Help Me Decide on a First Video Card

[prsobel]

I'm putting together a 900MHZ Athlon system which will use Win 98 (not SE). My interet in video is nothing more than sharp 2D and sufficient 3D acceleration to use with those flight simulation programs requiring (important) OpenGl.

It seems to me that whatever I get will prove to be inadequate as I better define my likes and dislikes through experience. So, I'd like to start with an inexpensive but adequate card with the understanding it will most likely be replaced with a more expensive performer.

To that end, I'd appreciate any constructive thoughts about the 32 MB ATI EXPERT 2000, the TNT2 cards or any others available toward the bottom of the price range.

Looking forward to helpful comments. Thanks.

 

[Taz4158]

Avoid the Xpert 2000 like the plague. The Radeon LE sounds perfect for what you're looking for and is priced under $100.

 

[HappyGamer2]

voodoo5 maybe the answer, it has Fsaa, for flight games, glide which many flight games use, It has great 2d, How well it will perform in opengl flight sims is maybe questionable...price is under 150 dollars now. good drivers now but the company is gone.....

a Ati raedeon ddr card maybe good to, there cheap under 150, or less for some of the cheaper model. I found the drivers for these cards are not that great

a geforce mx would be ok if your playing at lower resulitions, but the 2d quality may not be that great

 

[Hue]

If price is the main issue, get a Voodoo3 3000 for now. Decent game performance and solid 2D. If you can spend a little more get a Radeon that is on sale somewhere. The Nvidia cards 2D (at any price) will give you headaches from staring at the blurry desktop.

 

[TravisBickle]

buy a TNT2ultra over a V3, 128pro or any of that generation. of the current generation the Radeon 32Mb cards are at least fairly cheap with good RAMDAC etc.

 

[Supafreak]

a geforce 2 mx is ok priced and has good performance

 

[arod324]

You can buy the Radeon DDR LE for about $85 from www.newegg.com . This card has been running beautifully for me after a few minor tweaks. ( you can search the video card forum for that) I would definitely reccomend this card over any vanilla geforce2mx any day. I have 3 friends that have the MX, and granted it runs well, but it does not run as well as the Radeon DDR LE, especially in 32bit color.

 

[PeAK]

This is a good review on <a target=new href="http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/articles/value_3dcard_roundup_10-00">budget latest generation
technology</a>