..compared to a 128bit card?
Will not game or do video editing. Is the 128bit worth the extra money?
Will not game or do video editing. Is the 128bit worth the extra money?
Would 64bit make any difference for non-gaming purposes?
- Thread starter asintu
- Start date
magreen
Golden Member
- Dec 27, 2006
- 1,309
- 1
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I want to share my video card experiences so I can get some explanations.
Everyone's saying that video cards are only necessary for 3d apps, but I saw big differences in 2d apps.
At home I used to have a P4 1.8A@2.0GHz with SDR PC100 ram and integrated SiS graphics running win2k. The machine simply crawled, since half its total memory bandwidth was sucked up in integrated video which took 400 MB/s. I put in an AGP Radeon 9250 card and it helped a TON with general performance. But interestingly, I saw a big improvement in 2D graphics. Whereas before I had to check the option in windows where it only draws the outline of a window when you drag the window, after the new vid card I could have it draw the contents of the window as I dragged it. And it drew it very quickly and smoothly. Now why did the discrete video card help with that, if the video card doesn't actually do any processing for 2D apps and desktop? I never used 3D apps. Was it the faster DDR memory on the video card? But it seems to me that for 2D apps there's just the video buffer, which only needs approx. 400 MB/s -- 1280*1024*75 Hz*4bpp in my case = 375 MB/s. So why would the faster memory on the card affect that? It had the 375 MB/s it needed which it sucked away from system memory bandwidth, as measured by Sandra & Everest.
At work I had a 3 monitor setup. It was a P4 3.0GHz with DDR2 memory and Intel 915 integrated graphics running WinXP. The IGP was running one monitor, and I had two old PCI cards in there running one monitor each -- a Radeon 7000 DDR and a Matrox M200. First of all, drawing and updates were much faster on the IGP screen than on either discrete graphics card's screen. The Radeon 7000 came in 2nd, and the Matrox M200 dead last -- very slow. And I used to use Procomm Plus to monitor debug data from an external device through the serial port. I was forced to keep the Procomm window on the IGP's screen and not on either of the other two screens because the video cards couldn't draw the text in the window fast enough for me to see the text scroll by. Again, this is all 2D stuff -- no 3D stuff at all.
So why did I see such differences in 2D apps and general desktop stuff between these different video cards and IGPs? It's hard for me to believe fast video cards only help for 3D.
Everyone's saying that video cards are only necessary for 3d apps, but I saw big differences in 2d apps.
At home I used to have a P4 1.8A@2.0GHz with SDR PC100 ram and integrated SiS graphics running win2k. The machine simply crawled, since half its total memory bandwidth was sucked up in integrated video which took 400 MB/s. I put in an AGP Radeon 9250 card and it helped a TON with general performance. But interestingly, I saw a big improvement in 2D graphics. Whereas before I had to check the option in windows where it only draws the outline of a window when you drag the window, after the new vid card I could have it draw the contents of the window as I dragged it. And it drew it very quickly and smoothly. Now why did the discrete video card help with that, if the video card doesn't actually do any processing for 2D apps and desktop? I never used 3D apps. Was it the faster DDR memory on the video card? But it seems to me that for 2D apps there's just the video buffer, which only needs approx. 400 MB/s -- 1280*1024*75 Hz*4bpp in my case = 375 MB/s. So why would the faster memory on the card affect that? It had the 375 MB/s it needed which it sucked away from system memory bandwidth, as measured by Sandra & Everest.
At work I had a 3 monitor setup. It was a P4 3.0GHz with DDR2 memory and Intel 915 integrated graphics running WinXP. The IGP was running one monitor, and I had two old PCI cards in there running one monitor each -- a Radeon 7000 DDR and a Matrox M200. First of all, drawing and updates were much faster on the IGP screen than on either discrete graphics card's screen. The Radeon 7000 came in 2nd, and the Matrox M200 dead last -- very slow. And I used to use Procomm Plus to monitor debug data from an external device through the serial port. I was forced to keep the Procomm window on the IGP's screen and not on either of the other two screens because the video cards couldn't draw the text in the window fast enough for me to see the text scroll by. Again, this is all 2D stuff -- no 3D stuff at all.
So why did I see such differences in 2D apps and general desktop stuff between these different video cards and IGPs? It's hard for me to believe fast video cards only help for 3D.
Denithor
Diamond Member
- Apr 11, 2004
- 6,298
- 23
- 81
How much total system ram did you have on the old computer? Perhaps you just didn't have enough memory for everything you were doing and the video ram was enough to free up the system ram for everything else.
Video cards do accelerate 2D as well but normally you won't see any difference versus integrated assuming the rest of your system is set up correctly.
Video cards do accelerate 2D as well but normally you won't see any difference versus integrated assuming the rest of your system is set up correctly.
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