Voodoo 4, 5 or Gforce??

[Guest]

I have a Duron 800 and i neeed a better video card

I currently have a Riva TNT 2 and i HATE IT!!!!!!

In the past i had crap video cards, then i bought the voodoo banshee, i was pleased very pleased for a very long time until u blew up.. then last month i bought my Riva tnt 2, its not that much better then the banshee at all...

Im looking to buy a new video card and i want something i will be pleased with like i was with my banshee, that banshee i can honestly say was worth every single penny!
I want something to wow me again...

Im wearing to sticking with open gl as my tnt2 sucks more then a vacuum.. well.. I was thinking voodoo 4, the 5 is still a big to high, and i have also heard good things about the gforce 2mx..

Fill me in.. At this point i feel like never buying another open gl based card again but..
i need input

 

[Guest]

If money is a factor, then the Card you want is the Mx.
For between 100-150 bucks youll land a card thatll prolly do 60+ fps in 1024x768 in every game you play. Ive also heard good things about the new Budget Radeon (I forget the name) But i feel more comfortable recommending the MX at this price point.

On the other hand, if your willing to spend a few more bucks....
Voodoo 5: King of 3d image quality (i love My geforce 2, but i cant deny FSAA looks flat out better on the voodoo 5)
Geforce 2: The brute force master and disputed framerate king
Geforce 2 ultra: Want Framerates your monitor cant even hope of displaying? This is the card for you.
Ati Radeon: This one kinda fits somewhere in the middle. If you want to use Win 2k, stay FAR FAR away from this card, as some people have had major 2000 issues with it (while others strangely enough have worked perfectly).

Im sure some people will disagree with my general viewpoint,
But there my personal analysis of the current 3d card market.



<i>Nascar racing is one of the few sports where spectators routinely die</i>

 

[blah]

I love my vd3000, sold one with the system, bought upgraded system, bought the voodoo 3000 again. Cant beat it, the image is so good (+ works with every and any hardware there is). Even in playing Q3 6x8 it looks as good as my GTS at 11x8. Yeah, some one can argue it is not fast at all and all that stuff. But I care less. Image, that's what I am about. And nothing can beat my vd3 in UT for me. I have tried few cards in UT (not Radeon though) and vd3 is the best. Even vd4500 could not compete with it in picture quality and speed in UT. I bought it cos I thought it would be better than vd3, but after I looked at the game, I yanked it out, and got vd3 again. So go figure... sigh

K7 + KT7A + MX300 + VooDoo3000 =
P3 + CUSL2-C + MX300 + Asus7700 =

 

[Guest]

Yea i mean i would of gotten a voodoo 3, but..

I want at least 32 megs on board..

but from what i hear the Gforce is the way to go or the voodoo 5
don't get me wrong the voodoo 3 is a great card...
My banshee was a great card and the Banshee and Voodoo 3 were almost the same, except the banshee had only 1 texturing map but maybe ill price out a gforce and voodoo 5

Maybe the gforce 2 mx is the way to go hmm
Thanks for ur input.

I want a good card but im not willing to spend hundreds on a video card, that extra money can get a faster hard drive or more memory.. but.. thanks =)

 

[Guest]

If money is not an object, then get a GeForce2 Pro or Ultra. Most people opt for the Pro since it is considerably cheaper and not much slower. The only reason I bought the Ultra was becasue I wanted a DVI connector and most Pro's didn't come with one. Overall, the card I bought (the Hercules Prophet II Ultra) rocks!

John Garrett
System Admin - www.elementk.com
Editor - Exploring Windows NT Professional

 

[mpjesse]

Go to madonion.com and compare benchmarks from a GeForce 2 MX to a Voodoo 4 5500. The GeForce 2 MX outperforms the V4 in almost all benchmarks and is the same frigin price.

-MP Jesse

 

[Guest]

Whereas the guy above wasnt sure about the ATI Radeon 32MB DDR LE, I am )... if you're looking for a card that performs VERY well, I would recommend this card to you. It costs 84dollars with free shipping at some places, and with a few edits, you can get it working as fast. or faster than a retail Radeon at 170 dollars.... it out performs the Geforce 2 MX and outperforms the GeForce 2 GTS in 32bit color..


Old addage: "Users never prosper" ) Long live the tweakers

 

[phsstpok]

Before you give up on the tnt2 card consider two things.

TNT2s work best with Detonator 2 drivers not Detonator 3's. These are numbered 3.xx-5.xx. <A HREF="http://www.gamers-ammo.com/nVidialist.html" target="_new">Here</A> is a good place to get drivers.

Once optimized, the TNT2s can provide very acceptable framerates at 1024x768 even with 32-bit color.

Don't get me wrong, a better card is nice, but is only absolutely essential if a resolution above 1024x768 is desired.

Unfortunately, with 3DFX is gone, we are all stuck with OpenGL and Direct3D. I doubt any developers will support Glide in the future when there aren't any more Glide cards being manufactured.

 

[Booky]

I have a TNT2 PCI card. I have been useing Det3 drivers and am useing 6.50 now. Which Det2 driver do you think will out perform the 6.5 Det3? I could use all the FPS I can get.

Someday I will stop asking all the questions!

 

[phsstpok]

I'd start with the last Detonator 2's, probably 5.47, and work backwards from there. You probably want to stick with the 5.xx versions

Sorry, that's all the advice I can offer. I never owned a TNT2, myself.

 

[Guest]

One thing i don't understand is..
Why would old drivers work better then the new detenator?

Thats like saying a old bios version works best then the new ones..
The new drivers are improvements arent they??

-? im confused..

 

[Booky]

Im wondering the same thing! Untill I can get some information saying this D2 driver gives these FPS and this D3 driver gives this FPS, im sticking with the D3 6.50. After all its not really that bad and its stable.

Someday I will stop asking all the questions!

 

[noko]

If money is not too much of a problem then a GF3 vice an Ultra. Just dreaming myself, still very happy with my old Radeon 64 ViVo.

 

[Guest]

Because the new drivers are optimized for the GeForce family of cards and not for the Riva 128, TNT or TNT2.

NVidia does not want people with old cards to get improvements, this way they will have to go and buy a new GeForce.

SEARCH FIRST, THEN POST

 

[phsstpok]

I wish I knew the answer myself. You would think that drivers would maintain at least the same performance as the previous version.

I can speculate for what it's worth. Possibly by adding new features, supporting newer Geforce graphics cards, the drivers get too big and inefficient for use with older TNT2 cards which do not support the new features.

As for performance of the Detonator 2 drivers vs the Detonator 3 drivers, try them for yourself or don't it's up to you. I'm just passing on advice that I have read. You don't have to take it.