Which would be the best vid card for me?

[Fox5]

Ok, the only things I'm really looking for are a decent performing card, tv-out, and as cheap a price as possible. I have a 1.4 gig athlon with 256 meg of ddr ram and currently have an overclocked voodoo 3 2000 PCI. The cards I've been looking at are...
Radeon 32 MB DDR dual display edition- $80 with a $30 rebate
Radeon 64 MB DDR- $130 with a $30 rebate
Hercules 4500 w/ tv-out- $160
Geforce 2 MX 400(I'm not sure if it is 64 MB or 32 MB) w/ tv-out- $100
And I believe that is it. I'd almost certainly choose one of the radeons, except for the poor 16 bit color, and one of the main reasons that I want tv-out is because I have old low res games, and seeing as how they are old games, they are limited to 16 bit color.

 

[Crashman]

Radeon has fantastic 16-bit color, it just doesn't "ramp up" in frame rates as quickly as the GeForce when you drop color or resolution. None of that matters as it will ALWAYS perform faster than you TV's ability to display it. The Radeon LE TVO is for you, it's the full version Radeon chip with DDR and DUAL TV-outputs that CAN be used simultaniously. HyperZ is disabled on the LE in software, but can be re-enabled in the registry. Even with HyperZ disabled it's a better card than the VE cards. It is also clocked lower, but can be overclocked easily. I would definately place it well above the MX400, and it's CHEAP, around $70 at newegg.com.

Back to you Tom...

 

[Fox5]

So a $70 LE is better than an $80 dual display edition with ddr ram and a $30 rebate? Unless the LE has 64 MB of ram, I don't see how. Also, are you sure that my computer will always perform faster than my tv? My tv has a refresh rate of 120(though that is because it takes the refresh rate of 60 and has a chip built in that tries to double the fps and refresh rate...sometimes it works good, other times it is blur city).

 

[Crashman]

I'm fairly certain that the Dual Display edition you speek of is a VE unit, correct? The VE is a cut down chip.

Back to you Tom...

 

[njeske]

Yeah... the VE chip is the worst Radeon you can buy since a few of the performance enhancing features are disabled. The LE is much better since, like has already been said, the Hyper-Z can be re-enabled via registry "hack."


<font color=red>"I'm not gonna launch a $2 million missile at a $10 tent and hit a camel's butt." -Bush</font color=red>

 

[Fox5]

I looked all over the box and niether radeon said VE or LE, at least, not that I noticed. I thought the prices were a bit low, but with the radeon 7500 just around the corner, half price for a regular radeon doesn't seem too low.

 

[njeske]

If the card has two VGA outputs it is the VE version. If it has only one, you got the right thing, either LE or regular Radeon. The LE has Hyper-Z disabled in the registry. Other than that, all the other Radeon cards are the same with the exception of what kind of connectors they have.


<font color=red>"I'm not gonna launch a $2 million missile at a $10 tent and hit a camel's butt." -Bush</font color=red>

 

[FatBurger]

My tv has a refresh rate of 120

Are you referring to HDTV? Most normal, NTSC TVs only do 29.97 FPS.

<font color=green>I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP</font color=green>

 

[Fox5]

TVs have a refresh rate of 60 but it is interlaced so it can only display 30 FPS. My tv has a chip to double the the hertz and the fps so it would be a refresh rate of 120 and a fps of 60. The chip doesn't always work perfectly though and can produce errors.

 

[Fox5]

The dual display edition may have two vga ports, but I think the plain old vanilla 64 MB DDR radeon only has 1.

 

[njeske]

That would be correct. The 64MB DDR does only have one VGA, but it also has the all of it's features enabled which for most people is very important. The VE version may have two VGA ports, but it's quality is below that of a GF2 MX which is no good. You might as well buy a Matrox for that.


<font color=red>"I'm not gonna launch a $2 million missile at a $10 tent and hit a camel's butt." -Bush</font color=red>

 

[Fox5]

