Purchasing new Video Card

[ITGL72]

I always ask the community when its time to upgrade cards on one of my machines. I have a VOODOO5 video card. We all know the story with 3dfx and I really don't want to mess with other peoples custom altered drivers. Lack of support for this card is making me want to put it in one of my other machines that can use an upgrade, and get what is currently my primary machine and new VC upgrade.

Here's what I am currently running: (I plan on keeping this machine in service when I get a new machine at the end of the year but for now I want an upgrade.)

PIII 933 Mhz
512 MB of RAM
Currently running Win ME, but am loading XP Pro within the next few weeks.

When I have time to play games, (I wish I had more!!) I usually run Janes F-18, Combat Flight Sim II, Falcon 4, Unreal Tournament, Half Life, Madden 2002, and recently MEDAL OF HONOR: Allied Assault.

The crap on the screen I see on MOH with the voodoo 5 is what really plugged me into wanting an upgrade. It actually says, "MOH will run on Voodoo, but it is not supported."

SO - Knowing my current setup, and what I usually like to play, and going from ME to XP pro, WHAT WOULD YOU recommend be the video card I load into this machine next?

I greatly appreciate the comments of all who participate! Thanks!

 

[Rand]

Might be helpful if you gave as an indicatiopn of how much your willing to spend, without knowing that it's hard to offer any definitive opinions.

Personally, I'd be leaning toward an Radeon 8500LE or Retail R8500. The R8500's superior FSAA over the GF3/4 would be of particular benefit in the flight seems you seem to be interested in, and as flights sims are typically 99% processor limited the performance difference between any current graphics card would be minimal in such games. Beyond that Madden 2002 often does seem to slightly favor the R8500 over nVidia's GF3 boards in terms of performance.

The GeForce3 Ti200 is a vaible alternative but with slightly slower performance, and a weaker feature set and the R8500 being a much more well rounded card leaves little to recommend the Ti200 over the 8500'.

If you have more money to spend then a GF4 Ti4400 would certainly offer a very decent performance boost over either of the above mentioned cards in terms of gaming performance, but to be honest given your evident leanings towards flight sims it still might not be quite as well suited for you as the slower R8500.

 

[ITGL72]

Well Im figuring about $300 for the video card. Thats about what I have spent in the past. I figure thats a decent figure to blow on a video card. It looks like the ATI RADEON 8500LE 128MB card is about $180 from some of the sites I saw online.

The ATI Site does not list the ATI RADEON 8500LE 128MB - But does list the RADEON 8500 64MB DDR AGP. I wonder why? Whats the big difference. I am assuming since it comes with more RAM its better then the RADEON 8500 64MB DDR AGP card.

Best prices I found online for both cards is:

ATI RADEON 8500LE 128MB - $179.39
RADEON 8500 64MB DDR AGP - $149.00

What do you think?

 

[Redemmer]

You got it all mixed up.
The 128 MB Radeon 8500 LE (Light Edition) is not better than the Retail. The extra 64MB won't help you at all (in some cases it may lower your performance) since currently no games require so much texture memory. Another thing is that the Retail version is faster 275/275 compared to 250/250 or maybe even 230/230. IMO don't pick the Geforce 4. The Radeon has superior DVD, 2D, TV-OUT makes it the all-around best buy.

Hope that helps

 

[tenoc]

Agreed, the R8500 Retail 64mb. Save the other buck-and-a-half for your
major upgrade.

 

[Mitzi]

I got hold of a Radeon 8500 retail on the weekend. Initially I wasn't impressed by the performance of the card (granted some of the issues where not the Radeons fault) but I downloaded the latest drivers yesterday and I am starting to see that it is an excellent performing and feature packed card.

For all you need to know about the Radeon and other ATI cards go to Rage3D.

Cheers!

 

[nnnyyy]

Yup I would look to the retail radeon8500. I just upgraded to this card from a ti200 and I am impressed. The ati drivers really arent as bad as I previously thought and the features on this card are amazing especially considering the price. Nice 2d, dvd, dual monitor + tvout.

 

[SCSIfreek]

I'm on the same boat man, I finally realized that my voodoo5 isnt cutting it for MOHAA. Especially in the beginning of the game, my entire screen was choppy and could hardly movable. I guess its telling to upgrade .


--Scsi