What's a decent video card?

degen · Post by **degen** » Thu Oct 26, 2000 7:40 am

With the recent price drop on video cards, I was thinking of upgrading my piece of garbage card to something more respectable. I was planning to spend up to $100, since this was only going to be an intermediate fix until I buy a new computer in the next year or so. I'm currently running (don't laugh) a 2 mb card that came with my HP (333mhz, 64 ram).

I have seen the Voodoo 3000 and the ATI Rage Fury Pro (32 mb) at or below $100, so I was considering buying one of these two cards.

Does anyone have thoughts as to which is better, or another card in the same price range that is better?

------------------
"I would have much rather that he had given me one more division" - Rommel after receiving his field marshall baton

BlitzSS · Post by **BlitzSS** » Thu Oct 26, 2000 7:48 pm

Hey, I like your quote, that's a good one and so is your question. I don't know the answer mainly because I'm in the same boat. Hopefully some one will share their wisdom with us, but responses have been slow on this link.

degen · Post by **degen** » Fri Oct 27, 2000 5:18 am

Thanks BlitzSS, I had a hard time finding that quote again after seeing it years ago. It says alot about Rommel.

BlitzSS · Post by **BlitzSS** » Fri Oct 27, 2000 5:53 pm

Ya, I need to come up with a good signature. Last night I re-read the system requirements in the 4.1 manual. It states that no code was written to utilize 3D video features, so I would assume that there should be no drastic benefit of getting a new card for this stratagy game. However, I've been tempted myself to pickup one of those yesterdays greatest 3D cards at yesterdays prices.

Pack Rat · Post by **Pack Rat** » Fri Oct 27, 2000 8:06 pm

I had a VooDoo2. I installa VooDoo3 on a friends puter, very easy to do. I now have a VooDoo4. I paid $149 American for it, I would think you could find it for less though. I've a newsgroup friend who upgraded to a VooDoo3 and was pleased with it. You should be able to find it for about $100. I figured that $49 bucks for twice the RAM was well worth it. I've had zero problems with it. One thing to bare in mind when upgrading the video card is if your mother board will take it ok. Check your BIOS to make sure it has a setting for another card, if it gives you the option to pick "both" or something more specific you should be good. Some puters just make you jump through hoops, getting a code to allow a new card. If you're not running 3D you might look to see if you can get by with more ram in your current card or find a new "used" one till your new puter. Hope this helps.

------------------

Good hunting,
Pack Rat

degen · Post by **degen** » Sat Oct 28, 2000 6:32 am

Thanks Pack Rat for the advice. Wow, $149! That's a great price for the Voodoo4! I have not seen it that low. The V3 was advertised around here for $80 with a mail in rebate.

I realize that there may be little difference with SPWAW, but there are a couple of other games I have been considering that need a better card. Red Alert 2 is one that comes to mind. Before I stumble across SPWAW, I was playing alot of Tiberian Sun and it had slowdowns when I had a mob of units on the map.

The other option I was thinking about was to buy one of these cheap 8 mb cards. I have seen them between $20-30 at Frys. What do you think of that option?

------------------
"I would have much rather that he had given me one more division" - Rommel after receiving his field marshall baton

Thornado · Post by **Thornado** » Thu Nov 02, 2000 8:36 pm

Hi!

I would recommend a Voodoo3. I have a Voodoo3 3000 myself and it gave me no problem during installing and after that. It runs like a clock. TNT2 (which I don't know much about) seems to have more problem running with every kind of motherboard and chipset. Well, don't flame me guys, that's just what I've heard

------------------
_______________________
Thornado
- You'll never know what hit you -

john g · Post by **john g** » Wed Nov 15, 2000 1:43 am

Originally posted by degen:
With the recent price drop on video cards, I was thinking of upgrading my piece of garbage card to something more respectable. I was planning to spend up to $100, since this was only going to be an intermediate fix until I buy a new computer in the next year or so. I'm currently running (don't laugh) a 2 mb card that came with my HP (333mhz, 64 ram).

I have seen the Voodoo 3000 and the ATI Rage Fury Pro (32 mb) at or below $100, so I was considering buying one of these two cards.

Does anyone have thoughts as to which is better, or another card in the same price range that is better?

I also have an hp (4550z) and since it had the unused agp slot I upgraded to the voodoo3 3000 agp. I then had to simply go to the setup and change the bios setting from isa video to agp video. No going to the motherboard jumpers like the HP website mentions or any other jumping through hoops.
Now software that wouldn't run(mindrover, etc.) run just fine, 3d shooters work much better with 3dfx drivers, and the only downside is when halflife decides to crash leaving me in 640x480 so that half my desktop is invisible.
As an upgrade I consider it money just as well spent as the extra 128k ram and cdrw that I added each for about the same cost.
thanks, John.