planning on purchasing a 3d card, need suggestions.

[Guest Tom punkrawk]

I just went to some computer stores and was looking at 3d cards,at the moment I have some genaric thing.But I've been told The TNT2 was pretty good,as well as the Voodoo3.Today I saw the TNT2 for $109.95 and the Voodoo3 for $149.95.

So, I'm just wondering which I should get, any suggestions??

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We ain't got no place to go,let's go to a punk rawk show

[Doug Beman]

Tom, check out some review websites.

Gamespot.com has stuff on vid cards, but their site appears to be whacky as of 11/10 8pm EST.

sharkyextreme.com also has good insights:

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/hardware_video.shtml

Also, zip down to the local liberry and sift through PC games mags from the last couple months.

Personal preference, money no object: A card based on that new GeForce chip. It's the first consumer GPU (graphics processing unit) and completes the task of removing ALL graphics calculations from the CPU and allows that ol' Pentium/AMD/Dorito chip to concentrate on things like physics and AI (all the better to lose to!)

Personal preference, as my budget stands: Diamond ViperV700 Ultra TNT2. It supports real 32-bit color (not important yet, but will be about next June) and objects rendered with textures larger than 256x256 (again, important down the road when games begin appearing that have objects whose mapped-on textures are larger than 256x256)

'Course, working for an international computer-stuff reseller means I can get this sorta stuff at dealer cost. Some aspects of my life are pleasant.

DjB

[Pak40]

Arn't the new gforce cards using the AGP 4x slot? not the old regular AGP slot

[Guest Madmatt]

In short..NO.. The GeForce cards WILL work fine in any existing AGP slot. The 'capability' for 4x AGP transfer compatablity is there (in software at least as indicated by the latest Beta build drivers) but there has been alot of discussion regarding its correct implimentation and wheter or not the current drivers 'truely' use the extra bandwidth provided by the 4x ports correctly. It is all really a moot point however as there are aren't any 4x AGP slot equiped Motherboards out yet (very very soon though). 4x AGP slots are a feature of the new Intel i840 Chipset (see "http://developer.intel.com/design/chipsets/840/index.htm?iid=devspot+840cs&" for details) which was just recently released (after months and months and months of delays! )

Ok techno babble mode off...Here is the skinny...A GeForce256 card (i.e. the Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator) will work in ANY AGP equiped motherboard.

Madmatt out...for now...

p.s. However there ARE some serious issues regarding GeForce cards and AMD Athlon processors see:http://www.riva3d.com/#703 if interested in this saga of woe...

[This message has been edited by Madmatt (edited 11-11-99).]

[Renaud]

Tom,

If you only have a PCI slot and no AGP slot in your motherboard I recommend the Voodoo3 2000 PCI if you can find it. Should be around $100 US. They also still make Voodoo2's for PCI which are well under $100. This will get the job done. If you have a AGP slot you might go for a Ultra TNT2 chipset card for the 32-bit colors and bigger textures. I doubt if the 32bit TNT2 vs 16bit V3-2000 will matter much for CM however.

The GeForce is really expensive right now so unless you are a hardcore 3d fps/flight sim gamer it's probably not worth the $$$. You would do better to drop $200-300 on a new processor motherboard combination if you are lagging in this dept.

-Ren