Pascal DI FOLCO Posted October 1, 2001 Share Posted October 1, 2001 Hi Schrullenhaft, can you help me :eek: ? I now have a crappy 32Mb ATI Rage 128 : no fog, no FSAA, choppy screen with Hires mods and medium maps and above... I'd want to improve this, and am searching for a "good" card allowing me to play a beautiful and smooth CMBO (with Hires mods), then CMBB (whose specs will be in line with HiRes CMBO IMO). BUT I don't want to throw away 500 bucks or so !! I'd like stg in the $150-200 range... Does a good card exist at these prices ? Or should I rather a/ have to wait before upgrading ot b/ spend more bucks on it ? Advice needed ! Addition : I have an Athlon 500MHz PC (2 years old !), 128 Mb RAM. [ 10-02-2001: Message edited by: Pascal DI FOLCO ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWB Posted October 1, 2001 Share Posted October 1, 2001 Yes, you can do fine for $100 or so. Tell me what kind of machine will you be running it on, and I can reccomend something fitting. WWB 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shipmonkey25 Posted October 1, 2001 Share Posted October 1, 2001 If your willing to go to the 200 dollar range, the Geforce3 Titanium 200 was annouced today, just 5-9% slower than the current geforce3 for only 200 dollars. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted October 1, 2001 Share Posted October 1, 2001 Pascal - assuming that you're running on a PC, you can purchase a GeForce 2 GTS 64Mb AGP card in the US$100-150 price range from a number of online merchants (you just have to watch out for shipping & handling costs). Pricewatch.com will give you a good range of merchants to pick from (and hopefully they'll be honest about their shipping costs). This card should provide good FSAA and smooth scrolling with a number of high-res mods loaded up. The Voodoo 5500 is also available from a number of merchants in the same price range ($100-150). It provides a higher quality FSAA, but the performance isn't as high as the GeForce family and future driver updates will only come from third parties that will rarely be able to fix any bugs or compatibility problems. I've even heard that NVidia requested that Microsoft remove the 3D capable drivers from WinXP for the Voodoo family (they'll do only 2D in that OS). It's unfortunate that the number of cards to pick from has narrowed quite a bit in the past few years. NVidia-based cards are among the few choices for cards that offer good performance, a lack of major problems (FSAA withstanding) and and a future of driver updates. If we're lucky the new Radeon 8500 and 7500 may support fog tables under DirectX, but possibly not due to ATI's track record with current fog-table support (or lack thereof) in CM. [ 10-01-2001: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralph Beaman Posted October 1, 2001 Share Posted October 1, 2001 WWb_99-So the GeForce family of video cards are the way to go then for CMBB? What about the DDR cards out there, any worth looking into, or are they a waste of money? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWB Posted October 1, 2001 Share Posted October 1, 2001 First, listen to what Schullenraft has to say. He knows his stuff. 1) Probably the best bang-for-buck buy at this point is the GeForceMX 400 DDR cards, pretty much as fast as the GTS and a bit cheaper. Especially if you have less than 800mhz feeding it data, as the faster stuff needs more horsepower to be worthwhile. Technical issues: 1) ATI cards do not do fog in CM. See above for more details. 2) nVidia cards seem to have some (workaroundable) graphics issues in CM under windows ME/2k/XP. But they also release alot of drivers, so these might well be fixed by CMBB time. WWB 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shipmonkey25 Posted October 1, 2001 Share Posted October 1, 2001 Just to add, in the one hundred dollars and below range the new Geforce2 Titanium is going to run about a hundred dollars and by avaible around the end of the month. It'll provide Geforce2 Pro level performance, which is head and shoulders above the MX cards, for around the same price. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tenfive2 Posted October 2, 2001 Share Posted October 2, 2001 Man, I'm about dizzy between Pro, GTS, Ultra, Mx400 and now Titanium! :eek: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pascal DI FOLCO Posted October 2, 2001 Author Share Posted October 2, 2001 Thanks for the advice, but in France, taxes are high, and a GeForce2 GTS 64Mb is rather over eq $200 !! I can lower the bill either : - by putting only 32Mb RAM - will the difference be sensible ? What bothers me is that I already have 32Mb graphics RAM, I won't upgrade this in this case... - Or downgrading to a GeForce2 MX, these are in the $120 range here : they aren't much under a GTS, from what I read ? And a last question : will upgrade to either a GF2 GTS or GF2 MX400 give much higher perfs than under my ATI Rage 128 ? I don't want to spend money to gain 10 or even 20% increase...given that my PC is somewhat slow (500MHz) it can also limit improvement. [ 10-02-2001: Message edited by: Pascal DI FOLCO ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted October 2, 2001 Share Posted October 2, 2001 The GeForce2 MX400's are a good purchase and they do come in a 64Mb configuration. The GeForce2 GTS utilizes DDR memory at 128bit width, while the GeForce2 MX400's will utilize either SDR or DDR, but they'll access the DDR at 64bit width rather than 128bits with SDR (at least from what I've read HardOCP MX400 Review). I believe the Rage 128's run SDR at 128bits with two pipelines, but they run their memory and core GPU clocks lower than the GeForce2 MX's (which also have two pipelines). The GTS/Pro GeForces have 4 pipelines and run DDR at 128bits. There'll be some difference in speed between the GeForce2 MX's and an ATI Rage 128, but I can't quantify how great they'll be. One thing to remember is that the GeForce2's will have a longer future of driver updates than the ATI Rage 128's and they'll do fog. FSAA can be done with the GeForce2 MX's (preferably with the 64Mb version), but they won't have the speed that the GTS/Pro cards will have, therefore making FSAA a bit of an undesirable option due to the performance hit. Your CPU will be something of a limitation, but you'll still see differences between the two cards. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pascal DI FOLCO Posted October 3, 2001 Author Share Posted October 3, 2001 Schrullenhaft, I'm somewhat disappointed : I expected that there'll be a GREAT increase from my ATI Rage to a GeForce2 (MX or GTS), from what you say it's not so clear.. I have no problems with drivers, ATI continue to correctly support the card (fog expeted ! :mad: ) and have no problem with DX8 - DX9 should not be an issue as I'd have changed the card before ! So finally I'm not sure I should upgrade, but well, thanks for all the info, as now I know what to look for ! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GAZ NZ Posted October 3, 2001 Share Posted October 3, 2001 Id agree with Schrullenhaft's advice. However processor speed is important as well. IM going form a Aflyon P3 500 TNT2 32 bit to a 1.4 gig geforce 2 Screw the G3's they are all **** unless u have a processor to match. A G2 is quite nice for the job and they are so cheap especially when u get them wholesale 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoolColJ Posted January 11, 2002 Share Posted January 11, 2002 I disagree, the GF3 whips any GF2, and you will need Direct X8 supprt which the GF2 does not have. I just upgraded my TNT2 to a leadtek GF3 ti200 which can overclock from 175/400 to 260/540! And man does it crank not bad for $470AUD spent, even with my P3 868, I can play all the latest game smoothly with everything turned to max. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.