AGP video card rec to replace onboard 4mb card

[CreepieDeCrapper]

My friend has an older HP (not sure about the model, but I'm assuming it has an AGP mobo) with a 4mb onboard Intel video card. He's using a 17" LCD @ 1280x1024 and when he watches videos and MediaPlayer visualizations in fullscreen, gets very choppy playback.

I was going to recommend he purchase one of these cards, but I wasn't sure they would do the trick. Any thoughts?

Newegg <$25 video card list

 

[hoorah]

I have an Nvidia Vanta card that has at least 16mb of video ram that I would give him for $10 shipped. Price to performance, newegg is a better deal, but if he wants something cheap cheap, I would love to be rid of it. It would definitely do "better" than the onboard 4mb card, but is it enough? I dunno.

 

[lobbyone]

Any of those cards from newegg will play videos fine. Or you can help out a fellow AT and get hoorah's Vanta , which will also be able to run videos fine.

 

[CreepieDeCrapper]

Thanks for the replies, guys. Let me verify that his mobo is indeed AGP and then I'll find out what he wants to do. hoorah, that's obviously a nice deal so I'll try to pursuade him your way, unless he wants brand new. I'll postback here shortly.

 

[beserker15]

Just out of curiousity, but what's his cpu. I'd assume that slow video can often be because of a slow cpu/lack of ram rather than video. WMP visualizations kill my p3 laptop and its 4mb onboard...but it can run videos fine full screen.

 

[LLoose]

Go with the MX4000 or ati 7000. Both will work just fine.

 

[CreepieDeCrapper]

It's a 1ghz P-?

I'm not too familiar with the Pentium product line, are the 1ghz CPU's P3's or P4's? Anyway, he also has 512mb of RAM and indicated that the stuttering happens in visualizations AND movie playback.

 

[tuteja1986]

I don't think buying a Video card would help if its an HD Video or H264 codec used then you would need a CPU with 1.7GHZ , 512MB ram , ATI 9200se/Nvidia 5200

 

[happy medium]

I played video with a pent 3 600 and a 64 meg mx 420 so hes got the cpu power.
My buddies pent 3 laptop plays movies with a crappy 8 meg video card and 128 megs of ram

 

[magomago]

yeah its the video card. my friend had a 3000+ and some old pci card. watching naruto would lag his pc like crazy for some reason. tossing in an old geforce2 made things silky smooth..

case in pooint: videocard probably doesn't make a difference in general...but amazingly it can help

 

[CreepieDeCrapper]

He's just watching some DivX movies, if you know what I mean

So we're talking 500mb - 750mb as far as file sizes go.

 

[happy medium]

It'l play porn fine with any of those cards

 

[CreepieDeCrapper]

Jackpot.