New Video Card - Suggestions?

[imported_Hiram Sedai]

I'm going to replace my first generation Voodoo Banshee video card tonight.

I'm thinking about a Geforce card, but want to make sure it's compatible with two games:

1. Combat Mission

2. Myth III

I'm going to "Best Buy" and will buy a PCI card with a decent price. Any suggestions for one that is a balance between price and quality?

I'm also curious about Driver availability on the web and how often then are updated.

[Schrullenhaft]

The GeForce family works fine with CM. I don't know the details about Myth III, but I assume it should be fine there too. The drivers are updated often from NVidia. In fact NVidia updates their drivers more often than any other manufacturer(usually these are betas that aren't available at the corporate web site though). Right now there are no outstanding issues (in regards to CM) with NVidia hardware/drivers that I'm aware of in any OS other than the Mac.

As for brand names, I'm not sure who to recommend. If you have to get a PCI version of a GeForce you may max out with the GeForce2 MX400. GeForces faster than the MX400 are usually only found in AGP versions (which is better to get if you have an AGP slot). I could be wrong about the PCI availability of faster chips since I haven't searched for them lately. I have some GeForce2 MX400 PCI's with 64Mb of VRAM, which is what you'll probably want to get for CMBB (which will apparently be DOWN-SAMPLING with 32Mb video cards - there's that many high-res textures in the game). The brand of card that I have for this is an Inno3D (a Taiwanese/Chinese brand). Leadtek and Gainward are two other very good clone brands, but I'm not sure of their GeForce PCI offerings. Other brand names may cost a bit more, like Hercules, Creative, Elsa, etc. and may only offer slightly longer warranties (if that).

[ March 15, 2002, 11:52 AM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[imported_Hiram Sedai]

Thank you, Schrullenhaft! That was yet another print worthy reply.

[Ralph Beaman]

One small question, are all GeForce 2 family of video cards compatible with CM.

[Schrullenhaft]

Yes, all GeForce cards are compatible with CM. In fact you can go back to the RIVA 128 (pre-TNT chip) and CMBO will work fine with it (I don't know about CMBB though). The only remaining problem with any NVidia chip/card is on the Mac. The driver releases on that platform are controlled by Apple and they don't release drivers with anywhere near the frequency (or at least have public access to betas) that the PC world does.

For those that can afford it, I'd suggest purchasing video cards with 64Mb of VRAM (or more) for CMBB. 32Mb will work fine, but 64Mb+ will be better.

[Treeburst155]

Schrullenhaft,

Are you saying that I can update to the lastest official Nvidia drivers from nvidia.com and have no problems with FSAA in CM?

I'm running Win ME and a Gainward GeForce2 Pro.

Thanks for being here, BTW.

Treeburst155 out.

[gredeker]

I'm going to be buying a new computer in the next month or two, and I'm also trying to figure out what card to get with it. I've done a fair bit of reading online (especially at Tom's Hardware) and it looks like the GeForce 3 Ti 200 is probably the best bang for the buck right now. Is this a correct assessment? Or will the price on GeForce 3's and GeForce 3 Ti 500's be coming down shortly because of the GeForce 4 release? Also, is it worth springing for a card with 128 megs? Tom's hardware seems to think not at this time, but I tend to "buy and hold" when it comes to computer hardware (still using a 16 meg TNT).

Any advice and/or input would be welcome.

P.S. Games I'm looking to play on the new system include CMBB, IL-2, and MOHAA.

[Schrullenhaft]

Treeburst 155 - No, the latest official drivers from NVidia have problems (under Windows 2000/XP) in CM. Under Windows 9x/ME there may be some problems depending on your chipset, etc. Other than that the latest official drivers may work without problem for Win9x/ME. The latest beta drivers have fixed the 'white transparency' problem in Win2K/XP and I haven't heard any particular problems with chipsets under any of the OS's with the latest betas, which you can download from Guru 3D.

If you can afford a 128Mb GeForce, then I would recommend purchasing one. It may seem overkill at the moment, but games will eventually take advantage of such amounts of VRAM. It will give a little more longevity to your card (though at a price). Prices on video cards fall all the time, especially when the next generation has just been released. Reasons range from either clearing out stock or just to maintain consumer demand for the next lower level (and sometimes manufacturing of previous generation hardware is cheaper too). As an example of what can happen I purchased a GeForce2 Ultra a year ago and it cost me US$500. Within a month and a half the price had dropped to US$350 and now they're less than US$200 (give or take). The GeForce 3's had come out right after I purchased my card and they pushed down prices rather dramatically in my case. While prices won't always fall that steeply (there are factors that can affect this other than just the next generation becoming available) they do tend to fall. In my case I paid a premium for a name-brand card that was expensive to start with (Elsa).

If you buy a GeForce 3 with 128Mb (there are a couple of models) or any of the GeForce 4 models with this much memory you will be paying a premium. Within six months prices may level out so that they're a bit lower (maybe US$50 or so less) because there will be more chips and the component prices should be a bit less to actually manufacturer them. The prices for the current GeForce 4's (Ti 4400 & 4600) are a bit high, but they're less than when the GeForce 3's first came out, so I wouldn't expect very much in terms of price drops within six months from now, unless ATI releases something that is ultra-competitve price and performance-wise.

So if you buy and intend to keep using the card for awhile, then a high-priced, high-performance card may be a worthwhile purchase. However you'll find that in a year or so that similar or better performance cards will be available for a significant amount less than what you'll pay now (this is especially true of electronics and computer electronics in particular).

