need a cheap 3d card to run Aero desktop

[Starmonger]

Hi, im looking to spend no more than about £30 on a card to simply run Aero on vista, for my dad. Also it has to be an AGP card. To begin with I gave him my old 9800 pro card, but that wouldnt work, It kept saying driver issues and doing a google search came up with people experiancing this same problem. So i dont think that this card is compatible. Is there anything that is proven to work with vista and that wil run Aero reasonably well?

 

[turboflame]

Just about any card with at least 128MB and hardware acceleration. I put an older 9600se in my parents build and it runs aero pretty well.

 

[blade85]

driver issues?

do you have ati's latest vista drivers?

 

[Hatman]

Might aswell get the 2400pro..

 

[spuddyt]

the only time it would be useful

 

[kingoftherings]

For Nvidia anything in the Geforce FX series will run Aero.
For ATI anything in the Radeon 9xxx series will run Aero.

It'd be hard to find a graphics card nowadays that couldn't run Aero.

 

[girik7]

You could get the HD 2400 PRO or the Geforce 7300GT. Both are compatible with Aero, although the 2400 PRO supports DirectX 10. However, since none of these cards are really capable for gaming, the DX10 compatibility is not really an issue.

 

[elbert]

Hi, im looking to spend no more than about £30 on a card to simply run Aero on vista, for my dad. Also it has to be an AGP card. To begin with I gave him my old 9800 pro card, but that wouldnt work, It kept saying driver issues and doing a google search came up with people experiancing this same problem. So i dont think that this card is compatible. Is there anything that is proven to work with vista and that wil run Aero reasonably well?

Looks like the best compatible choice would be the HD2600pro or the HD2400XT for that price but not sure where you can buy them.
http://www.sapphiretech.com/us/products/browseproducts.php?pcat=3

 

[girik7]

Have they even released the AGP versions of the HD 2400 and 2600 yet ?

 

[rammedstein]

i'd personally get a 1650pro agp, dirt chep and do the job.

 

[kpo6969]

Have they even released the AGP versions of the HD 2400 and 2600 yet ?

http://www.diamondmm.com/2400PRO512A.php

 

[kpo6969]

Have they even released the AGP versions of the HD 2400 and 2600 yet ?

http://www.diamondmm.com/2400PRO256A.php

 

[rwpritchett]

... For ATI anything in the Radeon 9xxx series will run Aero.

It'd be hard to find a graphics card nowadays that couldn't run Aero.

For Aero, I believe you must have a DirectX 9 card, so lower Radeons like the Radeon 9250's that are DirectX 8 only won't work. I've personally run Aero using a 9600XT and it handles it just fine. Kingoftherings is right though, any modern card would be able to handle it. For non-gaming, just pick up a cheap nVidia 5xxx/6xxx/7xxx or ATI Xxx/X1xxx and you'll be fine. Just try to stay away from cards that steal RAM from your system (Turbocache, etc).

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

PS, edit: ** Ah forget it, this is an AGP card, HyperMemory and TurboCache have nothing to do with it. And AGP Aperture size won't matter here.**

.....

Don't worry about Hypermemory or TurboCache, it doesn't steal memory, it's like AGP Aperture it set aside a dynamic portion from 0 to it's max (some cards can access 1+GB), but it only uses it when need and when the drivers think the need outwighs the system using that chunk. It's very effective, and compared to using HD space or simply baulking, it's good to have. But for just running Aero, I doubt any card would go to HM or TC for large amount of resources. The only one that might even access it would be the rare 64MB GF6200s and X300s, and then it would likely be just another 64MB if that.

I'd say get at least 128MB, but I wouldn't worry about HM and TC in general, the performance difference will be nada for this type of app. Gaming though is a completely different story.