Buying a new video card for UT2003: how much do I need?

[bupkus]

Buying a new video card for UT2003: how much do I need?

I'm ready to get the MSI G4Ti4200-TD (8870-030) GF4 TI4200 64MB from Newegg cause the price and owner comments sound good. Will it do the job? Currently using, if you can call it using, a Matrox G550.
Specifications for MSI card
I'm looking forward to doom 3 but that's all I'll probably play.

Thanks.

 

[ojai00]

If you're only gonna be playing two games, why not get the Radeon 8500? The 8500LE has 128MB and can be overclocked to be a little faster. The 2D quality of Geforce cards aren't as good compared to Radeon, so if you're gonna be watching DVDs and the like, I'd recommend the Radeon. Hope this helps.

 

[bupkus]

I spend some time with my dual boot linux and ATI doesn't play well with linux.

 

[Brian48]

Originally posted by: ojai00
If you're only gonna be playing two games, why not get the Radeon 8500? The 8500LE has 128MB and can be overclocked to be a little faster. The 2D quality of Geforce cards aren't as good compared to Radeon, so if you're gonna be watching DVDs and the like, I'd recommend the Radeon. Hope this helps.

That's not exactly true. I've owned both. The 2d quality on the GeForce4's are very comparable to the R8500 and R9700. You would be very hard pressed to notice the difference.

Your choice of the ti4200 is good one if that's your upper price range. It's certainly faster than the retail 128mb 8500 I have.

 

[bupkus]

Would I notice the difference between the ti4200 and my Matrox G550 with my analogue LCD?

Can I use 2 video cards where I use the nvidia for games and the matrox for text work?

Also, would I really benefit from getting the ti4200 w/ 128MB memory or would I in fact run slower with UT2003 and the upcoming Doom 3 ?

 

[helpme]

Originally posted by: bupkus
I spend some time with my dual boot linux and ATI doesn't play well with linux.

ATI reciently released their Linux Unified driver package, did you try it out yet?

 

[Sid59]

Originally posted by: helpme

Originally posted by: bupkus
I spend some time with my dual boot linux and ATI doesn't play well with linux.

ATI reciently released their Linux Unified driver package, did you try it out yet?

http://www.ati.com/support/faq/linux.html

 

[bupkus]

ATI reciently released their Linux Unified driver package, did you try it out yet?

No, I haven't even purchased the video card yet. If others report it's good, that opens up many possibilities for quite a few linux users.

I came so close to ordering an MSI ti4200 64MB card yesterday from Newegg, but...

XP, Linux, great frame rates, 1280x1024 res, full detail, I want it all.


Edit:

3D Graphics Acceleration

ATI has made the necessary hardware and programming information available to Linux developers for the development of hardware 3D acceleration.

Family 3D Status
RADEON 8500 XFree86 drivers available on the ATI website support hardware 3D acceleration
RADEON 3D drivers are available from the DRI Project.
RAGE 128
RAGE PRO 3D support is a work in progress from the UTAH-GLX Project.

Accelerated-X products by XI Graphics, Inc. also offer hardware accelerated 3D using OpenGL. Accelerated-X is provided as a commercial alternative to the freeware XFree86.

 

[tart666]

Why don't you get Rad 9500 (made by ATI) from newegg for $172 ??

As far as 2D quality goes, "made by" cards are pretty safe.

But both "powered by" and GF4-based cards are a crapshoot. The quality of RAMDAC varies very widely among the OEM's. I heard MSI is decent, but I don't have any links right now. You have too look for a review for your specific OEM model, and look for "image quality" assessment

Because of all these headaches, I prefer to buy "made by" cards. And luckily, ATI drivers are decent these days, even for Linux.

There, my 2 ¢

 

[Mamoose]

UT2003 ran great on my original GeForce 3 (3DMark2002 @ 8180) but upgraded to TI4200(3DMark2002 @ 11183) much betterIt'll do till FX hits the shelves

 

[Tom]

To answer your original question, I'm using a 64mb Geforce4 Ti4200 and a 2.4g P4(it's a Dell 4550, btw) and Unreal 2003 runs great !