[Treeburst155]

Redeker and Hiram,

I would wait until the Ti 4200 is available. It has all the features of the flag ship Ti 4600, just a bit slower, and significantly cheaper. Did you read this article?

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q1/020206/geforce4-01.html

If you page through to the game benchmarks you will see that the Ti 4200 is actually faster in most instances than the GF3 Ti 500 making it much faster than a GF3 Ti 200.

_____________________________________________

Here's a report on Nvidia 23.11 drivers, Win ME, and Gainward GF2 Pro. I've just been playing with the 23.11s.

There is only one minor anomaly with CM. When FSAA is enabled (either 2x or 4x) there is a little oddity along the edges of the display when in the game. This occurs on the left and top of the display in the area of the top left corner. The best way I can describe it is, "several line segments of light colored pixels". Do away with the FSAA and these pixel line segments go away.

It is really very minor. I'm sticking with these drivers. The 16 tap anisotropy (Geforce Tweak) combined with full FSAA makes CM look gorgeous!

Treeburst155 out.

[ March 15, 2002, 05:50 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[gredeker]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

Redeker and Hiram,

I would wait until the Ti 4200 is available. It has all the features of the flag ship Ti 4600, just a bit slower, and significantly cheaper. Did you read this article?

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q1/020206/geforce4-01.html

If you page through to the game benchmarks you will see that the Ti 4200 is actually faster in most instances than the GF3 Ti 500 making it much faster than a GF3 Ti 200.

TB, I had only skimmed that article, as I had mentally put most of the GeForce 4's out of reach. However, that 4200 looks very promising. It looks like it may be overkill at this point, but there's something to be said for buying a piece of equipment which will last for a few years. Then again, with 128 megs of VRAM, loading up CMBB with hi-res mods won't be an issue. Thanks for the steer.

P.S. Thanks S. for your input also. I know just enough to be dangerous...

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by Schrullenhaft:

As for brand names, I'm not sure who to recommend. If you have to get a PCI version of a GeForce you may max out with the GeForce2 MX400. (*snip*) I have some GeForce2 MX400 PCI's with 64Mb of VRAM, which is what you'll probably want to get for CMBB (which will apparently be DOWN-SAMPLING with 32Mb video cards - there's that many high-res textures in the game). The brand of card that I have for this is an Inno3D (a Taiwanese/Chinese brand). Leadtek and Gainward are two other very good clone brands, but I'm not sure of their GeForce PCI offerings.

I just found a Geforce 2 MX400 PCI 64MB SDR Nvidia chip for $89. Its says that its "Visiontek," is that the same as Leadtek? As long as it says Nvidia, it should be OK for CMBO, right?

Now I'm hoping I can pull off the disabling of my 12 MB shared V-card...perhaps I'll need to speak with the Hewlett-Packard ppl to find out if my Mobo and vid-slot can handle such a card. I have an HP 6645C, w/ 566 mhz Celeron, 191MB RAM, (I think) 66 mhz bus.

[ April 03, 2002, 02:48 PM: Message edited by: Silvio Manuel ]

[Schrullenhaft]

Visiontek isn't the same as Leadtek. However they make good cards nevertheless. They were actually one of the first manufacturers of the GeForce 3 cards (at least available here in the U.S.). That card should be fine for CMBO/CMBB.

You'll definitely want to check with HP (via phone or online) to see if they're aware of any problems with AGP cards with a lot of memory or electrical-current requirements. If the motherboard is based on an Intel BX chipset or newer, then I generically assume that there won't be too much of a problem.

For anyone that has followed this thread... The latest official NVidia drivers (28.32 for all PC OS's) do work with CMBO/CMBB and are highly recommended. There is always the possibility of problems, so there is no absolute guarantee that upgrading to this latest release will solve all problems for every user. But almost everyone should be fine with these new drivers.

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by Schrullenhaft:

You'll definitely want to check with HP (via phone or online) to see if they're aware of any problems with AGP cards with a lot of memory or electrical-current requirements. If the motherboard is based on an Intel BX chipset or newer, then I generically assume that there won't be too much of a problem.

Will I still have to check on the AGP requirements if I'm getting the PCI Geforce card? Is there any way for me to check what Intel chipset my Mobo has under the standard Windows "properties" type lookups?

Many thanks for the speedy reply!

Kevin

[Schrullenhaft]

No, if you're getting a PCI card, then I assume that there isn't an AGP slot anyway (though the onboard 810/815 chipset is using the AGP spec). The AGP slot is tied very closely to the CPU and memory buses and the additional heavy electrical load that some higher-end video cards would put on them was beyond the capacity of some motherboards to handle properly. This was true of the Intel LX chipset and some other early Pentium II chipsets and especially the Super Socket 7 chipsets.

From what I could gather at HP your Pavilion is based on the Intel 810 chipset, which physically lacks a seperate AGP slot (I haven't seen a motherboard based on an 810 chipset have a physical AGP slot). You can confirm (somewhat) what chipset you have by going to the Device Manager where there are listings for the various devices that are incorporated into the chipset under the 'System Devices' heading. The numbers here may be a little misleading and you'll need to reference the correct device to find the main chipset designation. Most of the Intel numbers will start with '82' and the remaining three numbers will be the chipset. Check out the 'Processor to I/O Controller' in the 'System Devices' listing and it should give you a correct chipset designation.

[ April 03, 2002, 03:55 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]