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New Graphic Card update, quick help!

Dogman5

Dogman5

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Ok, its juts about time that the GeForce 2 MX 400 has to go!

Here is my current PC specs:

-DELL Dimension 8100
-Pentium 4 @ 1.5 GHz
-640 MB RAM
-Windows XP
-60 GB Hard Drive
-GeForce 2 MX 400

What is a good graphics card in the price range of less than 150$ that can be found online that would be best for those specs, and also work best with Project 64.

I am currently looking at getting an ATI Radeon 9600 PRO.

newegg.com has the POWERCOLOR ATI RADEON 9600 PRO EZ version 128MB DDR DVI+CRT+TV 8X AGP RETAIL for 148.00$

Is this a good graphics card for the money and for my PC? Will it work well with Project 64 as well?

Thanks in advance guys!! :bounce:
 
L

Lizard Blade

New member
Go with what you're thinking, or a GeForce4 Ti. Despite what Tagrineth is probably about to say, its all a matter of preference.

And I feel for you on that GeForce2 MX thing.
 
OP
Dogman5

Dogman5

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"And I feel for you on that GeForce2 MX thing."

LOL I know, I know.

Thanks for the reply man! I really appriciate it! Anyone else?
 
dukenukem

dukenukem

lord freiza
that 9600 card looks like a good deal to me too go with that if you really want or get a geforceti4600.
 
gandalf

gandalf

Member ready to help
Ha!, Radeon 9600 is more better than Ge force Ti 4600.
And for that video card runs much better Half-Life 2 than Ge Force FX 5900 and it´s true.
 
Tagrineth

Tagrineth

Dragony thingy
Lizard Blade said:
Go with what you're thinking, or a GeForce4 Ti. Despite what Tagrineth is probably about to say, its all a matter of preference.
Click to expand...

Hahaha ^_^;

Well, it isn't so much preference as it is cold hard fact. ;)

They may be about level in 'normal rendering' speed, but the fact is, ATi's AA is far, far better, and their AF is marginally better but WAY faster. Think 200%+ gains (3x performance) with AF/AA in many games.

That and, the 9600 Pro can run DX9 games with very good performance - the GF4Ti's don't support DX9 at all, only DX8(.1, kinda).

And don't even look at the GF FX line. Their only saving grace is um... that the 5200 non-Ultra is dirt cheap and silent. Other than that they're all worthless. :flowers:

Edit: Don't get me wrong, though. I don't hate the GF4Ti line - on the contrary, I consider it nVidia's last and one of their only truly great products, especially the Ti4200. Funny how they did such a good job with the GF4Ti and then ruined everything with the abysmal FX line... Anyway, my second choice after my 9500 Pro was in fact a Ti4200, but I decided I had enough money to go ahead and get the better product :flowers:
 
Tagrineth

Tagrineth

Dragony thingy
Mystic Gohan said:
I don't know about it running games better than the fx5900 since it's a newer graphics card.
Click to expand...

Check out the early Half-Life 2 numbers at any review site - I recommend AnandTech's.

The FX 5900 Ultra clearly does in fact get outpaced by the 9600 Pro. DESPITE running on a GFFX-specific rendering path!

Pretty sad, really.
 
Hexidecimal

Hexidecimal

Emutalk Bounty Hunter.
For the love of god, I wouldn't go with the 9600, either hop back a model or forward one, I've read horrow stories about hardware problems with that card that no driver has been able to fix, hopefully in November I'll be grabbing the 9500.
 
pandamoan

pandamoan

Banned
any ati offering is going to be more moderately priced, for it's performance value.

but.....

the defacto standard for n64 emulation (at this point), is in fact the geforce ti 4200. that is your best bet for n64 emulation....

everything else will like the 9600 pro much better.

jamie
 
flow``

flow``

flow``
thats only with dx9 games tag.. and well, hl2 wont be out till holiday season :)

as for dx8.1/ogl games, a ti4600 would be a great buy now. a lower end 9500/9600 pro or non pro would be a decent card, but again nothing great for dx9 games
 
OP
Dogman5

Dogman5

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Lizard Blade said:
Come to think of it, this threads a bit of a deja vu.

http://www.emutalk.net/showthread.php?t=10535

Took you long enough. Maybe someday you'll be asking if you should upgrade your GeForce2 MX to a Radeon 11000 or GeForce8 ti ;)
Click to expand...

HAHA LOL :happy:

Pretty good thing I held off this long. I decided to with a bunch of new cards coming out at the time, and my shortage on money!

