Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (
More info?)
"Glennbo" <glenns.spambox@tesco.net> wrote in message
news:Ar_xd.1488$_i1.1432@newsfe1-gui.ntli.net...
>
> "Rubix" <chessmaster@gmx.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:41c84cb0$0$42562$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader03.plus.net...
>> Hi
>> I know you are unlikely to be impressed by the choice, but I'm wondering
>> whether to replace a 32MB Geforce2 MX 400 legacy card with a brand new
>> 128MB 9200SE that just fell my way.
>>
>> It seems that the extra memory may be useful on a 4 yr old P3 1000 Mhz
>> system with 768 MB ram. Any thoughts?
>>
>> Rubix
>>
>
> As far as I know the 9200SE is a DirectX 8.1 card whereas any MX card is
> only DirectX 7. DirectX 8.1 will open up options like pixel and vertex
> shaders (which will make your games look prettier) if your games support
> it. I also suspect that as well as more memory for textures, the 9200SE
> will run at faster speeds so you should get slight better performance to
> boot.
>
> A few years back I went from a Geforce 2 MX to a Radeon 8500LE (very
> similar to a 9200SE) on an Athlon 1.2 GHz and the performance gain in
> things like 3DMark2001 was very noticeable.
>
> I would go for it - I'm sure you will not be disappointed.
>
> Glenn
dont get a SE card if you can help it. The LE (in Glenns case)
was just a slower clocked card but the SE versions are reduced
bandwidth (64bit instead of 128) and that makes a lot of differance.
It'll still be a step up from a MX400 but better choices would be
8500 or 9100 (these have more texture units than the later models)
9000pro or 9200.
the nvidia alternative would a simple geforce4 mx440 - it may not support
shaders but games that use shaders wont run on a 1gig CPU any good so forget
em.