Scorbing Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 I currently have a Radeon 64 MB SDR card. The only reason I got it was because PC Magazine gave it 5 stars in a review. Is there anything better than that card out there for games and DVD playback? If so, please tell me which is the absolute best Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger H. Veteran Posted January 8, 2002 Veteran Share Posted January 8, 2002 absolute best is gonna cost you as you'd expect but a Geforce 3 TI 500 (chipset) is the absolute best right now.. prolly about $400 USD though. I'd get it from Asus or Gainward or that V.... company name.. DVD isnt' that big of a deal now since all video cards since the TNT2 can handle it with ease.. i'd say get a Geforce 2 GTS or something in that area for about $69.00 USD. Prolly about 2 times better than your Radeon 64 SD card (the GTS that is) them Geforce 3 and the upcomming Geforce 4 is WHOA!!!!!!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scorbing Posted January 8, 2002 Author Share Posted January 8, 2002 Originally posted by SHoTTa35 absolute best is gonna cost you as you'd expect but a Geforce 3 TI 500 (chipset) is the absolute best right now.. prolly about $400 USD though. I'd get it from Asus or Gainward or that V.... company name.. DVD isnt' that big of a deal now since all video cards since the TNT2 can handle it with ease.. i'd say get a Geforce 2 GTS or something in that area for about $69.00 USD. Prolly about 2 times better than your Radeon 64 SD card (the GTS that is) them Geforce 3 and the upcomming Geforce 4 is WHOA!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks guy. I appreciate that. It helps a lot. I was thinking about a GeForce but wasn't sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrangesOfCourse Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 V company name is VisionTek.. i have a GeForce2 MX 400... really nice.. should try it.. laterz ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stingray Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 You?ll lose the DVD playback quality, though (and the 2D image quality too). I wouldn?t do it for a couple of fps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyberscope Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 the 64mb Raseon 8500 is really good with dvd playback and gaming graphics are much smoother than the ge-force 3's... The Radeon 8500 is Amazing... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryoujikaji Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 THE best 3dcard ever is a Voodoo 3 3000!! and I'd gladly sell it to you for $100 :D ;) trust me nothing beats a voodoo :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyberscope Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 Voodoo 3 3000, dude stop trying to rip him off man....lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stingray Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 I?d go for an ATI 8500, it?s a kickass 3D card with all the tradicional image quality of ATI (best DVD playback in the world), almost as good as Matrox?s 2D. Nvidia cards suck at 2D, they are awfully blurry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyberscope Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 ofcourse, ATI is the best...that's why the 8500 series out performes a ge force 3 easy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zerroeffect Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 Ummm... I would like to put in my two cents here. This is a subject I know something about. I had an All in Wonder 128 32MB for a while and loved the DVD and TV Out of that card. ATI is the best for TV out and I can't understand why NVidia doesn't support that feature a little better. I was seriously thinking of upgrading to a Radeon until a friend of mine got one. Nice card except ATI is a total ******* in driver support and pretty much support of any kind. NVidia is much better in this area. I got a Geforce 2 MX 400 64MB last year and, aside from a rough start in the TV out department (it's really important to me for games), it's everything I could want for 60 bucks. You'll have to spend 10 bucks extra to register TVTool, which is the only way to route out to TV with a Geforce, but it's the price you pay for quality and stability. NVidia is constantly upgrading drivers. As for these strange claims of the Geforce having blurry 2D performance, I don't know where this is coming from except the fact anti-aliasing is enabled by default. It's all about tweaking, people. :) There are three really good "free" tweaking utilities: NVMax, GTU, and another I can't remember the name of. Turn off anti-aliasing and adjust a couple of settings - you're in business. You can also do this in the driver properties. I get very nice performance in both 3D and 2D on my Celeron 900 with 256MB. About 1500 3D Marks. Sorry about the length of this, I just wanted to get my point accross. By the way, first gen Geforce 3 and all Geforce 2 cards should be dropping in price after the Geforce 4 hits. :) On the other end, you can probably find a cheap first gen Radeon now since the intro of the 8500. It's not a bad card at all, just bad support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeza Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 i've got an all in wonder radeon 32 MB agp card right now and its ****in sweet :D dvd playback and tv-out/in is great as well there hasnt been a game i couldnt play smoothly on it yet...just depends on how high your demands are... you could get great performance if you like using the TV-out feature to play games like on your TV Screen at 800x600 32bit since the tv would be bigger than the monitor anyway who needs a higher resolution? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyberscope Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 well see here...ATI is a all digital card, unlike the ge forece 3 which is not fully digital..that's why ATI has better TV support..another thing for gaming ATI is better...it's smoother like i said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeza Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 i've always liked ATI regardless of how many ppl say their driver support sucks i've never had one problem with any of the drivers they've released they probably dont need to release a million in one month cause the few they do release are good enough ;D i wouldnt be surprised if they forced all xbox users to update their drivers since it is nvidia based at least 454546 times every 3 months, that would suck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zerroeffect Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 Yeah, it's all trivial when it comes down to it. I actually like the TV out with TVTool on the Geforce better than the ATI I had. It's more readable. Otherwise, the stretching features on the ATI cards are awesome, but I hate dropping to 800x600 to route out. TVTool does that for you and allows multiple hot keys. I wish they would combine the two. :) Radeons are at about 100 bucks now for retail online at pricewatch. Worth it if you aren't too demanding. I'm waiting for Geforce 3 to drop. I stupidly missed the Best Buy sale after Thanksgiving. DOH! ATI makes great products. NVidia makes great products. ATI releases capable drivers. NVidia does as well, though they are constantly pushing the hardware to it's limit. The difference is there. Both products are wonderful and well worth the money. If you want TV in, go for the ATI. If you want to massively tweak and overclock your card, go with NVidia. Otherwise, there's not much difference beyond the little things that annoy some on each. Each are very capable cards. Also, the ATI AIW card is one of the best inventions ever... if you need all that stuff. :) I personally never used a lot of the features. