Building a low end computer for mom...

[homestarmy]

I have some stuff lying around and decided to put a PC together for my mom, as she has literally a 200MHz Pentium with 16MB of RAM!

Anyhow, I have a motherboard with a Duron sitting around... too bad, there is no onboard video. But I have a 2MB PCI Matrox card sitting around that I picked up for like $5. Will that be ok for running just basic WinXP stuff at something like 1024x768? She will just be doing the normal emailing, etc, maybe looking at some pictures.

I don't think I've ever used such a low end card before.

Thanks.

 

[996GT2]

I used to run WinXP on a 500mhz PIII and an 8 MB nVidia TNT and it worked fine, so I think you should be ok too

 

[Ika]

as long as it works, it should be fine.

 

[Dkcode]

A 2mb video card will handle 1024 x 768 with 16Bit colour. For 24Bit colour you wont get higher than 800 x 600.

You can forget running XP with 16MB of RAM. Even Windows 98 would be slow.

Find an old copy of Windows 95 and she will be good to go at 800 x 600.

Edit: Sorry i misread your post, I understand you have a spare Duron. If you have more than 128MB of RAM Windows XP will be ok but id advise Windows 2000.

Again use 800 x 600 with 24Bit Colour once your set up. You will be able to pump up the refresh rate too.

 

[JBT]

Originally posted by: Dkcode
A 2mb video card will handle 1024 x 768 with 16Bit colour. For 24Bit colour you wont get higher than 800 x 600.

You can forget running XP with 16MB of RAM. Even Windows 98 would be slow.

Find an old copy of Windows 95 and she will be good to go at 800 x 600.

Edit: Sorry i misread your post, I understand you have a spare Duron. If you have more than 128MB of RAM Windows XP will be ok but id advise Windows 2000.

Again use 800 x 600 with 24Bit Colour once your set up. You will be able to pump up the refresh rate too.

lol daym that thing should be smokin.

 

[homestarmy]

Originally posted by: Dkcode
A 2mb video card will handle 1024 x 768 with 16Bit colour. For 24Bit colour you wont get higher than 800 x 600.

You can forget running XP with 16MB of RAM. Even Windows 98 would be slow.

Find an old copy of Windows 95 and she will be good to go at 800 x 600.

Edit: Sorry i misread your post, I understand you have a spare Duron. If you have more than 128MB of RAM Windows XP will be ok but id advise Windows 2000.

Again use 800 x 600 with 24Bit Colour once your set up. You will be able to pump up the refresh rate too.

Why not 1024x768?

And I will have likely 256MB RAM in this machine (old ram sitting around).

 

[kylebisme]

'cause 16bit color is nasty, but it's up to you.

 

[Dkcode]

Yup like Snowman said, If she wants to look at photos she wants the highest colour depth possible.

 

[akshayt]

why not buy a cheap 64mb?

 

[cmrmrc]

you should be fine...i have a friend whos running xp on a p3 450mhz, 128mb ram, intel integrated video..not sure how much memory it takes but shouldnt be more than 4mb...

 

[Griswold]

Originally posted by: Dkcode
Yup like Snowman said, If she wants to look at photos she wants the highest colour depth possible.

Come on, its not that bad for just looking at photos. If his mom is using a TFT with that computer, chances are that its a 6bit panel instead of a 8bit and that wont be able to display 24/32bit per pixel anyway.

Still should have went for a 8 or 16mb card for the same price.

 

[kylebisme]

You are comparing the numbers wrong. But again, if you want to run 16bit color that is up to you.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
You are comparing the numbers wrong. But again, if you want to run 16bit color that is up to you.

18 bit LCDs use dithering to simulate 24 bit color. While this still sucks and no one in their right mind would use such an LCD for photo editing, the OP's mom would still be able to see more color detail in her photos if her system feeds the LCD 24 bit data rather than 16 bit data. It will be far better to have the LCD do time-based dithering of the higher color resolution data than to have Windows perform the worst job ever dithering the 24 bit images down to 16 bit color before sending them to the LCD.