Yeah, but can I get a matrox for $50? Though, while price and tvout are important to me(among other features) I still want a card that would be at least twice as powerful as my voodoo3. Oh well, I supposed I could bite the bullet and save up a bit more and get the Geforce 3 200 TI when it comes out...though by that time there will probably be another good and cheap card on the horizon. Personally, I'm still kind of hoping that kyro will get moving and make a higher end card...it isn't like they don't have the technology even if their next chip isn't ready. Their Neon250 chips were scalable(though not all that efficent) and could have t&l units, just take two kyro 2 chips, add a t&l unit, 64 or 128 MB of ram, and sell it for $175-$225 without any extra software besides the drivers. There, a pretty good performing card....that still has last year's features. Unless it was $175(or even $150) it would have some serious competition from the new low end radeon card, the new high end geforce 2 card, and the new low end geforce 3 card. Perhaps scalability should only be used when you've done everything else you can or you have a contract and have a bunch of left over chips.(which is probably why sega's new arcade machines link 4 neon250 chips together instead of just taking 1 or 2 kyro 2 chips)

 

[Fox5]

What is the ASUS v8200 duluxe? And would the hercules 4500 really perform that much better than a radeon or geforce 2 MX 400?

 

[HonestJhon]

4 neon 250 chips..that thing must smoke!
lol


-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

 

[Fox5]

"4 neon 250 chips..that thing must smoke!
lol


-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!- "

If you mean generate a lot of heat, I wouldn't know as it is too loud in arcades to hear fans, and as for performance..assuming 100% efficency, each neon 250 can do 125 Megapixels I think(the 250 was because of an estimated overdraw of 2) so it would take nearly 3 of those to equal 1 kyro 2 chip. However, supposendly they can get around 500 megapixels per second out of the neon 250, on the dreamcast, so in that case they could get 2000 out the 4 chips together. I've heard it is more like 1000 though...or maybe it is 5 million polygons, a possible 20 million, and an actual 10 million...hmm... oh well, 1 gigapixel is still pretty good, as is 10 million polygons per second, even if many new video cards, and even the gamecube and xbox, can do more than that. Besides, what else are they going to do with a warehouse of neon250 chips?

 

[Fox5]

Hmm...on ATI's website it says the VE has HyperZ, so unless it has a far lower clockspeed and is a far inferior chip so it can't be overclocked, I don't see the difference. Especially if it actually justifies using ddr memory.

 

[Crashman]

You don't know what the difference is?

The Radeon (including LE) has a 128-bit memory interface, the VE only 32-bit. That's like comparing the GeForce MX400 to the MX200.

The Radeon (including LE) has a Texture and Lighting Engine, the VE doesn't. That's like comparing the GeForce 2 MX to the TNT2.

When you take both facts into account, it's like comparing the MX400 to a TNT2 M64.

The Radeon, except for the VE, has the Charisma Engine (explained <A HREF="http://www.ati.com/na/pages/technology/hardware/radeon/characters.html#1" target="_new">HERE</A>)
For a complete comparision, look at <A HREF="http://www.ati.com/na/pages/faq/radeon_compare.html" target="_new">THIS PAGE</A>.
You'll notice the LE, since it's an OEM-only card, is not listed. It sits on the same PCB as the 64MB VIVO card, but only has 32MB of DDR SDRAM instead of 64MB. And it's avialable in TVO or non-TVO versions.

The TVO version has all the same connectors as the VIVO card except Video In in not present. The base (non-TVO) LE has the two Video Out connectors removed as well.



Back to you Tom...

 

[Fox5]

Ooh, so with the charisma engine, I can see my monkey with even more polygons? Wow.....I always thought the charisma engine was a t&l unit. Does this have to be specially programmed for to work? I would assume so, otherwise everyone would own a radeon. BTW, would it really make that much of a difference since I have a 1.4 gig athlon? Oh, and I looked at that hydravision thing, and I think I want it now since I have a spare 14" monitor ever since I decided to use my dreamcast on a 27" tv instead of a monitor.

 

[Crashman]

So what your saying is you don't want a Radeon? I never said you had to get one. Or are you trying to say that you want the VE? Don't let me stop you from getting it. Far be it from me to offer help to the hopeless.

Back to you Tom...

 

[Fox5]

Well, how about, are there any high end cards with hydra vision? There are just too many video cards with too many varying prices for me too decide.

 

[Crashman]

I don't think so.

Back to you Tom...

 

[Guest]

I just got an ATI-Radeon 7500 to replace a Matrox G400, I thought all that ram/ddr/3d stuff would really make it fly. I have been playing with Crimson Skies recently. The 7500 is about the same as the DDR 64m. I got this for $150 and thought it was a good deal. But, the end result is that it is slower than the old card - drops fames and such. I have gotten new drivers and tried to tweek it but have not found a combination as good as the old 16meg card. The system is a P3-933 w/ 256 meg 133 ram.
I have seen posts that it is just this game that is slow - which seems odd. But I have not tried anything else.