Heres my system, need opinions!

[Guest]

I have an Athlon 850Mhz Classic slot A processor, FIC Sd-11 Mobo, 256Megs Pc100 Ram, DVD, CD/RW, 2 Western Digital 7200Rpm Ide Hard Drives ATA 66, Soundblaster Live Mp-3. I want to upgrade the exisitng(dinosaur) video card I have ,V3 1000. I was thinking of either a Radeon, Radeon AIW, or Geforce. My main concern is compatibility! Looking for something that runs with the minimum of issues , if thats possible. Any help and insight is appreciated.
Ps. Mobo is agp 2X, running wondows ME

Thanks in advance for your help!!!!!!!!!

 

[Guest]

As far as the graphics goes, dont even think about a radeon. Unless you really need to save money you'll be better off with a geforce-256 or a geforce MX. Of course...If you REALLY have some cash to throw around ($500-600), then go Geforce2 Ultra all the way. Also, if you can afford it, get ddr ram and a ddr capable mainboard

 

[machow]

Hey, don't say Radeon's not good. It is not as good as GeForce in terms of performance, but it offers features not available in <i>any</i> GeForces. :tongue:

Smart guys are not smart; they only see things in different perspective.
1st <b>ENTHUSIAST</b>!

 

[Guest]

1. You can't upgrade your processor with DDR SDRAM (sorry for the athlon classic, but i don't believe that any future chipset will support the athlon classic)
2. The Radeon has very good features. When you go for imagequality it's your card, and by the way, who can see the difference between 40 and 60 fps (NTSC has 29,97 and PAL has 25 fps).
3. Show me another card that comes with T&L, EMBM and FSAA.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Leywalker on 11/15/00 04:20 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

Hey thanks for the responses. SO far I have been extremely happy with my Athlon Classic. What I was getting at is the compatibility of various video cards with this processor. I have been fortunate that my current card worked with everything. But I would like to take advantage of some more speed which newer cards offer, and there features, but not the headaches. So compatibility is it. As far as I know the Athlon Classic and T bird have very similar requirements. Is anyone out there currently using a GE force card or Radeon or radeon AIW with there system? If so let me know your experiences. Thanks again, appreciate your help!

 

[SoulReaper]

My first suggestion is to get rid of that FIC motherboard. Those things are the biggest pieces crap. Second i would get an ABIT or ASUS motherboard, and pair that up with a GeForce 2 GTS. It'll run perfect.

"upgrading is no longer an option...it's a necessity"
Visit www.elitehunters.com
--SoulReaper =)

 

[Guest]

Note to point out, NTSC/PAL only have 1/4 the amount of resolution.

I can tell the difference between TV's 29.97, and a PC's 60+fps... the thing is that when you are not used to seeing something run faster than 30fps, it looks rather spooky.

IMO, I'd rather have better video quality that I can turn off for multiplayer games, then not have it there in the first place. (If you are playing a 3D FPS, then the frame-rate matters a lot, if you are playing just about anything else, the framerate doesn't matter as long as it's with in a playable range.) Note how I said playable... unplayable is something that doesn't run at a near constant frame-rate. IE, 5fps,20fps,6fps,21fps,2fps,8fps... when it's inconsistant, it makes playing the game a chore.



--Kisai
"Hmm, I wonder how many pieces this will end up as when it hits the ground?"

 

[Guest]

Hey 256k,

I have a Classic Athlon700 @ 840MHz on a Jetway 771AS kx mobo with a GeForce2 GTS and it works a treat. Very, very fast compared to my old TNT2. Twice as fast actually...literally!! GET ONE !

don't make me use uppercase...

 

[Guest]

My system:

TBird 850
Asus A7V mobo
Radeon 32MbDDR
128Mb pc133 ram
30Gb ata 100 hd

No problems.
Looks great.

