Simple graphics card clarification

[RandyWang]

I'm a Mac user with very minimal experience actually playing around with computer hardware (heh, typical...), and therefore apologise in advance for a particularly n00bish question. I've recently taken it upon myself to help a friend find an appropriate graphics card with which to upgrade their ridiculously underpowered PC. It's a fairly recent machine, with a 2.0Ghz Pentium 4 (which places its purchase at least a year or two into the past) and very little RAM (another thing on my list of Shit To Upgrade), and as such I'm trying to determine what kind of video cards I'd be looking at to buy for it.

What I need to know is: are graphics cards designed for one speed AGP slots backwards compatible with other, slower versions of the bus? Could I, for instance, install a better-value 4x card in a machine that only has a 2x slot? Can I just pick a card that suits our pricerange and install it?

I'm not yet sure what exact hardware I'm working with, but if I could have this clarified I'd be very grateful. We'd be looking at the lower end of the pricerange, since this machine isn't going to be used for particularly heavy gaming - so a Radeon 9600 or so would be about the highest we're likely to go.

[Aerdan]

GeForce FX 5200 should work fine, then; as you said, it's not going to be a heavy gaming machine, and I'm not a heavy gamer . Re hardware: most motherboards that take P4s or Athlon XP should at least support 4x, if not 8x, both of which the GeForce FX 5200 can operate at.

[RandyWang]

Aerdan, thanks very much.

[workmad3]

also RE hardware: AGP does allow you to stick a 4x card in a 2x slot (or an 8x in a 4x) and allow it to work at 2x instead of 4x, etc. Basic buying principle with graphics cards i find is buy the best you can afford, as then it will last a while longer in gaming terms etc.

If the card is going into a machine that will be fixed at one level of gaming(say games from 3 years and back) then just get a card that will play all the games up to that point and save money for a better gaming rig if it suits you.

[RandyWang]

We're looking at a single game: that is, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. She's not interested in Doom3, or anything of it's graphical calibre, so futureproofing isn't an issue. Since the 5200FX in an iMac G5 (the closest machine I have for reference) handles the game brilliantly (100+ fps on medium graphics), I'm going to assume that a 5200FX is pretty much what we're looking for.

AUS$92 looks about the right price for this upgrade. Now we just need some new RAM.

[workmad3]

ET :D

yeah, a 5200FX handles that fine. I had it working fine on a geforce 4 mx 400 on a 2000+ athlon XP for about 2 years (before I took the card out for some reason or other, and trod on the card )

And yeah, AUS$92 does look about right for it (£38 GBP).

[nooboo]

i was running et on a 5200 PCI till recently, they cope with it well i even managed to play it with my celery cpu umm i mean celeron

the only time i ever had trouble with et was when i was using a really pathetic onboard card, its seems to get good fps even with some lower class cards.

[edge]

If you're not gaming, a 5200 would certianly be sufficient- although if you're willing to shell out another $20 or so, you should get a GeForce 6200, which are very nice cards. It's basically an underclocked 6600.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814125201

$63 for the Gigabyte model. I purchased the ASUS, which is currently running $68.

I'm very happy with mine. Now if only I could get the rest of my system to work the way it should

[RandyWang]

edge: While I would definitely do that if it were my own machine, we're not looking to anything better than "good enough". We'll keep an eye on the 6200, but in the end I suspect it'll just be better value for us to stick to the lower end.

i even managed to play it with my celery cpu umm i mean celeron

Okay, so that made me laugh way too hard.

ET

Of course - is there any other game worth playing?

[nooboo]

nope thats why i used to run a clan for it

[Arc Orion]

Don't listen to these losers! You need the most expensive thing out there, whether or not it's what is best for your situation, or your computer fails to support it! You need this!

[workmad3]

[quote="RandyWang";p="538815"]edge

i even managed to play it with my celery cpu umm i mean celeron

Okay, so that made me laugh way too hard.
[/quote]
Never hearda celeron get called a celery before? its fairly accurate as well Although to be fair, get a fresh bit of celery and it will run faster than most celeron processors, so maybe it does do celery an injustice

[quote="RandyWang";p="538815"]

ET

Of course - is there any other game worth playing? [/quote]

well, UT2004, but ET seems to be more popular.

[nooboo]

celery would have more uses... as along as you are doctor who

[edge]

I've been calling "Celeron" "Celery" for quite a while. But really, you have to give 'em some credit. For the price, you get pretty damn good preformance out of 'em, and can OC 'em to hell and back. I've never owned one I was dissapointed in, although, the Celeron D I now have does have some compatibility issiues it seems. But short of that, it runs hella fast.

[workmad3]

I had a celery 400 about 4, 5 years back. I then made the switch to athlon and never looked back. Never bothered OC'ing or much though, its more the technical specs that keep me with athlon (like managing to keep their fetch execute cycle down to a fewer number of steps than intel does, making their processors faster at lower clock ratings)