GPU!

[EHM-0813 Guillermo]

My b/day's coming up, and my dad told me he's gonna buy a graphics card for me so I can play FS2004 as well but he needs to know which one, but I don't know which one to choose. Need a little help here!

[EHM-0654 Murray]

If you're an ATI head, the 9800XT is the top of the tree at ATI (for the moment).

If you're an nVidia bunny, the FX5950 Ultra rules the roost.

For less than pipe-hitting hardware, I honestly couldn't comment... what's the point in looking anywhere but the bleeding edge?

And in the unbiased world I inhabit, I don't mind admitting that the ATI is faster than the nVidia, but as I've had problems with the ATI cards I've owned (most recently a 5700), just as soon as I've saved the £300 for it I'm getting myself an MSI FX5950 (to go with my loverly MSI mobo)

EDIT: And of course, both parties have their next-gen technology waiting in the wings - nVidia are expected to announce NV40 a fortnight or so ahead of ATI announcing R420... and with luck the current high-end cards will begin to dip in price sometime soon after...

[EHM-0962 Zhen Yi]

I would choose the nVidia FX series. you wouldn't want a lot of downtime trying to fix problems that crops up would you? but since they are pushing out new technologies soon, you may want to wait a bit before buying

[EHM-1343 Jonathan]

NVIDIA by a mile, cheap, cost effective and easy to use, what more could you ask for.

[EHM-0813 Guillermo]

how does the GeForce FX fare with Windows XP? My current GeForce 2 is really, REALLY messing up my system in combination with WinXP.

[EHM-1343 Jonathan]

I use the Ge force on my XP and it is brilliant, had it ages and no problems yet.

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Originally posted by Gizmo2k4
how does the GeForce FX fare with Windows XP? My current GeForce 2 is really, REALLY messing up my system in combination with WinXP.

Gizmo,

What do you mean by messing up? I think it is fair to say that you want to be using the most recent nVidia drivers you can get (rather than those made by the card manufacturer) and as someone else said never ever overclock it.

And yes, the newer cards work in XP a lot more happily than the older ones do.

[EHM-1001 Robert]

I had to change my video card two weeks ago. I installed some more RAM to the machine and the two RAM cards were not so friendly whit each other. While somehow I killed my video card :'(

So I bought a new, I changed from Geforce4 Ti4200 64MB to a GeForce FX5700 128 MB. It was about 180 euros/bucks, the same price as the GF4 2 years ago. I am very satisfied with it, it runs very smooth on my XP system. Afterall all the hw components like each other and I have now a very stable PC. I am glad ! NVIDIA rulez !!!

[EHM-0813 Guillermo]

With messing up I mean that my computer freezes almost every time I open Windows Explorer or any other application. I didn't have these problems with Windows' own drivers for the device, but it didn't support OpenGL so I had to download nVidia's drivers.

the newer the drivers are, the worse the problem gets, I'm afraid. My friend has this similair problem too, so I know it's the video card.

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Originally posted by Gizmo2k4
With messing up I mean that my computer freezes almost every time I open Windows Explorer or any other application. I didn't have these problems with Windows' own drivers for the device, but it didn't support OpenGL so I had to download nVidia's drivers.

the newer the drivers are, the worse the problem gets, I'm afraid. My friend has this similair problem too, so I know it's the video card.

Had a nasty feeling that would be the case, and yes it does sound like the newer drivers are causing some (most) of the trouble.

Silly question... have you tried downgrading drivers back to an older version of the nVidia's drivers from when the GeForce 2 was a little more current? Might help some...

[EHM-0813 Guillermo]

Nope I haven't.. But it doesn't matter, I'm getting the FX next week

[EHM-0813 Guillermo]

Strange how sellers can have a great influence on you I got the Radeon 9600 SE. First of all, the Radeon 9800 was sold out. Second, the Radeon 9800 would be more powerful than my CPU so that wouldn't work out either I've had bad experiences with nVidia, so the ATi card was worth a try. Plus, my GameCube also makes use of ATi, and it hasn't let me down either :% If I don't like it I can always return it, no big deal :> I'm gonna install it tonight and see how FS2004 fares with it.

[EHM-1328 Willem]

Get also the newest drivers , if you drivers are from jan/feb 2004 , these drivers dont work very well.!

Newest version: 6.14.10.6414. are ok.  


Regrads Willem de Graaf.

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Originally posted by Gizmo2k4
Strange how sellers can have a great influence on you I got the Radeon 9600 SE. First of all, the Radeon 9800 was sold out. Second, the Radeon 9800 would be more powerful than my CPU so that wouldn't work out either I've had bad experiences with nVidia, so the ATi card was worth a try. Plus, my GameCube also makes use of ATi, and it hasn't let me down either :% If I don't like it I can always return it, no big deal :> I'm gonna install it tonight and see how FS2004 fares with it.

Gizmo, a sideways swipe at my "I've had nowt but trouble with ATI" mayhaps (apart from the one in my 'Cube too...)

The only reason I say I've had problems with ATI is because of my mobo.  I had it mostly working with my old mobo, but the MSI mobo I have now just refuses to work with it, and I have a suspicion it's something MSI have deliberately done (they along with Gainward were the only manufacturers that didn't jump over to ATI when the NV38 <GeForce FX> came out and wasn't as good as the R400 <Radeon 9600>...)

But yes, I agree people tend to make choices early on and then jump on any excuse that reinforces their choices.