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Which videocard should I buy now?


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A couple of days ago I experienced the ATI Radeon/the fog has lifted-videocard drama. No fog, which was simply not acceptable. I now sold my Radeon card (and not exactly with profit, might I add) and will buy another one. One that will give me back my beloved fog... Please advise me which card I should buy in the price range of $100 to $200. No ATI and it should be compatible with DirectX 9.0 which I've installed and which is causing me lots of trouble with my favorite games Combat Mission and Medieval Total War.

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Your best bet is to get an Nvidia card that is capable of running the 30.82 drivers. This would mean that the card you select should be an AGP4X card. If you get an AGP8X card you will run into the "driver dilemma". If you can find one for the price range you specify, I would recommend purchasing a GeForce Ti4600 AGP4X 128mb card.

Googlegear.com has a Gainward and a Chaintech version of this card for reasonable prices.

On one of my Combat Mission PC's I have the Jaton version of this card. Runs great with 30.82, all the fog you want, super fast, no driver work arounds like alt-tab. If I was rich I would go buy one of the cards I just mentioned and put it in my other machine which has an EVGA GeForce Ti4600 AGP8X card. The card on Googlegear runs about $220.00 American money with 2nd day free shipping. Not bad. Looks like the Chaintech make is a tad less expensive than the Gainward card.

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Kamerades,

For what it is worth, I am going to take my own advice on this thread. I just ordered the Chaintech AGP4X GeForce Ti4600 128mb card from Googlegear.com. I'm not rich, It just bothers me having to alt-tab my way through things. I'll put the AGP8X card in the closet.

Can anyone post a reply explaining what AGP8X provides over an AGP4X card? Is it simply a matter of speed or resolution?

Thanks.

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Originally posted by Jack Carr:

Can anyone post a reply explaining what AGP8X provides over an AGP4X card? Is it simply a matter of speed or resolution?

Thanks.

Twice as fast bus to the graphics card.

The motherboard also needs to be 8X capable,

otherwise it'll work at 4X or even 2X speed.

The practical benefit with current cards is

bragging rights and about 2% more speed...

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I think a 128 MB Ti4200 (4x) is really all one needs for CM. This because the game seems to be so CPU intensive. I suspect the CPU is the real bottleneck in CM performance.

My best CMBB solution to date is Win ME, 128MB Ti4200 with the 40.72 drivers. These drivers have anisotropic filtering which makes CM look much better. I have problems with all FSAA except for 4x which works perfectly. So, I run 4x FSAA and full Anisotropic filtering. The game looks beautiful and is trouble free. The 4200 does just fine with all the eye candy too.

Win XP (I have dual boot system) does not play as nicely with my video card and CM. Dual boot is the answer if you're a CM addict.

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As you have stated, the cpu is definitely one of the bottlenecks, however, more importantly IMHO is memory bandwidth of the graphics card. You try a 1000 point scenario with an Nvidia card, and then the same engagement on the same system with an ATi 9700 Pro. The ATi wins hands down, and looks better at that, albeit without the fog!

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Hmmm...very interesting, Phil. I wonder if the ATI would outperform the Nvidia on a large scenario too? I don't suppose you'd care to try that for us? smile.gif It could be that the vid card can make a difference if the CPU isn't too loaded with work, as in a smaller battle.

One thing I've noticed with my Ti4200 is that overclocking the memory has little effect, but cranking up the core clock really boosts performance in 3DMark2001 and my racing sim. I can't say I've noticed a difference in CM though.

Kris

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It very much depends on the resolution you run. For instance, run at 1024x768 with both cards and whatever sized engagement you play both cards will run pretty quick. You knock the res up and both cards take a framerate hit. The Nvidia certainly can't keep up with the ATi (at present). I tested this with two large 5000 point scenarios at different resolutions. The ATi was definitely the winner.

As for your overclocking issue, the racing sim will be using DirectX or OpenGL in a different way to CM and this is reflected by the performance gain.

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