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gfx card

Im looking to buy a new gfx card. I am on a bit of a budget. My current card is a ATI TNT 2, i am thinking of:
Radeon 7500
or
Hercules phrofit 4500

What do u think?
 
Dabs.com have a lot of cards worth a look mate of mine has a gforce2 mx64meg card runs ut2003 fine
depends what games you have and will get
 
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GeForce 4 Ti4200 64MB DDR AGP RP VO DVI
Mfr code: VCG4TI42APB
Quicklinx: 21F4WS
£90.00 £105.75 <a href="http://www.dabs.com" target="_blank">www.dabs.com</a>

got plenty of cards and some good deals old cards
so much cheaper than this model worth a look some very good cards around £60 to £80
 
Radeon 7500 has no T&L engine afaik so may be a bit slow on the better games... :)

The GF 4MX cards represent a good deal, especially the new 8x AGP ones :D
 
You've said you're on a budget, but how much can you afford?

If you're into gaming, don't bother buying a card that isn't at least DX8, and preferably DX9 compatible (the Radeon 7500 isn't). GF4 MX cards are crap, don't buy into them falsely on the basis of them being GF4.

Get a 128Mb card if possible, as most new games will be using the larger RAM cards to display the textures to their best, such as Doom 3.

<a href="http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=39927" target="_blank">The Radeon 9000</a> cards are a good buy, on a par with GF3 ti200 in performance and better image quality for under £71 inc.
 
I agree dont get a 7500, the performance wouldnt be that much better than a TNT 2. Get a 9000 at least or save your money.

I had a prophet 4500 and although theya re ok, they dont run everything perfectly as they are a bit quirky.

Save your brass and get either a GF 4200 or an ATI 9000 - dont touch an MX card either.
 
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</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by mcurrie:
<strong>how about just a Geforce 3 (not MX, not Ti etc etc)?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Good, cheap but no DX 8.1 support..

You could look at the Xabre (SIS) as it has DX8.1 support and reasonable performance.

The only limitation you have to consider is which 3d games you will want to play in the future, as long as games do not require DX 8+ support to run you will be ok with the GF3 (the TI wil give better frame rates) so no problem.

It may be better in the long term to suffer now and save more money to buy one of the more modern high performance cards :)
 
I don't understand this DX 8 thingy. Why do some cards not support it? I currently use DX 8.1 with my TNT2, so is this compatible or does it still work just using an old DX system to run it?

A friend of mine said I could have his old geforce 256 (i think thats the right number) for free. Aparently it runs GTA3 quite well, so it beats my TNT2
 
If you can get it for free, take it with both hands :D

Sorry about the references to Direct X versions etc. Basically each release of Direct X has included (usually) new capabilities of 3D graphics routines in its shell (e.g. T&L transform & lighting) that can be called by programmers and will function correctly on hardware that provides support for this function. This is why fuss is being made of hardware that already supports the (unreleased yet) DX9 functions.

In the good old days of gaming the programmers either had to use Open GL or similar routines for dedicated families of hardware to achieve the result that DX X can provide.

(invitation to others to explain and/or correct any mistakes I have made <img border="0" alt="[Laugh]" title="" src="graemlins/laugh.gif" /> )

HTH
 
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DirectX is a set of graphics programming commands used by games manufacturers. It enables fancy effects like glow trails behind rockets and smoke trails to be easily included in games.

Each revision of directX adds more commands that is why you keep needing to install newer versions of DX, if the game tells DX to do a smoke trail and DX doesnt understand what a smoke trail is then your game will crash or not even load.

Now then, just because your DX says you can do something it doesnt mean that your GFX card is gonna be able to do it very well. A TNT2 card is a DX7 card. This means that it will perform all the stuff in DX7 itself. If you throw a DX8 (or 8.1) command at the card then it wont be able to do it instantly. Your CPU and GFX card will need to do the extra work in making the effect up.

That is why changing certain options in games make your game run much faster (without programmable vertex instructions shadows run really chuggy on older cards). ATI 9000/9500/9700 are DX9 cards and DX9 isnt even out yet! That is why in the future DX9 stuff should run fine on a new ATI card. radeon 7500 is only a DX7 card. The 8500 is a DX8 card as are all new nVidea GF4 Ti. GF MX cards and GF2 cards are DX7. A GF 256 is the next step up from a TnT2. Its still DX7 but free is always the best price and you will notice a big improvement from your TnT2.

Hope this clears things up.
 
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