Hi!

I'd like to know if my current video card is able to support a new monitor. I appreciate any guidance, since I'm not familiar with these matters.

I'm planning to replace my old SyncMaster 410Nb with a nice LCD, and I expect to use it at its optimal resolution. It seems that 17 and 19 inch LCD monitors work at optimal resolutions of either 1280 x 1024 or 1440 x 900 (widescreen). And of course I don't want distorted images nor text.

My hardware:

Motherboard: Asus A7N266-VM/SE (year 2003)
Video: Chipset nVidia 220D GeForce MX Integrated.

With my current monitor (and using Windows 2000), I see the list of available modes includes up to 1024 x 768, 60 Hz. When I remove the restriction about hiding the modes that the monitor can't show, the list grows and includes up to 1280 x 1024, 60 Hz and 1600 x 900, 60 Hz.

If I am right, then I could keep using this video card with a 4:3 monitor in
1280 x 1024, but not with a 16:10 widescreen.

Is this correct? Anything important I'm not taking into account?

Thanks in advance.

Your motherboard contains an integrated graphics chip equivalent to the
GeForce 2 MX card. Based on this brochure I'd say you're fine.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/LO_20010612_4442.html
This chip supports up to 2048x1536 @ 75 Hz.

So the short answer is yes, buy your new monitor and it should work at whatever native resolution it has, even without you adding a new video card.

However, that card is about 87 generations behind what's in stores today. You could get something much better for $50 or less, just look for something that supports AGP 4x. There are also excellent cards like x1950Pro which are AGP-compliant but they will not work so well at 4x (that's the best your motherboard offers) and they cost a lot and they require a powerful power supply.

dsidious, thanks for your reply. The specification list in that pdf brochure is overwhelming to me... If I'm not reading wrong, I could even use both my old a new monitors at once. Hmmm... but no, not possible since resolution should be the same for both monitors I guess.

As for buying a new card, it's of course a possibility, though I'm not sure what I would gain, since I dont't play action games nor use other graphics-intensive apps; at most I'd like to enjoy DVDs and the usual video files (flash, mpeg, mov). Usually I don't buy hardware unless I really feel a need for it (a rather conservative view about hardware upgrades, yes)

Anyway, I'll try to learn more about this.

You're very welcome.

I just wanted to mention that a computer that old is usually not worth upgrading. When you need more you could do what I did recently: go to Bestbuy, spend $1000, get something 40 times faster than the old computer. Those computers are designed for you, not for the extreme gamers you'll usually find on this forum.

I still have my old Pentium 3/MX 4000, it's great for watching DVDs