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyberscope Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 so you ppl still think a Ge-Force 3 is better than a 64mb ATI Radeon 8500? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeza Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 yeah i know what you mean about trying to read i wonder if turning on clear type fonts will make a difference probably not but oh well..i only use it to play games.....they look great on the TV since it gives a little blur compared to the sharpness of the monitor which on tv makes it look better than PS2,xbox,gamecube combined. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeza Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 i dont ;D i want the all in wonder 8500DV 64MB 400 bucks.....that would be too sweet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grrinder Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 I would have to agree with zerroeffect, I have a Geforce2 pro and have never had blurry 2D or 3D performance. And DVD playback is also very crisp. IMHO you can't go wrong with a good quality Geforce card. But I would stay away from the MX cards, my mother has a P4 1600 with a Geforce2 mx 32MB and with high settings on Quake3 gets about 26fps. With my PIII 1-GIG and Geforce2 Pro 64MB, I get 76fps with the same settings. But ATI driver support is better than it used to be and the Radeon 8500 is also a very good card. You would probably be happy with either one. Here are some benchmarks from toms hardware, http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/01q4/...w8500dv-09.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zerroeffect Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 Yeah, I agree that TV out is the way to go. A friend's kid plays SNES, GBA and CPS2 when he comes over. Looks just like the real thing. I also play AM's:Alice at times. Who needs a videogame system when you have a computer? :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miran Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 Cyberscope.. WTH difference does it make? In a couple of months, nVIDIA will come out with something "better", then later, ATI will.. It's a cycle - they are both really good cards. This is about helping the guy who started this thread - don't turn it into a petty debate about "my dad is taller than your dad". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zerroeffect Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 The jist of the debate is this: Get what you can afford. That's why I got a Geforce 2. I really WANT other cards, but at the time, stuff was expensive. Maybe ATI did clean up their driver support. If they did, it comes down to the following questions: Do you need certain features? Do you really care about a few extra FPS? What is your budget? Check out Epinions.com if you have doubts about a card you see for sale. Check the benchmarks in grrinder's post. If you get something and hate it, return it and get the other or sell it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stingray Posted January 9, 2002 Share Posted January 9, 2002 zerroeffect, I was referring to 2D TYPICAL bluriness of the Nvidia cards, especially at high resolutions. You can confirm this everywere. There are people who don?t notice the difference between good and poor image quality because thaey?ve only had poor image quality, know what I mean? "You won?t miss what you don?t know"... This article is a bit old, but it?s still true for Geforce 3 cards: http://www.geocities.com/porotuner/ I had a Matrox G400, which has probably the best 2D image quality in the world. I moved on to a Geforce 2 MX400 just for gaming, and believe me, the picture quality (especially awful in the Windows environment) is WORSE. I should have bought ATI, but they?re a bit more expensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zerroeffect Posted January 11, 2002 Share Posted January 11, 2002 Okay, Stingray. I see where you're coming from. I never go beyond 1024x768 because I just don't like the extra power needed to run at that high and the tiny features. Yeah, it really is true about not missing it. Sort of like some of the fuzzines things with TV in and out on All in Wonder cards. Most people don't notice these things until a new driver is released saying it's fixed. At 1024x768 on my monitor, everything is just fine. Maybe Leadtek makes higher quality cards. I've been thinking of giving the mx400 I have to my brother and getting a new card. I'll probably eventually move on to a Radeon 8500 when it goes down in price in the next couple of years. Thanks for the link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Defiantly Posted January 11, 2002 Share Posted January 11, 2002 I would recommend stearing clear of all ATI products, at the moment. I had a RADEON 64DDR/7200 for a year or so and had major issue with all of the newer driver sets. (and I'm not the only one) ATI's driver workmanship is at it's worst! If you don't believe me, go to www.rage3d.com, enter the forums and read about everyones problems. Read about unanswered ATI tech support questions. Read about all of the chipset incompatabilities. Read the frustration. Simply put, ATI's pruducts are inferior to anything Nvidia has on the market, all due to driver crafting and support. Is image quality better than Nvidia products - Yes. Are ATI's cards cheaper for similarly performing Nvidia's - Yes. Is ATI's hardware better than Nvidia's - Can't tell. However, all newer drivers suffer from D3D "stuttering." Their WinXP drivers are a joke. The native XP driver work better. Did you know that ATI was caught cheeting with a recent driver set for the 8500? They lowered image quality settings just to score better in bechmarks! They have "apologized" and corrected the issue. Make a statement and make your life easier, ati-up another couple of dollars and get a GeForce3 Ti200 for $150.00. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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