Time for my new video card!

[Jimmy]

Hey guys

I am now going to get a new video card A guy I know came round today and he left with my fx5600 to go see how it gos in his system before he buys it off me.

hopeing that it doesn't do anything nasty while hes testing it ill have anough money once hes paid for a new card.

My budget is: $217 Its possible I could go up to $250.

I want something thatl give me a good steady 20fps in fs, something that wont go down to 3fps when im facing a airport...


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My specs are as follows:

CPU.. P4, northwood, brand ID: 9, core speed 2388mhz bus speed 132mhz rated FSB 530mhz

motherboard...."Micro-star international", model: MS-6533
BIOS: phoenix technoogies, version 6.00PG, Date: 01/13/2003

Graphic interface: AGP version 2, transfere rate: 4x. max supported: 4x "side band enabled"

RAM: 512mb DDR+256MB DDR

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Soo what should I get?

Hopefully if it turns out right none of you will have to listen to my moaning anymore


Thanks
James

[Ian Warren]

hi Jimmy , a real big help is extra ram , 1 gig min but 2 best , not sure what your choice for g/card , best and i found cheapest place with good service is http://www.dragonpc.co.nz/c.aspx , in CHCH 3 stores , Avondale/city/Riccarton

Anyone out there agree or have extra idea 's , i don't want to lead James in the wrong direction .

The place i purchased nu PC hopeful plug in on Wed's . Been there many times with no prob and good backup or replacement service .

Happy New Year, Ian

[JonARNZ]

I agree with Ian, ram is best then the card. I think Ian's suggestion of a local provider would be good, I can still talk to my mate for you if you want Jimmy, they are based in Dunedin so that may be a prob for you. He might be able to give some sound advise given its what he 'does' for a job.

I know plenty of good advice to be had on this forum as well.

[Jimmy]

Yeah good point with the RAM first but I know people that run fs fine with only 512mb, my fx5600 never performed well with my system, maby it just wasnt the right card for my mobo.

A 1gb RAM stick is definaltly the next thing ill be getting, I will get just about enough $ for a 1gb module then sell my 256mb one then buy a 1gb. So then I would have 1.5gbs of ram

James

[Jimmy]

Hey I just have a wee question about my fx5600. The guy thats gana buy it is testing it tonight and is having trouble with the TV out part. hes trying to watch movies of his pc onto a TV.

he gave me a call so I poped over the road with some older display drivers witch made no differance to the troubles with are:

With the Svideo output the TV display has about 2inches at the bottom of just flikering. above that there is a normal (somewhat shorter) picture.

Could this be because he has to run the S video threw the dvd player not directly to the tv (no conection for tv), and he also metioned somethign about when its threw the vga (i think im correct) it is a full screen (on the tv) but in black and white, no colour.

Hes still go the card and is now watching the movie anyway jsut with a bit of paper taped over the bottom of the tv lol O I hope he still wants to buy it. hehe

Is this a comman probelm, is it my card or something else.

Thanks again
James

[brownbox]

something that wont go down to 3fps when im facing a airport

Im not sure how exactly to do this. Im using a dual core with 3GB of RAM and a heavily overclocked PCI-e Geforce 7600GS, and I go down to 5fps while Im turned towards nzch

[brownbox]

I had a similar problem trying to hook my old laptop to the tv. Turns out, the screen resolution was set too high, and it was causing a big rainbow coloured band down the side (dont know why this would happen, but lowering the res to 640x480 worked wonders). Also, maybe it has something to do with NTSC/PAL, or he could have a bad cable? I dunno, maybe I helped

[creator2003]

get the best card you can then add ram ,after you payed for card


,you wont get what you are looking for though ram? thats a extra toy you are needing a good G/card " prob solved a good card for you puter"and i quote ... mate ive sat here and just said g/card G/card so do it while you can.... ram last .......

[JonARNZ]

something that wont go down to 3fps when im facing a airport

Im not sure how exactly to do this. Im using a dual core with 3GB of RAM and a heavily overclocked PCI-e Geforce 7600GS, and I go down to 5fps while Im turned towards nzch

this is surprising given your system, are you using Ian's version of NZCH?

