Simviation Forum - Video Card Suggestions?

Aug 12^th, 2005 at 12:08pm

jay_the_pilot Offline
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Clovis, NM

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I'm in the market for a new graphics card, and my price range is somewhere around $60-$80. I'm currently running the Nvidia Riva TNT 64 that came with my Vaio nearly 4 years ago, and I'm tired of having the stairstep effect and having my framerate reduced to practicaly 0 if there are any clouds of noticeable size. Any suggestions?

Also, I have a Pentium 4 at 1.7 ghz, so if you think I should update something other than the video card, do tell.

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Reply #1 - Aug 12^th, 2005 at 1:35pm

4_Series_Scania Offline
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Quote:

I have a Pentium 4 at 1.7 ghz, so if you think I should update something other than the video card, do tell.

Depends mate, if you have 256MB Memory with it, then consider an upgrade to 512MB, that alone will reap rewards.

Pretty much any current low end Graphics card from a GeForce FX5200 upwards,will seem 100times better than your TNT2 I guarantee you!!!

Posting drivel here since Jan 31st, 2002. - That long!

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Reply #2 - Aug 12^th, 2005 at 6:49pm

the_autopilot Offline
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Do you have an AGP slot?

If so, a 6600 gt will boost your performence by a 1000 times.

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Reply #3 - Aug 12^th, 2005 at 7:49pm

jay_the_pilot Offline
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Clovis, NM

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I finally decided on a GeForce MX 4000 for $70 at my local Walmart. It was pretty much my only option in my price range, considering the only other store in my town that carries graphics cards is Office Max, and they were a bit overpriced. I went from my old 32mb to 128 mb, and it's absolutely stunning. Installation was only a couple minutes, and the graphics are absolutely beautiful. Best 70 bucks I ever spent.

BTW, I have 512 mb SDRAM, in case anyone cared.

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Reply #4 - Aug 12^th, 2005 at 7:51pm

the_autopilot Offline
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For 70 bucks, I would have bought a geforceFX 5200 with dx9 abilities and better memory.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130188

Your card is only a dx7 card. and has probably very cheap memory.

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Reply #5 - Aug 12^th, 2005 at 8:43pm

GunnerMan Offline
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Yes im sorry but you made a mistake there, that card is not worth 70$ return it if possible and get FX5200...

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Reply #6 - Aug 13^th, 2005 at 7:39am

imchief Offline
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I Fly High
Pensacola, FL

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Deffinitly return that card. I had a GF4 MX440 SE and FS9 Sucked! No reflections. Poor quality. Get the FX5200 for sure. Wlamart will take back anything! The customer is always right. I used to work ther while in college and we took back stuff that was deffinitly used. We even took back a used, rusted and bent swing set. Can you belive that.

Walmart was even selling the fx5200 at one point.

Good luck

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Reply #7 - Aug 13^th, 2005 at 9:02am

congo Offline
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Australia

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Quote:

I finally decided on a GeForce MX 4000 for $70 at my local Walmart. It was pretty much my only option in my price range, considering the only other store in my town that carries graphics cards is Office Max, and they were a bit overpriced. I went from my old 32mb to 128 mb, and it's absolutely stunning. Installation was only a couple minutes, and the graphics are absolutely beautiful. Best 70 bucks I ever spent.

BTW, I have 512 mb SDRAM, in case anyone cared.

I bought one for a tenner in the second hand shop for an office machine 2 weeks ago, but as long as you are happy!

You really are in for a treat when you decide to upgrade though. Cheesy

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24" WS LCD

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Reply #8 - Aug 15^th, 2005 at 10:27pm

cheesegrater Ex Member

Quote:

I finally decided on a GeForce MX 4000 for $70 at my local Walmart. It was pretty much my only option in my price range, considering the only other store in my town that carries graphics cards is Office Max, and they were a bit overpriced. I went from my old 32mb to 128 mb, and it's absolutely stunning. Installation was only a couple minutes, and the graphics are absolutely beautiful. Best 70 bucks I ever spent.

BTW, I have 512 mb SDRAM, in case anyone cared.

I have a GeForce MX 4000 and I'm having trouble running FS2002. I wish I payed more and got a decent card instead of being such a cheapskate.

Just out of curiosity, what sim are you running on it?

I just run 3DMark2001 and got a score of 2380. However, I do have a Celeron CPU which is absolutely crap for gamming.

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