Old video cards are fine ^^

I know, this might be the useless thread ever, but i dont care, im at work, and im at lunch break, i work a lot with old pcs here and i was wondering this:
Here everyone seems to have the greatest cards on the market and, system and etcs, but not naming anyone (and i dont really have anyone in mind now, that i can remember), sometimes seems that some people just get the latest xpto graphic card only for the pleasure of having it, because they're previous card wasn't really that bad, or actually not bad at all..(i've seen this happening a lot lately).
So, for non gamers, or gamers, but only playing old games, having even a mid range card is waste of money, for example, i regret a lot buying my actual 7800gs when my ati9500 died with multipled bugs on the screen, because now i dont really have that much time or patiente for exploring new games, and im only play UT1 and quake3, and for such games and net brownsing a geforce2 gts for example would be pretty much enough.
After all the blabla, i was about ask if any of you are still using old cards, and are pretty much satisfied with they're actual performance on what they used them for!

I have an ATI 9600 pro in my work PC - for what I do on this PC you can't buy a faster card tbh.

I forgot to mention, here at work, the video card in this pc is a riva tnt64m model, and i dont think i could tell the difference between it and a gf8800gtx, , if i'm not using high resolutions or playing games lol.
Damn primitive, yet pretty much useful for windows, web brownsing and messanger.

I use a radeon 7500 PCI at work.
But, then again I don't even need this much.
At home I have an x1950xtx.
The point is I don't think it's any surprise or secret to buy only what you need, computers for most users, beyond even the entry level stuff at a big-box store is more of a luxury and should be treated as such.
Hell if you're just sharing a few photos, printing, browsing and emailing you don't need much more than a PII and Linux if you're willing to wait a good bit longer to do even some of the simpler things. My mom has a Celeron 2g with 512mb of ram on 56k dialup, and to tell you the truth, beyond the dialup (even the cheapest, slowest dsl blows it away at a comparable price) even that setup is more than she needs.
Anyone strongly considering putting money aside for something considerably better hopefully should already know what they are going to do with it, and have a good reason for it.

To me the bigger problem is people who buy giant monitors for gaming with weak cards that can't support the resolution, or vice-versa. Or don't buy enough system ram in an otherwise high-end game machine.

I treat my pc no differently than I would a console, except that I can game with it and a good amount more, but I make no mistake about the fact it is essentially for gaming, the type that seem to still be limited to pcs. I'm fine with that, I'm fine with spending the hundreds of $ on enthusiast crap too.

Why? Because I don't need it, that's why. That's the point of a luxury. I recognize I could play stuff "ok" with an older or at least cheaper card, and yes, the new (insert hardware here) I buy will devalue almost immediately, but that's ok. It's my hobby. Some people "waste" money on different things, I choose to do it this way. One thing I will definitely say though, is that unlike many of the more popular hobbies, coins, stamps, comic books, those could at least be justified by as investments. There's are very few things for a hardcore gamer that could truly be considered an "investment" in that something that will really retain much of it's value, or increase in value.

While most of the responses have tended to go to the "My/my work/my mom's computer has an old video card because that is all they need", you hit on a very valid point: a cheap older video card is usually WAY better than integrated video. Case in point: I have a 3 year old 6600GT and a 5 year old 9600pro. They go for $10-$50 now on ebay. My "DVR", a $70 ECS MB/Sempron combo with PVR-350, has integrated video that just plain sucks rocks. I can slap either of these boards in their and it is capable of playing RTCW ET, AA, Tribes, AOE, and a boatload of good older games at 1280x1024 that integrated graphics won't handle very well.

I 've found that the majority of folks who upgrade their card do indeed push them at high resolutions and graphical settings.

Certainly, if you're playing older games at lower resolutions a new supercard isn't needed. But it's been my experience that most people on this board are using the power a high end card affords them.

My two cents.

