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View Full Version : What's most important in a graphics card?


nephalim
June 6th, 2003, 04:48
Whatcha think?
AlphaWolf
June 6th, 2003, 04:58
Well, if it didn't have a balance of everything, I wouldn't even touch it. Looking for a card thats the absolute greatest in any category is a bad idea.
URAMetroid
June 6th, 2003, 05:37
Originally posted by AlphaWolf
Well, if it didn't have a balance of everything, I wouldn't even touch it. Looking for a card thats the absolute greatest in any category is a bad idea.


I agree, but the feature that I must have now in a Video card is a TV tuner.
Doomulation
June 6th, 2003, 22:45
Of course, the card can't be too expensive. Otherwise I don't really care as long as it's a powerful card.
URAMetroid
June 7th, 2003, 08:04
The All in Wonder Radeon 9700 Pro has a fair amount of power for me (and the games I play, NOLF2, Splinter Cell, and UT2K3 Demo will all benefit form a upgrade like this).
But the price is one thing holding me back from buying one, my CPU may be OK for this card, but I will not get full speed form this card, and if I get this card (if I ever get it) I will have to run it 4X AGP on my mobo (until I upgrade) but 4X is better than nothing.
The Khan Artist
June 7th, 2003, 22:04
I'd say speed. Yes, I love pretty visuals, but even more, I like playing my games and never having the FPS drop below my refresh rate.
ScottJC
June 9th, 2003, 02:36
Stability, Whats the point of having an amazingly fast card that crashes every 5 minutes like the radeon 9000 pro I had, which was brilliant when it worked but the f**king thing refuses to work on my system. (even after putting a new power supply in)

Seems alot of people have that problem, anyway... thats my two cents
Tagrineth
June 9th, 2003, 02:55
Originally posted by URAMetroid
The All in Wonder Radeon 9700 Pro has a fair amount of power for me (and the games I play, NOLF2, Splinter Cell, and UT2K3 Demo will all benefit form a upgrade like this).
But the price is one thing holding me back from buying one, my CPU may be OK for this card, but I will not get full speed form this card, and if I get this card (if I ever get it) I will have to run it 4X AGP on my mobo (until I upgrade) but 4X is better than nothing.

Um... AGP 8x is completely meaningless for home users. Sure some SPEC results increase, but that doesn't translate to game performance.
The Khan Artist
June 10th, 2003, 01:27
Originally posted by Tagrineth
Um... AGP 8x is completely meaningless for home users. Sure some SPEC results increase, but that doesn't translate to game performance.

Yeah... even FB transfers of 32-bit images, at 1600 x 1200 res, at 85 FPS only takes around 625 MB/sec.

I don't think anything even fully uses AGP 4x.
nephalim
June 10th, 2003, 05:32
Wow...tight race. Come on, more votes!
URAMetroid
June 10th, 2003, 07:35
Originally posted by The Khan Artist


Yeah... even FB transfers of 32-bit images, at 1600 x 1200 res, at 85 FPS only takes around 625 MB/sec.

I don't think anything even fully uses AGP 4x.


I just like the sound of 8X, that's all.
But most likely my next mobo will support 8X AGP.
Tagrineth
June 10th, 2003, 20:59
Originally posted by The Khan Artist
Yeah... even FB transfers of 32-bit images, at 1600 x 1200 res, at 85 FPS only takes around 625 MB/sec.

I don't think anything even fully uses AGP 4x.

:flowers:

Texture thrashing from using such a large frame buffer can also mean more bandwidth... and you forgot to account for inefficiency.

But anyway, FB transfers across the AGP bus aren't particularly necessary, it seems - my Radeon runs N64 and PS1 FB math with no performance hit even at AGP 2x.

Edit: Clarification: I run at AGP4x... I set it to 2x to experiment :saint:
mightyrocket
June 10th, 2003, 21:11
When I place my 3 old cards (Ati rage pro, Voodoo II and S3 stealth 64) into one machine then I've got enough power to play the newer games :P (I didn't say the graphics were correct). The voodoo II is doing the quality, The S3 the speed and the rage pro something between that. I'll make a fusion of these cards and I've got the most powerful and cheap card in the world :D :happy: .
Tagrineth
June 10th, 2003, 22:57
Originally posted by mightyrocket
When I place my 3 old cards (Ati rage pro, Voodoo II and S3 stealth 64) into one machine then I've got enough power to play the newer games :P (I didn't say the graphics were correct). The voodoo II is doing the quality, The S3 the speed and the rage pro something between that. I'll make a fusion of these cards and I've got the most powerful and cheap card in the world :D :happy: .

S3 and speed should never be in the same sentence.
AlphaWolf
June 11th, 2003, 01:36
Although proprietary APIs lick the dick, S3 did have a pretty good API at one point.
Flash
June 11th, 2003, 03:48
Originally posted by AlphaWolf
Although proprietary APIs lick the dick, S3 did have a pretty good API at one point.

And it was absolutely useless. Never knew
many games with that metal support.
Ok, UT, but unlike glide, it requires from you to be a greatest shaman to make it working. :)
EddyB43
June 11th, 2003, 17:41
AGP8x is indeed just a marketing buzzword for now. Tom's Hardware Guide did a benchmark (http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/200210041/index.html) comparing AGP4x and AGP8x performance of the new AGP8x boards and saw little to no improvement - no games currently want the large memory bandwidth it allows.

The other issue to watch out for is that AGP8x cards will not work in old AGP1x/2x only slots. Neither will older AGP1x/2x cards work in AGP8x motherboards. It's a voltage issue, and with a few exceptions (Asus' latest motherboards for example) installing the wrong card and powering up can kill the motherboard and anything else plugged into it. So don't be tempted into buying a GeForce FX 5600 budget card if you aren't sure about your motherboard having AGP4x support.