A video card Question

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Ok i am the owner of a Gateway essentials pc which is intergrated and it has LowProfilPCI Slots after months of searching i finally found a video card for it<A HREF="http://www.necxdirect.com/hai/prod_page.html?key=0000159348&nonce=guest_gate" target="_new">http://www.necxdirect.com/hai/prod_page.html?key=0000159348&nonce=guest_gate</A>
I was wondering what you thought of this card and how do you think it would perform.

Im just looking for something to tide me over untill PS2 hits its stride which should be another month or two and until i buy a new pc which should be 2-5months from now.

I dont expect anything special from this card just 640/480, solid 30fps, clean picture with a nice amount of detail.

This is my setup
633 celeron
64Mb ram soon to be 160
and i guess you know the rest
cdrom
no videocard
no soundcard

Heres a list of the games id like to play with the card and a desrcipion of how they run now.

Halflife platnium edition: I can play the uplink demo now without the card it runs pretty smoothly say around 30fps i hope the card can add a few fps to that.

Unreal/UT: There isnt a demo of unreal but i guess it should run just fine.UT looks kinda rough at 640/480 but its playable maybe the 16mb of video ram should help this out?

Soldier of fortune: Its Ugly wont run well at all but i assume the card should clean it up plus im going to upgrade my ram from 64-160MB.

No one lives forever:Runs ok but with the card it should be alot better.

Quake3/Quake3teamarena:Quake3demo plays really well,team arena not so,but i guess it should smooth out with the card.

Here are some other games i would like to play
Thief
Thief2
Tribes2
Deux ex
Id like to play all the games at 640/480 with at least 30 fps and a good amount of detail


<A HREF="http://www.necxdirect.com/hai/prod_page.html?key=0000159348&nonce=guest_gate" target="_new">http://www.necxdirect.com/hai/prod_page.html?key=0000159348&nonce=guest_gate</A>
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by myownsun on 07/02/01 07:17 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 

ajmcgarry

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Dec 31, 2007
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That depends on what the integrated graphics is. I'll asume it is either Intel 810 or 815, in which case you will see an improvement. It should run all those games at 800/600 except maybe quake 3 which would run best at 640/480 on that setup.

The best PCI card you can get is the Voodoo 5 5500 64MB PCI which retailed for $109 up till 3 weeks ago. Now it's $185 because it is so rare (not made anymore because 3dfx have been bought out by nVidia).

<font color=blue>Smoke me a Kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!</font color=blue>
 
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Euck! I have a couple of machines at work which use the low profile slots. They're a nightmare to upgrade. I didn't buy them, that's for sure :)

Seriously, a TNT will get you better frame rates, but if you're prepared to do a little hacking then you might get something better. There are GeForce 2 MX's around that are very small, and are available in PCI form factor, which may fit if you unscrew the bracket from the back of the card. I'm not saying they will, just that they might, but buy carefully and you might get a week money back guarentee (measure the card, if it won't fit, return it without unscrewing the bracket!).

It's just a thought, anyway. I'll see if I can find an example, but there has been an old thread on this forum covering simiar issues.

~ The First Formally Rehabilitated AMD Lemming ~
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
The biggest improvement with this card is that it has it's own memory. You should be able to play most games at 800x600 resolution with it. Go for it!
As for the other suggestions, the TNT is about as good as you can get for PCI, better video chips cannot do much with the limmited bandwidth of PCI slots. I have tested these things myself.

Cast not thine pearls before the swine
 
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Hey thanks alot for your help after reading your post im going to order the card.Once again thanks alot