 

[Guest]

Raedon's, Ultras and GTS's, pretty pennies to pay.
I haven't come across any problems with the ATI card in the asus boards. I know of Geforce issues but I'm not aware of those problems comming over in the GeForce 2s.

The Jolly Wizened Oaf!

 

[Diemos]

I would hae to say a geforcs GTS. They came out before the t-birds and nvidia claimed to have optimized them for the classic athlons, so I bought one. I have a t-bird now, but it worked great with my slotA 700. I also have to agree with the opinion of the FIC board. I work in a tech shop and have had nothing but problems with them. If it's working out for you than your one of the lucky ones. Have fun and play hard.

 

[jollygrinch]

i agree with what everyone else has said. i've got your same board (gimme a break it was on sale). i think that most of the compatability issues that were reported with the geforces and sd11s have since been fixed with driver updates. i've got a prophet geforce 256. what you get is your own kettle of fish. just depends on the performance you're looking for and the cash you're willing to spend.

 

[Hasse]

Have you ever wondered why tom thinks 60 fps is ca. the magic limit on Quake3/UT? It's because when you turn arround fast you need ALOT more than 30fps not to loos frames. A 360 degrees turn woul give you 12 degrees skips, so you would only see every 12'th degree anything inbetween is gone.. that is if U turn 360 within a second, simple math but with 60 degrees it's every 6'th degree.. and so the math goes.. Well anyway.. I'ld go for the GeForce 2 ULTRA nothing else matters.. the faster the better, if U want to save bucks.. buy a radeon, but then U should have gotten a better processor too, because Radeon is more processor dependant than GeForce 2 .. Have a nice day..

 

[Hasse]

Ohh my god.. a lot of misspellings there!!! I meant 60 fps not 60 degrees.. ai ai .. what ever I think U might understand what I meant anyway..

 

[Guest]

Both the Radeon 32Mb DDR and the GeForce 2 32MB are good cards. Depends on how much you want to spend, which games you play and if you want more speed of better image quality. Radeons have better image quality while GeForce 2 is usually faster and will give you more fps, but not a whole lot more.
I've had a Radeon 32MB DDR for around 2 months and haven't had any problems. At $150 ($200-$50 mail in rebate) it gives you the best bang for buck IMO. I wouldn't spend $500-$600 on a Ultra as Nvidia's NV20 based cards and ATI's Radeon II will be out sometime in the spring.

 

[Hasse]

Well.. hmm that is if they can squize more juice of the ram on the graphicsboard. Since the Ultra's use the very best RAM available it's going to take a whole lot of research on mem tech, way more than on new graphic chips, just to get the new nv20 or geforce3 or the radeon II to be much faster than the ultra, besides I'll have the fastest card available fer 6 months.. and then in another 6 months there will be something even faster.. it's allways like this in computer issues.. Everything falls in price, rather fast... computers are an investment that's bound to be a loss of money..

Hey Ho
Hasse

 

[Guest]

Radeon 64 -- cheaper, respectable perfomance, good support.

You should not have any compatiblity problems but its always safe to check out the mobo manufactuers to see if they have any issue with the radeon.

Take care!

 

[Guest]

First off, FIC does have its problems, I'm not arguing there, however the SD11 was a pretty stable board for its time. I bought the SD11 with an Athlon Classic 500 the same month the Athlon was released.(couldn't wait) I had no troubles. Fortunately, for peeps like myself there are forums all over (such as this one), that recommended better performance boards. I still have my Classic but I now own an Abit KT7-100 SlotA. It runs very smooth and the bonus was that I had over clocking capabilities plus some other added goodies. I did recently buy an overclocker for the Cpu and took it apart.(Sweating bullets) But this did not in any way compromise system stability. I would however, recommend to you that if you plan on upgrading your vid card, I went from a Voodoo3-3000 to a Geforce 2MX and it really made a big difference. Even on the SD11.

A true Canadian story all the way from my Igloo.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by W01ver1ne on 11/16/00 02:22 PM.</EM></FONT></P>