Upgrading Video Cards (Oh yay)

[legacy-j00f00]

I bought a new computer recently, and with it, the only video option I had was a GeForce4 MX 440 with 64 MB of memory. Now that I'm ready, I'm looking for a new vid card. Could someone recommend me a good, stable card with 128 Megs of memory for around $100.00 to $150.00?

Thanks.

[legacy-smooked]

i think you should be able to find a G force 4 ti 4600 128mb DDR for that price mate. i had that model before and it is a great card.

[legacy-j00f00]

Everywhere I look, all I see is cards that are branded under a different name, I can hardly find a GeForce that's not branded PNY, Asylum, BFG, or something like that. Is there a difference?

[legacy-smooked]

pny is good i think i have not bad experiense about them. the gf4ti 4600 128mb card i had before was asus and i solded it for 110$ and i talked whit a friend who know things about it and he say that is the price u can expect for a card like that. but ok this is in sweden i dont know how it is in other countryes it maybe is differents. and i also dont think the different is so big between the marks. i also can ask u a question have you heard anything about PNY ? i have a PNY g force Fx 5600 AGP8x 256mb DDR. a friend say PNY is good. if you have heard about PNY what are your feelings about PNY ? just courious

[legacy-j00f00]

The only thing I've seen PNY asssociated with was CD-R/RW's. I bought some, they were great, and all of them still work perfectly. Not like other CD-R/RW's don't, though.
I do think I've seen some other PNY computer accessories, just can't remember anything about them...

[legacy-smooked]

ok thanx :) and i hope you find a card that you be pleased whit mate. and you gonna find it to i know:) he who seek gonna find you know.

[legacy-Ral-Jiktar 1]

Well I get most of my Nvidia and AMD stuff from Asus, they have goo prices, and good selections. The Geforce 4 is your best bet, they lack Directx 9.0.

I would recomend you get a DirectX 9.0 compatible card, they have beter features and will be able to play next generation games with all there special effects, few gams use it, but with them they look great, they are. Unreal 2, Splinter Cell and a few others.

Now for a card like that you will have to add an extra 50$, but you will love them when you can play HL2 and even UT2K4 with decent images anf FPS. So far the best Budget Direct X 9.0 card is the Radeon 9600 Pro, it is capable of running games with 2xAA and 4xAF with no framrate loss and resolutions of about 1024x768, it's 200$ and has a benchmark of 3,060 on 3D mark 2003.

Another is the Geforce FX 5600 Ultra, it's 200 $, it's "Sweet spot." is 1024x786 with just 2xAA, It;sgreat for OpenGL gaming, but falls back in Direct 3D. It had a bench mark of 2,843.

Last is the cheapest, it's the Geforce FX 5200 Ultra, its 150$. it's a slow card, it can't run games with plyable fram rate at 1600x1200, again, don't even think of adding 2xAA. it has a bench mark of 1,830.

So it's up to you, the ol Geforce 4 TI4800 is the best last gen card, I had a TI4600, there about 100$ and can run anygame with ease but I fear that in less than a year it will be laging in DX9.0 games.

3D MArk is a program that puts the PC under a series of Gaming tests, it then calculates the Frame per second and adds hem up. If the PC does not pass a test the tim of secnds on the test is deducted, so it can easily be 500 points. www.futuremark.com

AA is short for Anti-Alias. It was first used after DOS turned to Windows, many Font's whre square like andnot smoothwhich made bad impression, it was later added. The Geforce 3 added this AA in games, it's great at Low ress, it smooths out jaged lines to make say 320x240 lok like 800x600. It begins to be useless over 1024x769.

Antromorphic Filtering or AF is the filtering of tertures, it simply makes them look beter.

Direct X 9,0 was Microsofts idea of taking DOS away, since Windows was a resource hog. (For windows 3.0) Win95 was given Direct X, it simply made the Computer parts by pass Windows and get diectly to work which boosts the speed dramaticly, the higher the support, the less of Windows has to wrry about the parts. Directx 9.0 is the most recent, and enables games to simply acheive mad images, and sound cards up to 9.1 surround. it also lets more complexe shadpws, Pixel Shading 2.0, More complexe Bump maping. Technicaly you get to have special effects they use in Computer Generated movies. movies.

[legacy-191]

get an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro.

Direct-X 9 support and best value for money.

[legacy-Ral-Jiktar 1]

The Radeon 9600 is just an undecloacked Radeon 9700. Later if you don't mind taking a few years of of it you can overclock it so it has the same power as a 9700. But so far, stay away from 256MB cards, there jsu a waste for 500$ you get a great card, to bad not a single games uses 256MB, the only game that will use as I kno of is Doom3, but by the time that cmes about your 256MB will be worth crap.

But I really recomend the 9600 over any card, DirecX 9.0 support lets the card get ready for those next Gen games. ANd if you want to spend just 150$ on the FX5200 Ultra get ready to no be able to UT2k# over 800x600 resolution with no AA.

A choice is made from a probleme.
But if the problem is not present.
The choice will always be incorect.