Buying videocard any surgestion

[Dawvgrid]

Am gonna buy a new videocard,so if you guys
got some advice,,,please let me know.
My present card is Ati rage 32mb,,,and I think it looses its breath,,,especially through the smoke clouds etc etc.
Ive got a Ati radeon 64 mb inmind,is this a totaol stupid choice????????

[Skuzzy]

The ATI Radeon 64MB DDR card is a good choice.  Several pilots are using them, from I have been able to tell.
I have one in my system and have had zero problems with it.  But I am running on Win98Se and have heard w2k performance is only fair.
I have not had the chance to load DX8 and the new drivers, but have read performance is improved and the w2k issues may have been resolved.

The overall performance of the Radeon 64MB card is slightly less that a GeForce2 GTS Pro 64MB card. which translates to a lot of bang for the buck.

You did not say what type of CPU/speed you have, but you really need at least a 800EB processor or faster to push this card and an AGP bus speed of 4X.  4X AGP speed does not double your performance over 2X, but it does get you about a 20% improvement in frame rates, if you have a CPU that is fast enough.

You might want to look at this write up I did about installation and replacement of video cards: http://www.benchdata.com/hints/install.html

Hope this helps.

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Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp.
http://www.applink.net
skuzzy@applink.net

[Dawvgrid]

Thanks Skuzzy
Now I Just have to buy a new cpu also(your fault hehe)

[Skuzzy]

Just to give you an idea of the potential difference the speed of the CPU can make, here is a link to some data which may help. http://www.benchdata.com/ati_radeon_64/32bit/index.html

Hope that helps too.

------------------
Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp.
http://www.applink.net
skuzzy@applink.net

[Dawvgrid]

Thanks again Skuzzy,,,You`ve been a great help..................by the way,,,,,,,,can you lend me some money???

[Dawvgrid]

Thanks again Skuzzy,,,You`ve been a great help.

cya

[Skuzzy]

 

Originally posted by Dawvgrid:
Thanks again Skuzzy,,,You`ve been a great help..................by the way,,,,,,,,can you lend me some money???

Sure, but if your banks are anything like mine,.....they really look at ya funny when ya throw the monopoly money on the counter and ask for a deposit slip  .


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Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp.
http://www.applink.net
skuzzy@applink.net

[Nemo]

Skuzzy, you said that a Radeon 64 needs 800mz agpx4 to work well...What about a 500mz PIII with agpx2.  I now have a Voodoo3 16m card and I get 40-50 fps, 10-15 in the smoke.  What card do you recomend for my "slow" cpu?  And would..say a 32m card improve my slow fps in the smoke enough to justify buying one?  Or do I just need to trash it all and start over?   With all the 64m cards out now, it seems like I seen some really good deals on 32m cards.  Seems like I'm always upgrading just behind the cutting edge, but I just want about 10 more fps in the smoke in Aces High, and I'll be happy

[Skuzzy]

You misunderstood what I was saying Nemo.  To get the most out of the card you need an 800+ MHz CPU.
It does not mean a slower CPU won't see an improvement, it just means that the delat of improvement will be less for a slower CPU than a faster CPU.
To get an idea of what I mean, look at this link: http://www.benchdata.com/ati_radeon_64/32bit/

In there you can see a graphical representation of the potential gains a faster CPU will give you.
My comparisons between AGP2X and AGP4X buses show about a 20-25% reduction in frame rates using the AGP2X bus over the AGP4X bus.  This reduction is only a potential reduction as the governing factor will be the software running on the system (i.e. a game with a lot of data to move around would benefit).
HTC has designed AH to run on lesser video cards, so the potential gain from 2X to 4X is probably pretty insignificant.

Does that help?

------------------
Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp.
http://www.applink.net
skuzzy@applink.net