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Author Topic: Video Card recommendations?  (Read 2069 times)

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AugustWest

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Video Card recommendations?
« on: October 23, 2004, 06:23:57 pm »
OK, here's the situation.  

I just bought a new computer.  Actually, it was about 10 days ago, but whatever.  Now I'm in the process of migrating my stuff onto it.  It's a little bit of a poignant moment, because this computer, which I bought in '97, has been so good to me.  But it's a PII 333 Mhz, so I figured it was time to move on.  And when I was walking through Wal-Mart (feh) they had this one which had been returned for $300.  Hard to go wrong at that price.  It's a Compaq with a 2.6 Ghz Celeron and a DVD burner.  But it has no video accelerator.

I'm not a huge gamer (or at least not of video intensive games) so I don't need the total shizznit.  But I would like something that'll let me run DoomIII and I'd like to spend less than $100.  Any ideas?
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jough

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Video Card recommendations?
« Reply #1 on: October 23, 2004, 07:25:49 pm »
Well, nVidia is the shit, but their cards can be expensive.

You can get a decent ATI Radeon 9000 for under $100.

More important than anything is on-board video memory - make sure it has at least 128mb.  That'll help accelerate your games more than anything else.

Either the ATI or nVidia chipsets are fine for Doom III, with a slight edge in speed going to nVidia.
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slink

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Video Card recommendations?
« Reply #2 on: October 24, 2004, 02:32:26 am »
I would advise you go with an nVidia (say an FX5x00 or even a 6x00 if you have the cash), purely because they are more likely to work.
I have a couple of friends who made the switch to ATI when they saw the superior benchmark scores, and ever since they've been having real problems running various games. Things just randomly crashing out on them all over the place, after 3 or 30 minutes of play, with no apparent cause or solution.

nVidia have far better driver development too.
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V-Adore

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Video Card recommendations?
« Reply #3 on: October 24, 2004, 02:53:55 am »
I'm not a hardcore gamer or anything, but I might as well throw in my two cents.

My current laptop is equipped with an ATI Radeon 9000. It tends to run City of Heroes fairly well, although not perfectly; I've had problems displaying textures in some screens, and I've had one totally inexplicable crash that was apparently graphics-card-fueled. Admittedly, my drivers are also out-of-date, which may be causing it, but... yeah, the trouble has been minimal thus far.
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jough

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Video Card recommendations?
« Reply #4 on: October 24, 2004, 06:20:44 am »
V, most laptop video cards have no onboard memory and use a share of the main memory.  Does yours have its own memory?
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