Possible vid card buy

[5thDeadlyVenom]

Hello all. I currently have a Nvidia GeForce4 Ti4200 w/64MB memory. I am looking at new alternatives, and the company I hear a lot of buzz about is ATI. The ATI card that most people reccomend (this site too) is the Radeon 9700 Pro 128 MB. The benchmarks look great, and I can get one in the neighborhood of $200 which isn't bad at all. But I read a post here which said that switching between Nvidia and ATI cards can be a problem. Several people said a reinstall of the OS is best. Is that hard to do?? Anyway, here are my specs as best I know them.

P4 2.26 Ghz 533mhz FSB
1.0 ghz Dell PC2100 DDR RAM
Nvidia GeForce4 Ti4200 64MB 4xAGP(latest drivers)
40 gig HD
Windows XP Home 2002 SP1

P.S. Here's a page I found
http://www.pricewatch.com/
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by 5thDeadlyVenom on 02/11/04 08:57 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[blackphoenix77]

Reinstalling the OS isn't hard at all...but you have to delete everything on your hard drive so if you have any important documents you'll want to back those up. To reinstall the OS you will need the restore CD or a copy of an OS(Windows, Linux...)

My Rig:
AthlonXP 2000+ 1.677ghz
GeForce Verto FX5200 128mb DDR
Maxtor 7200RPM 80GB, Stock 40gb
Kingston 384MB DDR
Cendyne 52x24x52 CD-RW
Lite-On 4x DVD-RW
Go EMachines...

 

[sirak]

You can download some programs that can clean out the nvidia drivers. If I were you I would shop at newegg.com (very reliable and good prices) and get a Sapphire 9800 pro 128mb. They often put it on sale for ~$220.

You might also want to wait until March-April for some new gfx cards to be released. NVidia might put out some good cards that would spare you the trouble with drivers conflicting with ATI (not to mention they would be faster).

----------------------
PIV 2.4c @ 2.89ghz
1gig PC3200 (512mbx2)
ASUS P4P800
GF3 Ti200 64mb (soon to be replaced)
WinXP Pro
3DMark2001SE: 6309
3DMark2003: 729

 

[5thDeadlyVenom]

Thanks for the info guys. Oh yeah, another quick question. When my friend popped in my 512MB sticks, he told me to go into BIOS and tweak my video aperture from 64MB to 256MB. Does this make a sizeable difference in performance? I play Frozen Throne and lemme tell you, it's very hardware consuming. Thanks again.

 

[sirak]

Although I am not too familiar with that sort of thing via the BIOS, I have seen software that allows for the allocation of more system RAM (eg. Star Wars Galaxies). If it is anything like that, then it definitely helps, especially for RAM hungry games.

----------------------
PIV 2.4c @ 2.89ghz
1gig PC3200 (512mbx2)
ASUS P4P800
GF3 Ti200 64mb (soon to be replaced)
WinXP Pro
3DMark2001SE: 6309
3DMark2003: 729

 

[timberwolf1]

I've had no problems switching from a Nvidia Geforce MX440 card to ATI Radeon Pro 9800 card ...

Don't understand why there is a mention of problems in switching from Nvidia to ATI.

Gary Hendricks
<A HREF="http://www.digital-music-guide.com" target="_new">www.digital-music-guide.com</A>