I miss my R9600Pro, not because it would be good at current games, but it would be the perfect thing to add a big passive heatpipe to and use for a MAME arcade rig.

I understand what you're saying, and the R9500P was a fantastic Freakin' card, even the plain R9500 was OK (especially when moded then it was great).

I play mostly 10-20mins of games at a time, and usually it's old school stuff, from my classics, and mame collection. When I do have time I love to play Oblivion though, and it crushes my gaming PC. So if I get a MAME-Classics rig together I can play SMASH-TV, COMMANDO, 1943, RAMPAGE, GALAGA, PHOENIX, GORF, etc. on that without ever upgrading it, and then dedicate my day to day rig to the new games (which each on their own likely take up more space than all my classics).

Like Cleeve mentioned most people upgrade fror their current needs and use most of the power on offer. Rarely do you see someone with SLi on a VGA monitor only to play Kings Quest, or UT1 or Quake 1, but then again some people use a quad core PC for M$ Word and websurfing.

About a month after I built my new system around an E6600 and X1900XT I kinda felt nostalgic and played Fallout 2.

Talk about overkill.

There are a few guys that buy the latest because they are just enthusiasts and have the money for it, not only with gfx cards, but also cpus, ram, etc... Some of those bastards spend money on quad cpus, sli 8800gtx and +1ghz ram to game a few titles, dl music, surf the web and...benchmark their machine till new hardware is out. But hey, they have the money for it!

Some other guys (like me) only upgrade when the hardware isn't fast anymore to handle new games (in this case) and my wallet allows...
I can't game with 15fps, but in CPU matters, I can wait one more hour to finish a render...

Concordo com isso PMR ^^

Anyways, i wasnt nearly bashing anyone who buys the latest hardware, i only wanted to show that old hardware doesnt actually means useless, but i will bash those who buy hardware only to benchmark it all the time. Now thats nerdish and useless.

There are a few guys that buy the latest because they are just enthusiasts and have the money for it, not only with gfx cards, but also cpus, ram, etc... Some of those bastards spend money on quad cpus, sli 8800gtx and +1ghz ram to game a few titles, dl music, surf the web and...benchmark their machine till new hardware is out. But hey, they have the money for it!

Some other guys (like me) only upgrade when the hardware isn't fast anymore to handle new games (in this case) and my wallet allows...
I can't game with 15fps, but in CPU matters, I can wait one more hour to finish a render...

Concordo com isso PMR ^^

Anyways, i wasnt nearly bashing anyone who buys the latest hardware, i only wanted to show that old hardware doesnt actually means useless, but i will bash those who buy hardware only to benchmark it all the time. Now thats nerdish and useless.

Apercebi-me q falavas português porque escreveste: xpto graphic card

I still use my old Pentium 4 Northwood based system with a 6800GT, but when it comes to newer titles like Oblivion it simply doesn't cut it.

I use my old ATI 9800 in my linux/test machine all the time and am plenty satisfied with it.

My HP 734n with a GeForce 4 MX420 is still my primary system when I have my gaming comp with a E4300,2GB ram, 8800GTS 320MB.
This is probably only because I have all my anime/music in here, I play games on the new comp via KVM switch and have music in the background from the HP comp.

I am agreeing with Cleeve and Grape, that most people do take advantage of their new hardware. Often moving from a good card to a better card is because a game or games come out that put a hurting to the old card (Oblivion), or there is the desire to run more eye candy or high resolution.

As far as ancient harware, there's always a use for them, it just becomes limited use. I still use an old AIW 128 Pro daily for basic web surfing, email, word/excel, and watching TV. Forget running games on this thing though. Also have a couple 9800 pro's, one of which my kids use daily. But they are now using a 15" monitor and game at 800x600 or 1024x768 depending on the game.

At work, one of the machine I use has a 180MMX overdrive (upgraded from a P90), it's maxed at 128MB system ram, running Win 95B, and has an ATI Mach 64 2MB card purchased back when that was ATI's top card. It's offline, not on the network, and limited to Word/excel and Quickbooks. But it still gets used quite often for invoicing.

