Walker Posted May 3, 2004 Share Posted May 3, 2004 Hi. I'm thinking about ordering this Dell computer: Dell Dimension 4600 Multimedia Flat Panel - D0516 and I was wondering which grapics board to specify: 128 MB GeForce FX 5200 - 8x AGP Grafikkarte (DVI & TV-Out) or 128MB ATi Radeon 9800 PRO, 8x AGP, DVI & TV-Out (+CHF 295.90) The GeForce is included in the package, the ATi costs about $250 extra. CM are really the only games I want to be able to play, and I'd prefer not to have to install an older graphics driver to get them to run. Fog is not that important... Your thoughts would be appreciated. Chris Walker 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzertruppe Posted May 3, 2004 Share Posted May 3, 2004 Can you post an English link? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alkiviadis Posted May 3, 2004 Share Posted May 3, 2004 I'd say the GeForce. The Radeon cards the last I heard don't do Fog Table emulation, therefore, fog visuals. It's just eye-candy, but you won't see it on screen. But I'd do some more research, not sure, but I think some new ATI drivers solve that problem, but only for some select cards. Perhaps if you did a search this BB...? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walker Posted May 3, 2004 Author Share Posted May 3, 2004 I'm afraid not, this exact model does not seem to be on sale on the English-speaking market. Sorry. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzertruppe Posted May 3, 2004 Share Posted May 3, 2004 Ok....as far as the video cards, the Geforce cards have always been more stable for more games then the ATI cards. This is my experiance (please no flames), I have friends who like the FPS games who love their ATI cards,but have had problems with games like the CM games, Blitzkrieg,Call Of Duty,ect.I think more games are tested with the Nvidia cards too, because I see less incompatibilties with the Nvidia cards then the Radeons with new games as they are released. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted May 6, 2004 Share Posted May 6, 2004 The GeForce FX 5200 will give you DirectX 9.x compatibility and fog in CM. However it has a slight problem producing white backgrounds for the text screens (they come up blue instead of white). On occasion there have been problems unique to the FX 5200's too. Other than some minor problems the cards do work OK with CM, though they aren't the best cards around (some of the older GeForce 4 4200/4400/4600's were significantly faster). Admittedly the GeForce FX 5200's DirectX 9 compatibility is a bit misleading since most of the cards based on that chip are not very fast and perform horribly with DirectX 9 capable games. The Radeon 9800 is a good card that has more horsepower than the FX 5200 (as witnessed by its price premium over the 5200). However as pointed out, it does have some minor problems with CM. The lack of fog is one (though you mentioned that that doesn't bother you). They also have some problems with antialiasing and text; however there is a fix for that posted on this site where the black & white text bitmap is replaced with a colored text version. Beyond that there are occasional problems with the Catalyst drivers (fix one problem and create another - a similar situation to the Detonators/Forceware drivers from NVidia), though they usually deal with antialiasing. Outside the lack of fog the ATI line is generally fine. The quality of the antialiasing is actually a bit better than that provided by NVidia and the performance is a tad bit better too (excluding the latest NVidia release). I'd probably suggest the Radeon 9800 if fog support is no big deal to you. If there was a choice for the GeForce FX 5700 or 5900 series, then it may be a bit harder since their performance is a bit closer to the Radeon 9800 than the FX 5200 is. [ May 06, 2004, 02:29 AM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TufenHuden Posted May 6, 2004 Share Posted May 6, 2004 One thing I hate about Dell these days,they only put a crappy Nvdia 5200 and really nothing else, but then have an ATI-9800 flagship card..... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walker Posted May 6, 2004 Author Share Posted May 6, 2004 Thanks a lot for the detailed information. I appreciate it. My take now on the video siuation is that there doesn't seem to be a 'sure-fire' solution iro graphics boards for CM. So I think I'll save the $250 and specify the FX5200, hope for the best, and upgrade to a more powerful board when the all-new CM is released. Thanks again. Chris Walker 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Carr Posted May 6, 2004 Share Posted May 6, 2004 Do Dell machines still have proprietary video cards, ram, sound cards, etc? If they do, I would stay away from Dell. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Kulin Posted May 10, 2004 Share Posted May 10, 2004 I had a Dell PII/400 bought in 1998 so things may have changed since then (I think Dell and other brand-name mfg's are using less proprietary stuff but I could be mistaken). On my old Dell the motherboard, power supply and case were proprietary to Dell (connectors from power supply to motherboard and from case to motherboard (LEDs, on-off/reset switches, etc.) were different than standard as I found out at a later date. Also, if I recall it was not too easy to get into BIOS but it could be done. This was a decision made by Dell to prevent people from getting in and buggering up the settings and thus use technical support more often than necessary. Nonetheless my Dell machine was well built and fast and stood me in good stead for 4 1/2 years until the power supply started to go. Only thing was that it was considered underpowered even in 1998 (200W - 250W would have been better) so that may be a consideration for you if you plan on adding lots of upgrades down the road (e.g., additional drives, high powered video cards, etc.) As far as other accessories (Video Card, hard-drives, ROMs, etc.) they were not proprietary and you could replace them with newer units or add extras. Just be cognizant about the units power supply rating because it might not have enough head room to allow tons of new peripherals to be added. Ask Dell up-front what teh power rating is on the unit. Good Luck 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
junk2drive Posted May 10, 2004 Share Posted May 10, 2004 in 2001, three long years ago, i bought a hp p111 1g 128 ram win me for >900 it now has 256 and win xp and is still slow so whatever you buy wont do in 3-5 years 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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