cost me about a 1/3rd of what it would have had i bought it from a main dealer that sells the whole systems.  

if you havent built your own system dont be put off by thinking its difficult.When you put them together its very hard to break anything.If you make a mistake with connections etc it generally just doesnt boot.so you fiddle around and try again.Its fun generally and you learn a lot  

like i said give me a ball park figure you have to spend and ill give you some suggestions.

[Bodhi]

Like Hazed, I build my own systems too.  I am running the equivalent of a P3 750 w/ 256meg of ram.  The kicker is that I have a Diamond Stealth III S540 4xAGP w/ 32 meg of RAM.  Who would have figured, but it works great for me!

[2Late4U]

Originally posted by Citabria:


p3 550mhz
256mb ram
asus p2b mb not sure what speed agp 2x or 4x    

Based on your puter, I'd recomend either a lower end Gforce2 or Radeon 32 meg card.  Your not going to get much benifit from a faster card, and either can be had for $150 or so if you shop around.

I personally have a Radeon 64 DDR VIVO ($200), and it looks great and runs at nice frame rates at 1600x1200 32bit on my Athlon 600.  I think the Gforce may be a better value for you though, depending on what features you need.  I got the Radeon because I need video in and it was a return so I got it for $175 with a 30 rebate....still looking for a stick to beat that one with  

[bloom25]

Geforce 2 GTS.  A 32 Mb version will be plenty.

[Busher]

I agree but the 64Mg Gforce is even better. shud come with DDR. Gives 70 odd fps on my 900 athalon at 1600x1200 Res.

Good luck

[Gunslayer]

Citabria, I think all of these guy have missed the point. TO me it sounds like you want to know which video card is the baddest of the bad. Right now that is the Geforce 3. It is the fastest consumer card on the planet hands down. And it is certain to not be outdated in 6 months, as games that are optimized to use its features are jsut now out. Anyway my 2 cents.

[Sancho]

I gotta agree with Gunslayer about the GeForce 3--preferably teamed up with an Athlon 1 GHz or better.  

I've seen Aces High on a 1.2 GHz TBird system with GeForce3 (not mine, sadly), and it played 1600x1200x32 super smooth--usually was in the 80s or 90s and never dropped below 49 FPS in the worst conditions.  I wanted to see what she'd do at 1920x1440 resolution but the monitor my friend was using maxed out at 1600.

[Swoop]

Cit, take a look at the Asus V7700 GF2 GTS.

I get 85FPS in 32bit 16x12.

 

[~Caligula~]

I have a GeForceII Ultra made by Hercules
with 1.2 thunderbird and 512mb RAM
Game runs great 40-50 fps set to high quality settings at 1024x768x32.
With settings for speed it ran at 120-130 fps ,72 fps in smoke.
   

[ 06-08-2001: Message edited by: ~Caligula~ ]

[mudder]

Even though you don't need a better vid card to shoot me down multiple times in one sortie, I would recommend a GForce GTS 32mg. They are coming down in price. Creative makes a good one

[Gunslayer]

Once again guys read the thread title. Cit wants to know what the best vid card is. Not the best for the price.

[tshred]

Yes Gunslayer, but unless he intends to upgrade his CPU and MoBo, the most expensive, baddest video card is not necessary.

Cit, check out this webpage
 www.tomshardware.com

I've used his advice for building my own and freinds computers for 4 years, great place for hardware info.
 www.pricewatch.com  for the best prices.

ts

[Nethawk]

I agree with the other posters - GeForce2 GTS 32mb is the best card for your current system.

GeForce3 is the best out there, but realistically not a lot of software is developed yet to take advantage of its improvements over the GeForce2.

I also heartily agree that building your own system is the way to go.  I've been building my own since about 1993.  It is very therapeutic, it makes you more familiar with your system, and you can be assured that the final product has the best components.  It provides for a much easier path in upgrading individual components as time and technology allow.  You can also often find people less involved in the "lastest and best" to cheaply sell your own components to, which cuts down on upgrade costs.  Many of the Musketeers have built their own systems in the last four months - most of them had never done so before and were skeptical, but the more experienced members of our squad coached them through the process.  They are all extremely happy with their systems.

Citabria, if you need any help or advice, please email me and I would be happy to oblige.

Nethawk

[Gunslayer]

I have to disagree again. There is an old saying in the computer building business. "Buy the best you can afford now." The reason you do this is because if the older the stuff is that you buy , the sooner it will be outdated. Video cards are no exception. While the geforce 2 is a great card, it will be outdated within the next six months. The Geforce 3 is faster than any geforce 2 card, particularly with FSAA on or at higher resolutions. And the Geforce 3 has another good year to year and a half before it becomes obsolete.

And once again let me point to the title of the thread "Guys i need a kick prettythang video card, which is the one?" I didn't think  that mean "Hey guys which is the best video card for a guy on a budget with an old system?"

Geforce 3 is the baddest MO on the block right now, thats what the question was.