Video Card discussion

Genkaku

Genkaku

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I will be moving to the PC on wednesday officially and I need some help on which new video card to buy.

My comp is pretty old and I cant run benchmark lol.

The minimum requirements calls for GeForce or Radeon 9000 but recomended calls for GeForce.

I dont really care about graphics, as long as it runs smooth, it could be in 8bit for all I really care.

I was looking at GeForce 7600GS but I dont know much about graphics cards.

Suggestions on cheap cards that will run FFXI with minimal problems?

Any help is appreciated.
 
Beware of going *too* cheap. It may be worth spending an extra $30-$50 to get a card good enough that you can actually be near a telepoint (yes, a telepoint) and get more than 5 FPS. You obviously don't need something that could handle 60+ FPS in super high resolution with tons of textures and lots of simultaneously moving objects, either. But I'd lean towards the upper end of "cheap" cards, and definitely avoid scraping the bottom of the barrel.

(I speak from experience: a year ago my vid card died on me and I scrambled to get *any* new one that would work at all. Half a year later I ended up getting a better new one - and thus netting a higher *total* money spending - just because the dirt cheap one that I'd gotten first, was so very aggravating. Couldn't ever turn on weather, couldn't ever turn on graphical effects, had to have animation speed at its lowest at all times, definitely couldn't do any particularly impressive resolution *or* drawing distance, etc.)

Anyway, to get more specific advice, you'll want to say what motherboard you have (if you can figure that out), or at least what sort of slot your vid card plugs into, such as AGP (and if so, figure out whether it does 2x, 4x, or 8x) or PCI Express.
 
Vilurum said:
Anyway, to get more specific advice, you'll want to say what motherboard you have (if you can figure that out), or at least what sort of slot your vid card plugs into, such as AGP (and if so, figure out whether it does 2x, 4x, or 8x) or PCI Express.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah.. dur. Post it when I get home.

Yeah I dont want a bottom of the line, but I also dont trust product sheets on cards either, every card is TOTALLY TOP OF THE LINE WITH STUNNING GRAPHICS.

Just wanna get some input on peoples cards, what they think is better than what. But yeah, ill post my specs when I get home.
 
Does this computer you are moving to have AGP or PCI-E?
How much were you looking at spending on the card?
Do you have a bias to ATI, NVIDIA, or don't care?
 
Nvidia doesn't exist. It's a figment of imagination for all those who follow Satan's teachings. Nvidia fanboys are commonly discovered to be serial infant killers.

ATI 3850 = ~$180
ATI 3870 = ~$230

Both of these are current-gen single-gpu cards. Depending on your game resolution, a 3850 could be more than sufficient for this and next year. If you will commonly be gaming at 1280x1024 or higher, the 3870 is well worth the extra $50. I game at 1920x1200 and with a single 3870 on an older (~2 years) computer, the only game I can't max out is Crysis. Gears is maxed to the tits and I haven't seen any framerate chop yet.
 
Go with nVidia.
 
I have a 7600GT and it kicks the shit out of FFXI, so im guessing a 7600GS would do the job just fine.
 
CmdrFly said:
Son of a...
Click to expand...

What... say it... I dare you ^-^;

My 7800 GT ran everything I ever wanted... BF2142 most intense game I've subjected it to. =)
 
CmdrFly said:
Nvidia doesn't exist. It's a figment of imagination for all those who follow Satan's teachings. Nvidia fanboys are commonly discovered to be serial infant killers.

ATI 3850 = ~$180
ATI 3870 = ~$230

Both of these are current-gen single-gpu cards. Depending on your game resolution, a 3850 could be more than sufficient for this and next year. If you will commonly be gaming at 1280x1024 or higher, the 3870 is well worth the extra $50. I game at 1920x1200 and with a single 3870 on an older (~2 years) computer, the only game I can't max out is Crysis. Gears is maxed to the tits and I haven't seen any framerate chop yet.
Click to expand...

This man knows what he is talking about.

nVidia is hellspawn.
 
Tristam Green said:
This man knows what he is talking about.

nVidia is hellspawn.
Click to expand...

Treachery, where's the taru bonding. The brotherhood? /sulk
nVidia is the shit. I guess I'm just a fanboi.
 
Arctyreal said:
nVidia is shit.
Click to expand...

Fixed it for you!

sup having to download entire different driver sets for some games
 
never had that problem myself =p
 
Genkaku said:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=90862&lang=en#N457
Click to expand...

Woah shit... judging from the other specs of that comp I think you got old ass PCI, not PCI-express but the old ass kind that came before AGP. How old is that computer? I could be wrong, but thats what I'm thinking.

If thats the case then its gonna be pretty hard to get anything that isn't shit, even for 100 bucks. Looking at newegg they have some 5200 and 6200 in the 50$ range which i would guess could play FFXI (pretty low settings and still probably not gonna get much frames). But aside from that your ram (according to that link only upto a 1gb and low mhz anyway) and processor (2.0GHZ celeron) are gonna hurt you just as much as the video card will. I played FFXI on my Intel 3.2Ghz, Nvidia 5700LE and 2gb of ram back in the day and it was playable but not anywhere near good. But if you're not looking or anything fancy it should atleast play it.

Take a look at some cards here: Newegg that'd probably be your best bet.


Also don't listen to those crazy people who think ATi is good. Nvidia/Intel all the way, anyone who tells you other wise is a bold faced liar...
 
ATI Raedeon 9600 is PCI I believe. It was the graphics card I have in my PC to play FFXI. I couldn't really play at max settings though. It's not the best card in the world, but one of the last PCI cards in the series I think.
 
CmdrFly said:
Nvidia doesn't exist. It's a figment of imagination for all those who follow Satan's teachings. Nvidia fanboys are commonly discovered to be serial infant killers.

ATI 3850 = ~$180
ATI 3870 = ~$230

Both of these are current-gen single-gpu cards. Depending on your game resolution, a 3850 could be more than sufficient for this and next year. If you will commonly be gaming at 1280x1024 or higher, the 3870 is well worth the extra $50. I game at 1920x1200 and with a single 3870 on an older (~2 years) computer, the only game I can't max out is Crysis. Gears is maxed to the tits and I haven't seen any framerate chop yet.
Click to expand...

Nvidia IS REAL AND IT PWNS YOUR FACE FLY! MY 8800GTX Asc3 KO will rape any ATI!

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=22688&vpn=320-P2-N811-AR&manufacture=eVGA&promoid=1001

This card is a decent entry lvl GPU that would run FFXI very nicely! I have a bud who owns one and runs all things FFXI just dandy!

But....with the system you are running nvm :(
 
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^
living proof that Nvidia users are handicapped.
 
In the words of my panel guy at work..

"Brown guy can get hands on anything"

I asked him about a vid card instead of actually going out and buying one, and he hands me a Radeon 9800. Says it'll only cost me 2 coffes and a box of timbits haha.

I'll probably tweak down the graphics as low as possible. Speed > Graphics imo, and I doubt my comp will run without it set that low lol.

Now I just need to learn how to play on PC >.>


Thanks for the helpful info guys!


Edit: Radeon 9800 PRO.
 
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