Casual Gamer Needs Your Suggestion

[Stick_e_Mouse]

As the title would indicate, I am NOT a hard-core gamer. Actually, I fancy multimedia apps (like DVDs & MPEG encoding) first, and 3D-gaming second. When I do play games, I much prefer sports, action, and racing games over fps—actually, I hardly ever play first-person shooters. I haven’t been in the video card scene in a while because my Voodoo3 2000 (o/c so it’s really a 3000) has done wonders for me with the Need4Speed series, Madden 2002, and even Max Payne. But alas, I think it is time for me to retire my old faithful and put him in a good home—in a Linux box where I’ll be doing most of my programming. Now I need your help for a suggestion that will replace my 3dfx and will also last AT LEAST 2 years. Keep in mind I am a poor College student, so I will not listen to any suggests that will cost me more than $100. In fact, my target price is around $65-85 USD. More than anything else, I am looking for the most ‘bang-for-my-money’ video card that would be able to play current and future (future, as in the next 2 years) sports, racing, and some action games, @-least 1024x768 with respectable performance. I could care less if video card A will give me 10 more fps than video game B, if it costs $30 more.

At any rate, I was thinking along the lines of the Radeon VE DDR, 7000 DDR, 7500, Geforce2 GTS, Pro and Ti.

What would be my best choice? What would give me the best performance over my Voodoo card while still staying under $100??
How about the ATI AIW Radeon? I know it is a few bucks over my limit, but since I do more multimedia stuff than gaming, do you think it is worth it? I know the multimedia part is really good, and the TV-Tuner should be WAY better than my current one, but how does the gaming performance of the AIW compare to the others cards I listed above? Will the AIW keep me happy in the next 2 years while playing not-so-graphic-intensive games?

I will be running Windoze 98, but anything that is Linux compatible is a definite plus.
Athlon 1.0 @. 1.4, Iwill KK266 (soon to be replaced by a non-VIA board), 256mb SDRAM.

P.S. If you were to suggest a GeForce based card, make sure you list the Brand and Model name/#.




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[Kable]

I'm Running

1.4 Athlon @ 1.4
256DDR Ram

And my Geforce2 MX400 works not too bad....don't know about the price though ( $100?)
Mine is made by Gigabyte

 

[jclw]

Radeon 7200 (64mb SDR) (US$60)
Radeon 7500 (64mb DDR) (US$100)

I have a Radeon 32mb SDR which works fine for everything I do. The two most graphically intense games which I play are probably Deus Ex and MS Comabat Flight Sim II which both run at 1280x1024x32 with no problems.

- JW<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by JCLW on 01/06/02 04:36 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[AMD_Man]

I would go with the Radeon 7500. It has the best MPEG2 decoding in the ones you listed (along with the AIW Radeon). I wouldn't suggest the AIW Radeon for gaming anymore however because it's just not fast enough for the upcoming games. The Radeon 7500 is GeForce2Pro to Ultra performance but includes full DVD acceleration, Dual-monitor support and is partially DX8 compatible in hardware.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor <P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by AMD_Man on 01/06/02 02:36 PM.</EM></FONT></P>