I'm currently running a 9700pro and a 9600pro. For the uses I put my machines to they are sufficient.

I have noticed a slowdown during some of the occasional games I play but unless I start playing some of the recent games then an upgrade won't be worth the cost.

As an aside; both cards have played half-life 2 quite happily, and I'm still working my way through single player mods and ports of that.

Q

I think my original SLi rig is still kicking around somewhere... man, 2x Voodoo 2 with 24MB VRAM, I felt king of the world when I could play Quake2 at 1024X768

Even though I recognise its ability as a benchmarking tool, I find 3DMark scores utterly pointless and just another form of bragging in most cases

Yup, I agree. But I can understand a 7800GTX owner who was planning on investing 300+ hours into Oblivion, to seek a better card for that game. That's more of a Good to Better case that Great to Greater IMO as the 7800GTX is in no way great at Oblivion.

Well shoot, my file server is running a RivaTNT2 64. No problems with that. I figure it is easy on power and is more than what a file server needs so put it to good use.

Just to let you know, his name was actually "Keyser" Soze, for some reasno. I made the same mistake and never heard the end of it.
So, yes now I'm lashing out at you. I actually need to fix that anyway, since he didn't originally say it, a french poet did over a hundred years ago. But thanks for the spelling correction.

Perfect example.

I was in a similar boat, except I'm cheap. I had just purchased a 7800GT and a PCI-e mobo and then bought Oblivion. I started playing it on the AGP rig with a 6800U. Then built up the PCI-e rig and the 7800GT totally failed to impress me...barely better than the 6800U. Bumped up a few details and had the same barely acceptable framerates. Big whoop. I was still stuck playing at 10x7 med-high details and having to choose between HDR and FSAA. At 10x7 I just need fsaa or I start focusing on the jaggies (it's a sickness). Anyway, I bought a X1800Xt 256MB as it was a best bang-for-buck at the time card. Bumped up the details, enabled 4X fsaa+HDR, and had better low fps compared to the 7800GT. To me, for Oblivion alone that was totally a worthy upgrade.

Shocking (for some) but undoubtly true. My last resort pc is a pentium 3 550, with a voodoo5, and does ok with windows xp and web brownsing, msn and mirc. The only showdowns of lack of performance is when i select multiple files, it slows down (because of the voodoo not suporting transparencies i think, with a geforce of some sort it won't happen) and when i scrool down my msn contact list, thats because of the cpu.

I hope I'm in the right Forum for this. I just replaced my MB with a P4M800Pro v2 Core 2 Duo (6300) and I hear that a lot AGP Graphics card do not work in this board. What I am looking for is a AGP Card, so I can upgrade from the 64MB built in Graphics they have. I'm not a gamer I just use my PC for the normal stuff, like using Movie Maker to put my DV Camcorder tapes on disk and cleaning up Digital Camera & Analog Pics to make Slideshows. I just want my PC to be up to par when Vista finally becomes viable to upgrade to. I would really like your help in this area if I'm not intruding on you.

Thank You,
I-Am-He

Hi i just wanted to express my thoughts on this , I basically bought a 8800 to get a better gaming experience.

This is my first High End and Nvidia card. As far as benchmarking goes i haven't even used 3d mark for like a couple of years. I just feel that it does not represent a true gaming experience and is more there for like if you want to know how your rig compares to others .

I have always owned ATI cards, not because i am a fan boy or anything i just always found them to be really good so i never bothered with Nvidia.

I had a x1800 gto which i still have and it decent performance in COH and Oblivion but not with all options on Uber settings. I am more of a RTS gamer but its amazing how demanding these games have become from the days of Red Alert C&c.

In my opinion if you can afford it smoother gameplay is awesome with a high end card as compared to a mid-low - end card .

My gaming experience has never been better, all my games look and feel gr8