Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: geistx on October 23, 2001, 08:10:00 AM

Title: which GeForce card?
Post by: geistx on October 23, 2001, 08:10:00 AM

I mistakenly posted this under Tech Support, when it should have been here.   :p

 I implore the AH community to help me decide on a good video card. My budget is $150 or less. I recently purchased a P4 bare bones system (1.7Ghz, ASUS P4B Mobo, 256MB of RAM) and I am looking for a good AGP 1.5v 4x compatible video card. I hear a lot of people say a lot of good things about GeForce 2 cards and doing some basic research at CompUSA's site the GeForce 2s fall within my price range, but there are many kinds, which one do I choose?

VisionTek (I hear a lot of good about VisionTek)
GeForce2 MX Video Card, AGP, 64MB
GeForce2 MX200 Video Card, AGP, 32MB GeForce2 MX200 Video Card, AGP, 32MB
XTasy 5864 GeForce2 TI Video Card, AGP, 64MB

PNY
Verto GeForce2 MX400 Video Card, AGP, 64MB Verto GeForce2 MX400 Video Card, PCI, 64MB Verto GeForce2-MX200 Video Card, AGP, 32MB Verto GeForce2-Ti Video Card, AGP, 64MB

Shuttle Computer Group
GeForce2 MX200, AGP, 32MB
GeForce2 MX400, AGP, 32MB

My old system had a Voodoo 5500 which was a great video card, but 3dfx went under and the 5500 isn't P4 mobo compatible (can't do 1.5v or so the message boards say, which sux royally).

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
 :

Title: which GeForce card?
Post by: dracken1 on October 23, 2001, 08:24:00 AM

i use a creative labs gf2mx pci. i chose pci rather than agp as there are sometimes conflicts with agp and ali chipsets and amd cpu's i run a 1ghz amd and i get 98fps in ideal conditions in h2h arena and usually 40- 76 fps in the ma i see little point in spending more money updating to a gf3.

Title: which GeForce card?
Post by: aztec on October 23, 2001, 09:37:00 AM

dracken can you tell me more about this conflict between agp and AMD processors? I just built a new system:

ECS K7S5A Mobo
1.4 gig T.Bird
512megs DDR
SB Live
Visiontek GeForce2 Ultra
Windows ME


Right off the bat I had trouble with the vid, I was getting horizontal lines spiking across my monitor that seemed to be in sync with the refresh. This began immediatly with the vga drivers during the 1st boot up and continued after installing the stock drivers, (12.41). Installed 98se, (twice)and a multitude of other things to no avail. I had this spiking during boot up, desktop and all apps and games.

I ended up reinstalling my old STB Velocity 4400, TNT card and the spiking is gone. Have sent the Ultra back for a replacement...sure hope it was just a defective one.

Title: which GeForce card?
Post by: mrsid2 on October 23, 2001, 09:43:00 AM

There are no conflicts with AMD CPU's and AGP buses. Only problems may be with certain motherboard chipsets and even they are usually related more to soundblaster live and/or acpi.

You can buy any AGP videocard to your new AMD cpu / mobo combo without laying another thought, rest assured.

I have geforce2 mx200 in agp port and I get 40-75fps in MA. (1024x768x32 no FSAA, vsync on)

Title: which GeForce card?
Post by: Swager on October 23, 2001, 11:36:00 AM

Geist,

Look at Newegg.com.  Check the MSI GeForce2 PRO 64M.  About $120.

Good Luck

Title: which GeForce card?
Post by: dracken1 on October 23, 2001, 01:00:00 PM

dracken can you tell me more about this conflict between agp and AMD processors? I just built a new system:
mr ripley is correct.but there were some probs with agp and ali chipsets and since you need special software to notice the difference in performance between pci and agp i played safe and went for a pci card.
i have a gf2 agp card but my fps say the same as pci

Title: which GeForce card?
Post by: Maverick on October 23, 2001, 02:00:00 PM

Geistx,

I have that PNY GeForce card here. Got it at Best buy for $90.00. Easy to install and upgdated the drivers very fast. No detectible problems in video and is faster than my old tweaked driver Voodoo 3 3000 in almost every game. I run about the top 50's to los 60's in FR in AH. Smoke at damaged field will drop them DRAMATICALLY to low teens.  :(

Mav

Title: which GeForce card?
Post by: Raubvogel on October 23, 2001, 04:57:00 PM

Newegg.com has Visiontek GF2 GTS cards for $79.

Title: which GeForce card?
Post by: Camel on October 23, 2001, 05:08:00 PM

www.mwave.com (http://www.mwave.com)  has a VisionTek xtasy Geforce2 Ti 200 for $127.00

Title: which GeForce card?
Post by: geistx on October 26, 2001, 08:47:00 AM

Thanks everyone!  I ended up trying the PNY Geforce2 MX-400 (on sale at CompUSA) because I needed a PCI version of the card (I could use AGP but I have one of those AGP 4x only mobos).

So far so good.  My fps is up in the 60-70 range when I ran Win98SE, and 50-60 with Win2k and set to best performance (30-40 when on best image).

Now I just need to tackle my sudden force feedback issues...