Budget Video Card

  • Thread starter Thread starter syn
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syn

Does anybody know a good video card that will work with a budget 1.6Ghz
system? Since I don't play any modern games I took the ancient Savage4
from my old system. On my old system that played the only games I ever
wanted to play: Flight Unlimited 2+3, Falcon 4.0 + SP4, and Flight
Simulator 2002(as well as Halflife, Unreal, Quake 3). FU2+3 and Falcon
don't even give me a message, they just freeze just before displaying
the 3D. They all use DirectX. But bizarrely FS2002 and the others still
work. I don't get it.

However there must be some incompatibility with my new motherboard
and\or DirectX because only FS2002+a few others will work now. Even
with the same drivers that I used before. I've spent weeks researching
the net, and trying to figure out the problem and even reformatted and
reinstalled.

I just got FS2004 which actually tells me it doesn't like my video card
and doesn't want to work with it so I've finally given up. I'm going to
get a new video card.. However, I want to make sure I get a card that
will work with the above games. Are modern video cards backwards
compatible with older games?

Was I naive in thinking that if all I wanted was to play old games all
I needed would be the old video card from my old system that used to
play them just fine? Did I naively assume that recent versions of
DirectX would work with the old one?

Anyway, I don't need or want the latest supercooled $300 video card. It
would be a waste on my budget system anyway.

All I want is a good decent cheap card that will play FS2004 plus my
old games. I know my CPU is slow.. I'll be replacing it soon, but it's
the video card I want first. Ideally I'd like something that's perfect
for a 1.6Ghz chip, that's not too fast so I'm wasting it's potential.


Thanks for your help.




P.S. If you happen to know of a card that plays Falcon 4+SP4
beautifully on a win 98 system, then please tell me.

I'm guessing on the flight sim group a lot of you might still have the
Flight Unlimited series.. If you do recommend your video card to me,
could you test it out on those and let me know if they work okay also


P.P.S If you happen to know a good explanation as to why a video card
would suddenly not work with some games on a new motherboard and chip
then please let me know. I can't figure out why even though I've
reinstalled the OS and all the drivers. I don't want to get a new video
card to find out that the fault was something with my system! My only
explanation is that the motherboard doesn't like some PCI devices which
would be poor design IMHO.
 
syn wrote:

" All I want is a good decent cheap card that will play FS2004 plus my
old games. I know my CPU is slow.. I'll be replacing it soon, but it's
the video card I want first. Ideally I'd like something that's perfect
for a 1.6Ghz chip, that's not too fast so I'm wasting it's potential. "


A 1.6GHz what? You'll have to list your system in detail in order for
anyone to recommend a compatible card. What motherboard do you have?
Does it have an AGP slot, and what speed / voltage does it run at?
 
You may need more than a budget card to effectively run FS2004. On my
last computer, a P4 running at 2ghz, with 512mb RAM and a 64mb AGP
Geforce3, both FS2004 & CFS3 ran marginally - their performance was in
that awkward level where framerates stay smooth as long as the skies
are empty, but take a nosedive once that changes. (Obviously, this is
more of a problem on CFS3.) I now had a perfect excuse to go back to
CFS2 which deserved the attention. I don't know what you consider
modern graphics card (admittedly, having a GF3 doesn't make me the best
person to ask). That said, I doubt that there's a way to answer your
question about backwards compatibility generally. My GF3 seemed to
play F4 and other games well - though it flubbed up on "Silent Hunter
2". The answer is game specific rather than card specific.

As for which card you can get - that answer is probably more relevant
to your MoBo than CPU - specifically your bus type and voltage speeds.
When I heard horror stories back in 2002 about bad card/board matches,
I contacted my MB maker who confirmed that GF3's tested well with the
board. (For a GF3, I was easily being overcautious.) If you've got an
AGP port, you're probably in good luck, but otherwise I suggest going
back and getting the most of your older games. For a fuller
explanation of the different cards available and their performance, I
suggest you visit tomshardware.com
 
Thanks, but I don't care about FS 2004. I currently get decent frame
rates in FS2002 with all the settings to the max. It's fine for me, and
when I play 2004 I don't care if I don't get full detail level. It's
the other older games I really want to play, mainly in this order...
Falcon 4.0+SP4, FS2002 (FS2004 is a bonus), Flight Unlimited 2+3.
Falcon and FU run superfast in software mode, but crash if I select
hardware. Bizarrely they worked on my old system, same video card but
different motherboard. And Falcon with the SP4 pack won't run in
software mode at all.. alas...

I know how shitty my system is but it's the older games I'm more
interested in.. Just a video card recommendation from someone who knows
it works with the above games is all I want..

My sys specs are 1.6Ghz AMD, K7VT4A Pro motherboard with a free AGP
slot, 512MB RAM. I plan to replace the chip with a 3Ghz when money is
in order, but I'd prefer to get the video card first.
 
