Solid advice for buying a card.... (General Comments on Video Cards)

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Product:	General Comments on Video Cards
Date:	09/04/01 (49 review reads)
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Advantages: Makes THE difference to your system

Disadvantages: can be pricey..easy to buy the wrong product

Graphics cards receive a considerable amount of attention on websites and in computer magazines.

For computer gamers the graphics card is arguably the single most important component, and can make the difference between enjoying your software or going to bed with a vision-related headache!

For non-gamers there is little reason to invest more than £50 in a good quality 2d capable card. I would recommend ATI's 16mb Expert 2000 card for people building a business machine, internet terminal or website creation tool.

This type of card will support the resolutions and colours needed to run windows based software. The only reason to pay more would be for a dual-head capable card (so you can run two monitors), I suggest looking to Matrox for a good dual-head card.

For gamers or people working with intensive 3d graphics (perhaps autocad)you will need to spend money on a good quality graphics card.

HOW DO I DECIDE WHICH CARD TO BUY AS THERE'S SO MANY ON THE MARKET??

First up, look at your PC. You need to establish what you've got before splashing out £300 on a top of the range gaming card. You can get a system summary from Windows under "system properties" in the "control panel" part of your "start" menu bar.

You need to know several key things:

1)How fast is your CPU?

This will be in Megahertz, and may range from 100mhz (old Pentium) up to 1.4 gigahertz (Pentium IV or AMD Athlon). If you have a really old CPU there is little point in shelling out loads of cash for a new graphics card. It is likely that the rest of the system will be as old as the CPU which means a small hard drive, limited memory bandwidth, slow cd/rom - you get the idea.

2)What type of interface does your motherboard have?

Motherboards come in several flavours: AGP (accelerate graphics port), PCI (peripheral component interface) or On-board (built in graphics). <
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Some on-board graphics have an AGP slot so that the user can upgrade in the future. On-board graphics are normally pretty weak for 3d, but fine for business users or 2d gamers.

If you don't have an expansion slot in the form of spare PCI slots or an AGP for your on-board graphics then you're screwed. Also, make sure that your on-board graphics can be disabled in the BIOS (the motherboard's control system) otherwise you'll spend cash on a graphics card only to find it won't work. You can check the BIOS by pressing "DEL" at startup and check the "integrated peripherals" section to see if you can "disable graphics".

If you've got a PCI based motherboard with no AGP then you need to look for a PCI graphics card (more on this later).

If you've got AGP then try and find out what speed it runs at. Older AGP motherboard ran at AGPx1, then came AGPx2 and now AGPx4. AGPx4 is the fastest and the new cards fully support this. There's no point buying the latest card that supports (and needs) AGPx4 if your motherboard only supports AGPx1. Your motherboard's manual will tell you what speed the AGP runs at.

3)How much memory do you have?

If you've only got 32mb of Ram then, like with a slow CPU, there's little point in buying an expensive graphics card. Windows tend to run well with 64mb upwards, although for power gamers things are smoother with 128mb and 256mb is better. The type of RAM you have also matters, but this is determined by the age of your system, so the amount of RAM is more important here. Even old systems run well with lots of RAM and it's cheap getting RAM for old systems!

4)How big is your monitor?

This is often overlooked as many people pay little attention to the specification of their monitor. Which is odd as you pay all your attention to your monitor everytime you use your PC!

A 15" monitor can be
powered by pretty much any graphics card, old or new. Obviously for 3d games you will still need a good card.

The current standard is 17", and this is where a good graphics card becomes imporant.

For people running 19" monitors you don't want less than 32mb of video RAM on the graphics card, and for 21" monitors it is essential to have 64mb of video RAM when playing 3d games.

The reason for this is that as the monitor gets larger, your graphics card is having to draw a larger picture which takes more power.

5) What kind of games do you want to play?

Not a very obvious question, but one that is important to your budget. If you hate FPS (first person shooters) because they give you motion sickness (which apparently most of the Japanese population suffers - hence FPS games do not sell there!) then you don't need the fastest graphics card. FPS games are probably the most intensive test of a graphics card.

If you only want to play old games (because you're into retro gaming, or can only afford second-hand) then you may not need the fastest card. However, you don't know about your changing tastes or what kinds of games will arrive in 1-2 years so don't limit yourself. You might get sick of RPG's (role playing games) and get into FPS games afte all...

SO HOW DO I CHOOSE A CARD? I'M CONFUSED BY ALL THOSE BUZZ-WORDS AND ADVERTISING?

First, set a budget. Don't be enticed by fast card that are way better than your system. Everything in a PC works better if balanced, so don't expect a Geforce GTS Ultra to sing in a AMD K6-450 system with 64mb RAM and 8GB hard drive. That kind of card would be happier in an Athlon 1ghz system.

There are several quality chipset manufacturers on the market: ATI with the Radeon, NVidia with the Geforce, ST with the Kyro and 3dfx with the Voodoo.

3dfx are now the property of Nvidia do I wouldn't recomm
end buying Voodoo cards as driver updated ceased of February this year. Voodoo cards are still fine cards but you can't guarentee to get any support when you get driver problems with future games.


