Video Card

[MasterChief1724]

I am going to get a new video card to meet the demands of my new games. My friend got a Gforce 5200 from walmart that has 256mb of ram. Now he is telling me that the ati there I was looking at is better. He said he got this one because he needed the extra ram for photo shop. Its an ait 9200 or a 9800(cant remember which) and it has 128mb of ram. Now the ati only cost like 80 bucks and i think the gforce was like 120+. IS the ati any good?? price wise i think the card will not meet my needs because if its that cheap i dont think its really all that fast. He did use his card for Guild Wars and it worked fine. Mostly because he could play the game with a small screen so he could close it and go to his desktop. I know both gforce and ati have good cards but the way he is saying it the ati will run better with the games and he uses the extra ram on the other for the photo stuff. Will the ati there run Battlefield 1942 on high grahics, 400% bots on single player and have no freezing or lagging??? I know ati's are a bit better but this one just doesnt seem so. I do though only have a limited amount of money to spend on this so i cant get something like a gforce 6800 or anything like that. Im looking for a good card that will run my games on high graphics. Such as Battlefield 1942, Warhammer: Dawn of War, and Painkiller. games of that sort.

[pre98zetec]

I have the FX5200 256MB and it will run any game I put to it, doom 3, HL2, anything. The ATI is an alright card but the 9200 is out of date (so is the FX5200) but I'm partial to nVIDIA cards over ATI.

Both will run Battlefeild, The nvidia will run it a little better.

[MasterChief1724]

what do you have the graphics settings on when you play doom 3 or whatever??

[pre98zetec]

Originally Posted by MasterChief1724

what do you have the graphics settings on when you play doom 3 or whatever??

highest setting, 4X antialiasing , 8X antisotropic. frames per second range from 35 to 75.

[pre98zetec]

also what's your budget? around 150? if so get a Radeon 9800 256 mb, VERY powerful card.

[MasterChief1724]

Hmm. My friend pretty much has the same card as you and he cant run half life 2 without having it on lowest settings and have it freezing up and stuff. I really am not sure. I can go to about 150. Im going to try and check circuit city today because i was checking a ati they had. From what ive been reading about them they are more stable than the gforce.

[pre98zetec]

how much ram and whats his processor speed? and processor make. And what kinda of computer, dell? emachines?

[MasterChief1724]

Hes got a good computer. Only had it for like a month so far. He has a AMD 3600. dont know the ram count. But just yesterday i got a ati All-in-Wonder 9600. It has 128mb of ram. I was looking at a 9600 on the circuit city site but i got the wrong 9600. But the one I got was on sale so im not going to take it back unless I have to. But the 9600 I was looking for wasnt even there. But does anyone know how well this card runs with games. If it is good can it run Half Life 2 fine. I wasnt looking for this card in particular but I got it anyways. It has a remote and connectors so you can play stuff from your TV. I didnt want all that but I got it now if I want to use it. Something that puzzles me though is if this card is designed to run shows and stuff from your TV and is (hopefully) good enough to run Half Life 2 fine then why doesnt it have a fan to cool it? All it has is a small heat sink near the back. Hopefully I wont have a problem of overheating.

[pre98zetec]

nah you shouldn't have a problem with it overheating. Although to pretty much eliminate the problem and be safer I recommend getting a video card fan. I have one in mine and it works great all you do it mount it under the video card in a open PCI slot and plug it in with a 4 prong connector. They are around 15 bucks, some have leds like mine does . I only got it cause I have a acrylic window kit on mine.



You can get them at usually any computer store or even online prolly cheaper then 15.


The 9600 is a good card, I had it before but gave it to my friend when I got my FX5200. The 9600 was prolly a better card then my FX (performance wise , higher frame rate but not as good of graphics) but the graphics quality of the Nvidia card is was serpast the quality of the Radeon.

[MasterChief1724]

So will it be able to run Half Life 2 with normal graphics fine?? havent been able to test it yet. And yeah ill probably get a fan for it. Saves the trouble of having system lock ups if they happen.. Ill get one of those cool lighted ones. I need to spice up my boring ass compter.

[pre98zetec]

I can't garrentee it will run HL2, I haven't tried it on a 9600 but I'm postive it will. My friend has a Radeon 9700 128mb and it run's it fine so I doubt a 9600 is all that different.

[MasterChief1724]

Ok, new question. What would be a good motherboard to get? The one I have now has no freaking agp port. Im still going to run the ati All-in-Wonder 9600 card. So of course it needs a agp port. But it probably will have to use intel cpu because i cant afford a new cpu now. Ill just have to use the intel i have now. But if possible have the motherboard support a large hard drive much more than 100GB, and lots of ram(more than 1GB). I plan on getting those upgrades for later.

[aznxthuggie]

Originally Posted by sk8ter_in_ny

highest setting, 4X antialiasing , 8X antisotropic. frames per second range from 35 to 75.

are you sure it was that fast? i really doubt it

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...charts-08.html

the 5200 isn't exactly high end, its a bit below average, because i was looking into buying one, expecially with the new geforce series and pci express coming out

i don't see how u can get those kinds of results/fps with the settings u say u put, my friend has the same videocard and with most settings off or on low, its still laggy as hell

also for $150 i would recommend....
ATI 9600 ALL IN WONDER
ATI 9600 XT 128MB
ATI 9600 256
Nvidia Geforce 6200 128/256
Nvidia Geforce 5700 128/256
and maybe the
Nvidia Geforce 5900

most of these cards are pretty good, the reason the price is the same for all these cards, is because of the features that they come with, i wouldn't really go to any retail stores to buy these tho, they always overcharge, try buying online, or find a computer fair

[MasterChief1724]

Yeah my friend tried Half Life 2 with his gforce 5200 and he had to have the graphics on lowest and it still lagged a lot. I know the All-in-Wonder is designed to do things with your tv and other stuff. So how well does it run with games? Is it powerful enough to run the newer games fine?

[pre98zetec]

Mine doesn'y lag at all and runs great, why would I lie about my framerate/settings?

There test's are performed on a 128mb model of the 5200, the extra 128mb of ram on mine help alot.


I rarely see 75fps but I've done it, normally it around 35-38 solid, in pitch black places it jumps to around 45-55 and sometimes well into the 70's. I could never run constant 70's unless I was on prolly low or medium quality.

Do you know what kinda of setup your friend has?. (ram, processor speed, mobo) doom 3 is pretty evenly processor and video card dependant.


Also I forgot to add one thing, My card is not stock, It's overclocked. Core speed is now 400mhz, memory clock speed is now 485mhz, so it's alot faster then a stock 5200. Stock is about 266, 333.


Mastercheif, what kind of CPU do you have. When you say intel I hope you don't mean celeron.