cheapest/weakest possible card for quake 4, far cry, and HL2

I have a 5700LE and I run HL2 and CSS in 1024X768 with all options on high, except for AA, AF, HDR, and reflections. I usually get around 40FPS, but I have a AMD64 3200+ and 1GB Ram.

Yea, definitely get a Radeon 9800, I used to use that and it ran HL2 fine, all setting maxed out, even in 1600X1200 it worked fine plus its dirt cheap, about $72, I found. Also just google grahics card overclocking and you can find some utilities to help you overclock.

The 9800Pro is a great card, I have it in a PC that I'll be giving away to a cousin. Your CPU will hinder it's performance though, even if your were to upgrade it to an Athlon 2000+ XP. But it won't be as bad as with the Athlon 1600+ XP. I would overclock the PC to get an additional 100Mhz - 200MHz; the more the better.

Also, the 9800Pro doesn't overclock very well with the stock cooler (at least mine didn't).

Call me crazy but I don't think the "upgrade" from an Athlon 1600 to an Athlon 2000 is worth hardly any money... if someone is giving you the chip... sure... go for it... if you're out to buy one... reconsider.

My present computer has exactly that VPU, a Radeon 9800Pro with 128MB memory. My processor is a P4 Northwood at 3.0Ghz and 800mhz fsb on socket 478. Not a bomb, but good enough compare to the Prescott that followed it.

I played Far Cry at 1280*1024 without any problem with setting at medium or good (out of low, medium and good, + ultra for water). I was getting a bit over 30 fps if I'm right and never got scene missing or skipping. Half-Life 2 is exactly the same (1280/1024 with medium setting) and sometime 1024*768 but with more "effects" on. I didn't play Quake 4 tough.

You should know that more recent games like Oblivion and/or FEAR will force you to reduce both resolutions and quality setting to get playable fps (frame per seconds). But it doesn't look to be considered anyway. So I'm just mentionning it.

You should remember in your case (no offence I hope) that your Athlon 1600+ will also be a limiting factor. So putting anything more powerful will be limited by your cpu in most case. So a 9800Pro is really the sweet spot I'd say for your cpu, as long as you don't mind not having all eye-candy maxed-out.

Forget about the GeForce 5900, it was NVidia worst VPU in their whole history. Any of NVidia 6600 (or more) VPU for the same price would also be a good choice, if not better for games using pixel shadder 3.0 not supported by the 9800Pro. I wouldn't base my choice on this, since game needing it usually need really powerful VPU, but you should know. Still, the 9800Pro is the best choice I think.

Good luck and happy gaming!

Someones going out of their way to rip on ATI.

well the 9600pro that my friend has works great with HL2 and CS:S. also the gf6600 is a good option and it has SM.3

thanks for the suggestions, and the 2100+ is from another system after i upgrade it

but is there any way i can upgrade this processor for cheap?, i dont want to spend much as it is going to be replaced after UT2007 comes out, but if a processor boost would help the performance i could spend a bit on it, since it is still going to be somebody's computer after that

I understand, but who mentioned Linux? That's my point.

first of all what is your mother board... because with it we cant know what is your cpu support..... but here is a list of cpu's formEBAY
what do would be a possible price range for you?

i posted another thread about the proc upgrade

and i do run linux, but not for games, i generally run it to do homework so that i dont get distracted by games, so the ati drivers are good enough

XUbuntu ftw