Recommendations for a 3d video card please

[Guest Thomas William Davie]

I'm looking for a good 3d video card to go into my next computer which I'll be picking up in about 8 weeks. I have very little use for a 3d accelerated card, but am aware that this is the future, so I've accepted that that's what I'm gonna end up with.

First, this is what I'm currently playing;

-Combat Mission beta demo

-West/East Front

-Starfleet Command

-Heroes of MIght and Magic 3

-Warlords 3: Darklords Rising

-Close Combat 2

And, in a short time, you can add The Rising Sun by Talonsoft, SP:WAW by TheGamers and Combat Mission by Bigtime.

Now, here's the problem. I will be running Windows 2000 on my new system since it is just plain a hell of a lot faster and more stable than Win 98/95. Apparently only 3d cards with an nVidia or 3dfx chipset are currently well supported, although I expect that to change in the near future.

I'm looking at; Voodoo 3 3500 AGP, Voodoo 4 or Voodoo 5, Diamond Viper 770. I'm aware of the difference between a PCI and an AGP card, but quite frankly don't think that this will have a big impact on me. I am of course open to any and all suggestions.

Thanks

Tom

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email address:

thodavie@videon.wave.ca

[Guest Mikeman]

Considering the games you play you might be quite happy with a Voodoo3 2000 for $70 or a Voodoo3 3000 for around $90. They may be even cheaper now. You're limited by these cards to 16 bit color but they're cheap and fast. The 2D is good too. Throw in a decent CPU and 128 mb ram and you'll be ripping right thru CM2 and the other games you like to play IMO.

Both cards are available in PCI and AGP. There's not a whole heckuva lot of difference in performance and no difference in price.

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Mikeman out.

[ChrisPick]

If money is no object, then for image quality and resolution, a GeForce 256 card may fit the bill. I swapped out a TNT2 ultra for the Hercules 3D prophet DDR, and was stunned by the increase in quality. I thought the TNT2 Ultra was excellent, but the difference is noticeable... Still, it's probably overkill for these games. The TNT2 is a great buy, like the Voodoo cards already mentioned (but with 32 bit colour...)

Cheers,

Chris

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Chris Pick

chris@chris-and-donna.com

[This message has been edited by ChrisPick (edited 01-31-2000).]

[Guest Ol' Blood & Guts]

I've personally have the 32 MB Diamond Viper V770 TNT2 Ultra card. It's got a whole slew of options to choose from on how it renders things. It also has a Brightness, Contrast, & Gamma setting (mislabeled) as "Color Correction"...go figure!

Like ChrisPick said, TNT2 Ultra does support 32-bit color. The main difference is that with 3Dfx cards, they tend to render a bit faster, but with limited color...For example, the game European Air war with its 256-color pallete has a new skin utility which allow retexturing, BUT...the skins have to be done for either 3Dfx or TNTs...the TNT versions are more vibrant of course.

[penubly]

I would recommend buying a name brand that is well known. I bought a guillemot TNT2 that consistently froze during CM, QIII, and Hidden & Dangerous. I found a Diamond V770 on a bargain rack for $99. It performs very well although the TNT2 is now one generation behind top-of-the-line.

[Guest Thomas William Davie]

Thanks for all of the replies guys, I appreciate them.

I should have said that my priorities are in the following order;

1) It must explicitly ship with Windows 2000 drivers OR they must be found on the Windows 2000 CD OR available for download prior to purchase.

2) Direct 3d compatible. I don't see this as a problem since I don't know of any cards now that aren't direct 3d compatible, but I could be wrong.

3) Glide/ Open GL compatible. This might be a moot point, since I really don't play any 3d games.

I've found that the new Voodoo 3&4, due out in March ship with W2000 drivers, and are capable of 32 bit colour at the highest resolution.

I'm no stranger to hacking (and prior to picking up a W2K sound card, I had to do some to get my 'legacy' sound card working), but would prefer to avoid it if possible due to extreme laziness.

Oh yeah, I should have added that I exist in Canada, so the 'low' prices some of you guys have quoted don't apply up here in this socialist workers paradise

Thanks again.

Tom

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email address:

thodavie@videon.wave.ca

[Hundminen]

Thomas:

I dunno much about pc's and operating systems, but I seem to recall Windows 2000 is NOT for home pc's or for gaming. It is evolved from Windows NT which doesn't even support Direct3d. NT is the anti-gamer system, and I would check into 2000 a little bit before deciding.

Oh, the horror!

Hundminen

[Compassion]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Hundminen:

I dunno much about pc's and operating systems, but I seem to recall Windows 2000 is NOT for home pc's or for gaming. It is evolved from Windows NT which doesn't even support Direct3d. NT is the anti-gamer system, and I would check into 2000 a little bit before deciding.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Works great here. Aside from some driver twiddleing when it was still beta, have had absolutely no problems with it and games. It runs DirectX 7 and the promise is that that support will continue. If I can run Dual processors, I'll look into Melinnium... and if it's as fast and stable as 2000 (never thought I'd say that about an MS OS), then fine. The only thing that 2000 has that the home user doesn't need is much of the network crap... But you don't have to run all that stuff.

[Guest Thomas William Davie]

I do run W2000, and have been at home since January 7th (since Dec 7th at work). It does have DirectX 7.0a

And, believe it or not, I do use the networking features. Without getting into OS evangelism, I'll simply state that 'I like W2000' hence my reuirement for a W2000 compatible video card.

Tom

[Hundminen]

I stand corrected.

W2000 must be better than NT. I couln't get my notebook from work to run 2d games like WF, so I figure NT is useless.

Hundminen

[Dschugaschwili]

Thomas, some information on your 3 points:

1. I'm almost 100% sure every card that's available today will have drivers for it on the Win2k cd.

2. Every 3d card out there comes with Direct3d drivers.

3. Only 3dfx cards (Voodoo X) support Glide directly, however, there are (unsupported) "Glide Wrappers" available for some of the other cards (especially for the TNT series) that may or may not work.

Most 3d cards have OpenGL drivers (but the quality varies).

I will only talk about cards available today here:

If you really need Glide support for an older game, buy a Voodoo3.

If not, I recommend buying a card with a Nvidia chipset (TNT2 or GeForce). These are the fastest 3d cards today, have a better image quality than most competitors, and they come with a good OpenGL driver (much better than the Voodoo OpenGL drivers IMO).

[This message has been edited by Dschugaschwili (edited 02-01-2000).]

[CoolColJ]

The difference between a Geforce and a TNt2 is quite amazing in the area of smoothness!

It gives CM a surreal look, the tanks look freaky unreal when they move around. I guess its due to the 60+fps

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CCJ

aka BLITZ_Force

My Hompage ----> http://www.geocities.com/coolcolj

Check out my Tweaked Textures and Saving Private Ryan sound set mods for CM! Check out my music while your at it