I think I am gonna go with the 9600 PRO. Thanks for the suggestions guys!!!

BTW, which is the best brand to buy it from? Is it best to just spend the more money and get the actual ATI box version? Or the Sapphire version or one of those? thanks!

And one more thing; This SHOULD help my bit of sluggishness during games. Right now, they run *pretty* good, but still get choppy here and there.
 
K

Khyron2k

New member
Just as an FYI for all here :

For DirectX 9 apps, the ATI 9X00 series is much better. This is because when MS was developing the DX9 API, they invited the card manufacturers (ATI and nVidia) to join in on the development process. However, they asked for each company to release certain patents in order to facilitate the process. nVidia flat-out refused and walked out, so the DX9 API was developed with ATI in mind.

HL2 being one of the big-name DX9 games coming out.

OTOH, for OpenGL games and applications, the GeForce FX series rises up to the lead. They lost the lead to ATI with DX9, and made up for it by producing a superior OpenGL platform.

Doom 3 will be the big OpenGL game coming out soon.
 
pandamoan

pandamoan

Banned
Dogman5 said:
HAHA LOL :happy:

Pretty good thing I held off this long. I decided to with a bunch of new cards coming out at the time, and my shortage on money!

I think I am gonna go with the 9600 PRO. Thanks for the suggestions guys!!!

BTW, which is the best brand to buy it from? Is it best to just spend the more money and get the actual ATI box version? Or the Sapphire version or one of those? thanks!

And one more thing; This SHOULD help my bit of sluggishness during games. Right now, they run *pretty* good, but still get choppy here and there.
Click to expand...

if you're getting choppiness with those specs, i can almost gaurentee it isn't the mx card that's the problem... they work great (particularly for emulation).

my guess is you need a reformat, maybe get rid of norton antivirus, a clean install of xp sp 1.

your specs rock and there is NO need for slow down, not even the video card. my guess is software bloat.

see whats running under the windows task manager processes.... i bet the problem is listed.

jamie
 
Tagrineth

Tagrineth

Dragony thingy
Hexidecimal said:
For the love of god, I wouldn't go with the 9600, either hop back a model or forward one, I've read horrow stories about hardware problems with that card that no driver has been able to fix, hopefully in November I'll be grabbing the 9500.
Click to expand...

O...K... I have heard of no such problems that don't also exist in the 9500/9700 and 9800 lines. And I'm a Beyond3D regular. Do the math.

Khyron2k said:
OTOH, for OpenGL games and applications, the GeForce FX series rises up to the lead. They lost the lead to ATI with DX9, and made up for it by producing a superior OpenGL platform.
Click to expand...

BZZT, wrong. Don't oversimplify.

Carmack (Mr. Quake and DOOM3) himself said that even in OpenGL, the FX5800 Ultra was about half as fast as the 9700 Pro running full "ARB2" or DX9-equivalent shaders. DOOM3 is lucky, though - it doesn't need floating-point precision. So basically Carmack made a fixed-point path for the GFFX line. That's the only reason it performs so well... basically it's running in a sort of "DX8 with a tiny little speck of DX9" mode.

The only reason the picture is *slightly* different with the FX5900 Ultra has nothing to do with the OpenGL API, though - it has to do with the way the 5900U manages stencil operations, which DOOM3 uses on *EVERYTHING*. Basically the 5900 Ultra is designed for fast DX8 and DOOM3... screw DX9.
 
The Khan Artist

The Khan Artist

Warrior for God
Tagrineth said:
O...K... I have heard of no such problems that don't also exist in the 9500/9700 and 9800 lines. And I'm a Beyond3D regular. Do the math.
Click to expand...

There are many people at the Rage3D boards and the NGEmu boards who can't get Catalyst 3.4+ to install on their 9600 boards. Nothing seems to work. The 9500/9700/9800 all seem to work fine.

As for speed, well, if nVidia manages to get the 50 series drivers working without major quality loss, then I think ATi is going to have some decent competition.
 
K

Khyron2k

New member
Ah, really? That's how it was explained to me, that the FX series is better for OpenGL apps than the ATI.

Ah well, my loyalty lies with nVidia. I've had a GF2, 3, 4, and now an FX 5900. They've always had spectacular driver support and been fast enough for my tastes :)

And though I don't have any personal experiences with this, from those whom I have talked to, ATI's always been fairly good in the hardware department, but had difficulties with their drivers. But once again, that's not personal experience talking - I could be wrong, I only know as much as those whom I speak with :)
 
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