[Jimmy]

I think I have found what I want:

http://pconlineshop.co.nz/pcshop/produc ... 6bb8779ddc

It isn't to expensive for me, only thing I wouder about is how will it go with my agp 4x slot and also is my mobo masde for this sort of card?

Any coments very apreciated before I buy it.

Thanks
James

[brownbox]

this is surprising given your system, are you using Ian's version of NZCH?

Who knows! I dont fly to NZCH much anyway

[Jimmy]

Well I brought this one: http://pconlineshop.co.nz/pcshop/produc ... 6bb8779ddc

I hope its compatible with my computer. It should arive on saturday or monday, Oh so long with no flightsim... lol

[brownbox]

url not found?

[Jimmy]

ohh sorry this shoudl work:

http://pconlineshop.co.nz/pcshop/produc ... 6bb8779ddc

btw I am begining to wroy about will this work in my 4x agp slot? my old 4x card said itll work on 1x and I suppose the 8x will work on 6 and 4x too???

James

[brownbox]

hmmm, im not entirely sure if it will work

Usually, its the other way around (4x works in 8x), but I really dont know if 8x will work in 4x. Maybe you could quickly contact your local computer shop and ask?

On a positive note, thats one hell of a card James! I can tell you are going to enjoy it alot

[G-HEVN]

Yes it will. I ran my 6800GT in my old Dell (4xAGP) for a while before it went into my current PC. All that happens is the GFX card throttles back from 8x to 4x. Don't know how that translates in terms of performance, because my current PC (homebuilt around an Asus mobo/AMD64 3500+/2GB/twin 120GB SATA drives) is significantly different (Dell: P4 2GHz/512K/120GB IDE)

[Zöltuger]

Yes it will. I ran my 6800GT in my old Dell (4xAGP) for a while before it went into my current PC. All that happens is the GFX card throttles back from 8x to 4x.

not necessarily. when trolly tried to run his 8x AGP 6600GT in his 4x computer, it failed miserably. you can actually damage the card, the reason being that the AGP 8x voltage is different from the 4x one. in short, MAKE SURE THE CARD YOU INTEND TO BUY IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH AGP 4x!
sorry for shouting, but unless it specifically says AGP 4x on the box/vendor website, it possibly won't work.

[brownbox]

If I were you James, I would cancle the order for the card, and find one thats 4x just incase

[HardCorePawn]

the reason being that the AGP 8x voltage is different from the 4x one

Zolt is right... AGP 4x is something like 1.5V from memory, whereas 8x is considerably lower at something like 0.8V

Its not the 'speed' that causes issues... eg. an 8x card will just downgrade to 4x if thats all the mobo will support, its the voltages that cause problems.

This Page has some interesting reading on the 8x/4x compatibility issue...

[ZK-MAT]

I look at it this way ... heh, just kidding.

From Nvidia:

NVIDIA based graphic cards which support AGP 8x mode (Accelerated Graphics Port) follow the AGP 3.0 specification. The AGP 3.0 specification retains backwards compatibility with older AGP 4x technology. All NVIDIA Geforce and Quadro GPU's which support AGP 8x mode are downwards compatible with AGP 4x motherboards. When a graphics card which operates at AGP 8x mode is installed on a motherboard which only supports up to AGP 4x mode, the card will automatically switch to AGP 4x operation.



From HCP's link :

What is AGP 3.0
AGP 3.0 is keyed like a 1.5V AGP 2.0 slot, but it only uses 0.8V of power. It supports 8X, 4X, 2X and 1X speeds.

This leads me to believe that even if your 4x slot does supply 1.5v instead of .8v the card will only use .8v of power. So it drops down the 1.5v to .8 internally.

I may be completely wrong though. Did you ask the supplier whether the card would work in your PC? If so and it doesn't you have the Consumer Guarantees Act to fall back on as it didn't do what they said it would do.

I looked here and couldn't see what voltage the slot puts out.

That's enough rambling for now, I hope for your sake it's all ok mate.