What is a good cheap video card to get?

[LordJezo]

Looking for something to put in a friends computer to speed up her video performace.

Only need something for watching videos mostly.. she is running a Voodoo 2 Banshee on Windows 2000 right now, and it really does not work to well.

She has a 500 mhz AMD k6 and an AGP port, but the old agp ports.

 

[human2k]

If she is only watching movies, get her a Radeon 7000 AGP or PCI if she has no AGP slots. It has good 2D and DVD playback quality. $30 at newegg, add $3 more if you need TV-Out.

 

[wfbberzerker]

she might want to go for a matrox if shes just looking for movies, as those cards have the best image quality around.

 

[LordJezo]

Well, its just that now when she watches movies the video will always lag and wont play back right.

I think it is because the card is so old and there are not really any real drivers for it

 

[RanDum72]

Geta video card that has hardware support for video playback acceleration. ATI cards are the best in this regard. Another good card with good playback support are the ones based on the SIS 315 chipset. These can be had for around 30-40bux.

 

[TheCorm]

Anything in the low end with 32MB Memory should be fine for what she is doing.

ATI = ATI Rage Fury Pro / Radeon 7000
Nvidia = Geforce2 MX400

Corm

p.s: Important to note that even these cards will be limited by the K6 500 CPU, but they we definately be better than a V2.