1)GOOD BUDGET CARDS £80-£120

There are several cards at this pricepoint that are ideal for 3d gaming.

Videologic Vivid! 32mb (ST Kyro)
Creative Blaster 2MX (Geforce 2mx)
Hercules Prophet 2Mx (Geforce 2mx)
Elsa Gladiac 2MX (Geforce 2mx)

and several other "Geforce 2MX" based cards..

The best Geforce 2MX card is the Hercules, which has a higher bandwidth than the Creative card, and has it's own heatsink and fan to allow you to overclock it with less chance of meltdown. The Hercules if often £10-15 more than the Creative card but well worth it. You can also get "TV-OUT" versions of these 2mx cards, which will let you connect to a television, which is good for watching DVD's.

The Videologic card is clever, and very different to the 2MX cards in that it uses "Tile based rendering". This is a more intelligent solution and is more powerful than the 2MX. The Sega Dreamcast uses the same chipset and features some stunning graphics on that £100 games console.

Nvidia have now released a 64mb version of the Geforce 2MX but this seems pointless as the 2MX is bandwidth limited.

With these kinds of cards you'll get frame rates around 50-60 FPS with some effects turned on at 800x600 resolution, but these cards tends to max out at resolutions higher than 800x600 and the frame rates get very choppy.Remember that they are "budget" cards.

With an Athlon 900mhz and Geforce 2MX you'll get 3dmark 2000 scores around 3900-4200.

2)GOOD MIDRANGE CARDS £150-200

Elsa Gladiac Geforce GTS2 32mb
Creative Blaster GTS 32mb
Hercules Prophet GTS 32mb
ATI Radeon 32mb

and other Geforce GTS2 32mb/64mb cards....
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These cards are very appealing as they offer very fast performance without the stupid expense of the top of the range cards.

You can get the Elsa card for around £160-£170 if you shop around, the Creative card can be had for the same money as can the ATI Radeon.

The Radeon is slightly stronger in 32 bit colour but the T&L (transform and lighting) engine on the Geforce cards is very nice (on games that support it) and Geforce 2GTS is much stronger on OPEN GL games (which are now very common).

Another advantage of Geforce cards is that Nvidia is very pro-active in constantly updating their drivers, which makes a huge performance difference over the life of your card. When NVidia released the Detonator 3 drivers all Geforce owners got a boost of 25% just by installing the new drivers!!

With these kinds of cards you'll get frame rates around 40-60 FPS with effects turned on and in 1024x768 resolutions. At 1024x786 and 32 bit colour without ALL the effects you get frame rates around 75-78FPS in Quake III (a great bencmarking game).

With an Athlon 900mhz and Geforce 2GTS 32mb you'll get 3dmark 2000 scores around 5900-6300.

3)HIGH END CARDS £200-£500

Hercules Prophet II Ultra 64mb
ATI Radeon 64MB
Elsa Gladiac Ultra 64mb
Creative Blaster Ultra 64mb

and the new Geforce 3!!

These cards are best left to serious gamers, clan members, quake III addicts, and other unspeakable boffins and misfits!!

These cards cost from £250 upwards, probably £500 for the new Geforce 3. If you got the ultimate gaming rig then you'll love these cards (we're talking 1.2ghz processors, 256mb PC-133, 40GB 7,200 rpm HD's) and you'll get great performance. You'll get frame rates around 60-70 FPS with all effects in highest resolutions. With Quake III at 1024x768 and 32 bit colour the frame rate was nearer 100!!

With an Athlon 900mhz and Geforce 2 Ultra 64mb
you'll get 3dmark 2000 scores around 7000-8000!!

If you can get one of these cards as part of a ready-built machine then great. If not, then you have to think hard about paying this much cash for what is just a graphics card. The 32mb version of the Geforce GTS2 is still stupidly fast and may serve just as well for £100-150 less. £150 will buy you a faster processor, or more memory or a stack of games..think about it!!

Shopping around will lower these prices by 20%, and wait two months for the Geforce 3 to hit the market. This might lower the prices of Geforce 2GTS 64mb cards, or the prices may stay the same or even rise as these card become in short supply. After all, the Geforce 3 will be twice the price!!

The Radeon's are often overlooked but are great cards and the 64mb version flies!! You can often get them cheaper than 64mb Geforce cards so look around.

To sum up:

-make sure your card will be supported by the rest of your PC otherwise you're wasting cash.

-work out what you need it for before handing over £300 when you only need a budget £100 card!!

-get the latest drivers as the boxed drivers can be 1-2 years out of date.

-check the internet for tweak utilities to help you set up your card properly, many cards don't run well because they haven't been setup (www.tweakfiles.com)

-use diagnostics to help you check your settings and performance (www.madonion.com for 3dmark 2000)

-try setting the anti-aliasing at different levels as this really alters the frame rate.

-If you're getting a headache / burning eyes from choppy frame rates try dropping the resolution or turn off some of the effects.

-overclocking is a good way to improved performance but know what you're doing before messing with the settings...and make sure you've got enough cooling.

-Enjoy your games, and remember, you can trade in your card when it ge
ts a bit old and put the cash towards a new card.

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