I successfully ran all of those older programs on an AMD Athlon XP 1800+
rig with 512 MB RAM, using an MSI G4Ti4400 DirectX 8 compliant video
card, with the exception of Falcon 4.0 with SP 4. I had it, but hated
the doggone "dance" so much I just never got around to installing
Falcon. The nVidia-based G4 Ti series also included a 4200 and a 4600,
if I recall correctly, and I believe the 4400 is no longer available. So
my hunch is that a 4600 would work perfectly well for what you want.
They also ran perfectly well with anybody's ATI 9600, a more advanced
card. Hope that helps.

-Seadog
 
Thanks, but I don't care about FS 2004. I currently get decent frame
rates in FS2002 with all the settings to the max. It's fine for me, and
when I play 2004 I don't care if I don't get full detail level. It's
the other older games I really want to play, mainly in this order...
Falcon 4.0+SP4, FS2002 (FS2004 is a bonus), Flight Unlimited 2+3.
Falcon and FU run superfast in software mode, but crash if I select
hardware. Bizarrely they worked on my old system, same video card but
different motherboard. And Falcon with the SP4 pack won't run in
software mode at all.. alas...

I know how shitty my system is but it's the older games I'm more
interested in.. Just a video card recommendation from someone who knows
it works with the above games is all I want..

My sys specs are 1.6Ghz AMD, K7VT4A Pro motherboard with a free AGP
slot, 512MB RAM. I plan to replace the chip with a 3Ghz when money is
in order, but I'd prefer to get the video card first.
Click to expand...

Try this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814122212

and then Google for "6800le unlocking"..
 
Thanks for those good suggestions...

I've actually decided to go with the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro which I found
for about £79, more than I wanted to spend, but it will lastly me
longer I imagine. Though my system is old I think it's about as top as
the range for that speed of chip you can get without being TOO fast if
you know what I mean.

I was thinking about getting the GeForce, but I've heard a lot of
people have had problem running those older games of mine with them, so
ATI seems attractive to me.
 
Syn, you probably owe it to yourself to check out this article comparing
cards, and previous ones on the same site, which would deal in the older
models you were thinking about. Remember that most of the games you are
interested in running are programmed to be compatible with DirectX, but
not with Open GL, so the performance charts for Open GL games aren't
terribly relevant to your considerations. ATI generally speaking has
historically had the edge over nVidia for Open GL, while (again,
generally speaking) nVidia has usually performed better on DirectX for
cards of the same (competitive) generation, as I read the charts and
other reviews.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050705/index.html

-Seadog
 
Im not arguing Seadog but I have to say that having had many ATI and many
Nvidia cards over the years my results are opposite of yours. ATI performs
much better in DX than OGL and Nvidia runs OGL much better than ATI, though
I still prefer DX even on Nvidia cards.

Mitch
..
 
No worries, Mitch. The bad news is, I could easily have remembered it
backwards. The good news is, if anyone actually does the homework and
reads the relative performance reviews I cited, they are likely to get
it right from a reliable source. Thanks for keeping me on my toes.

-Seadog
 
How can I revert to an old version of DirectX, say DirectX 8.1 Fo
compatibility purpose, currently I have DirectX 9.oc installed
'cause I have a geforce4 ti 4200 which is DirectX 8.1 compatible an
I wanna play games like command and conquer generals. How can
install DirectX 8.1 w/o reinstalling WINDOWS
 
slicktotoy said:
How can I revert to an old version of DirectX, say DirectX 8.1 For
compatibility purpose, currently I have DirectX 9.oc installed.
'cause I have a geforce4 ti 4200 which is DirectX 8.1 compatible and
I wanna play games like command and conquer generals. How can I
install DirectX 8.1 w/o reinstalling WINDOWS?
Click to expand...

This is what's known as being too clever for yourself. If you don't
understand what the words mean, the first step is to find out, and not to
create solutions for problems that don't exist.
 
On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 04:31:50 GMT,
How can I revert to an old version of DirectX, say DirectX 8.1 For
compatibility purpose, currently I have DirectX 9.oc installed.
'cause I have a geforce4 ti 4200 which is DirectX 8.1 compatible and
I wanna play games like command and conquer generals. How can I
install DirectX 8.1 w/o reinstalling WINDOWS?
Click to expand...

I'll spell it out for you. :-)
DX9 is backwards compatible with DX8. All your DX8 games will run on
DX9 fine.
 
Kevin said:
On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 04:31:50 GMT,


I'll spell it out for you. :-)
DX9 is backwards compatible with DX8. All your DX8 games will run on
DX9 fine.
Click to expand...


Probably. Assuming they've been written correctly. ;o)

Had an interesting software problem not so long ago, which turned out to be caused by a DX9 return code from a call to
ResetDevice() - on a DirectX8 device ...
 
Thanks for those good suggestions...

I've actually decided to go with the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro which I found
for about £79, more than I wanted to spend, but it will lastly me
longer I imagine.
Click to expand...

Good choice. I have the same graphics card in my machine, which has an
Athlon XP 1800+ CPU, so is probably pretty similar to the setup you're
using. Haven't looked back. When I eventually get round to getting a
faster CPU (probably need a new mainboard and RAM now), I'll slot the
9800 Pro straight in. Should do me for another two or three years.
 
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