New Vid. Card

[FutureMagOwner]

i have a gateway computer(sigh i know my mom was a fool for buying it but we bought a couple before they turned to crap) so we HAVE to buy from them to keep the warrenty(which they dont even honor 99.9999999999999999999999999% of the time) anyway my comp is running a geforce 2 gts and for obvious reasons im having difficulty playing morrowind as a result:

which card would you choose from this list: http://accessories.gateway.com/Acces...88/Default.htm

id like to stick to nividia or go ati however i will get any of them except the $400 ati one preferably

[Nexev]

who cares about the warentee...

[irbodden]

Originally posted by Nexev
who cares about the warentee...

yeah, if it had problems just swap in the old one.

[slateman]

Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB

By far the best card on that page... but its $400 so...

[e mag]

just so you know, you dont need a 400$ vid card to play morrowind. you can find a g4 ti4200 or a radeon 9500 for under 200$ and they should work fine.

[FutureMagOwner]

well i assume is the card thats the problem because it seems like in the game its always in high graphic intense areas such as balmora and in any town is when i get the bumpyness and when playing the ravenshield demo too i lagged pretty bad until i cranked down the resolution to like 640x800

the thing is we have a dell that we dont use because its my brothers computer from the dorm and it has a geforce 4 and my mom wont let me swap them(he doesnt do any form of gaming beyond strip poker on the internet ) because of this warrenty that gateway doesnt even acknowledge half the time(they screwed is with windows ME so they were supposed to send us a new hard drive with 98 and we never got it then made us pay more than the msrp for stupid xp then they tried to charge us when the fan crapped out and broke about 5 things from over heating)

[MantisMag]

i'd go for the 9500 pro. best performance/price ratio imo.

[Gitaroo Man]

get a geforce 4 4400 TI for like $130...great for the price

[MantisMag]

are the geforce 4's compatible with DX9? a lot of the new games are going to require it. i think enter the matrix already does.

[KILLMORE]

I would say the geforce4 ti 4200,4400,4600 would be the best for your proce range.Any of those cards would easily give you enough power to run morrowind given that you decent ram and processor. In my opinion i would stick with nvidia, they have much better driver compatibility and support than ati.

Mantis Mag:
I believe the geforce4 cards are DX9 compatible but dont take advantage of the new graphic effects, such as the complex shaders and lighting etc. I am not sure if games are going to require Dx9 but having a card that takes advantage of it will surely give you awesome graphics and effects.

[sps16]

if i had to choose any of those cards (imo they all are crappy) i would choose the ti4200, i've got one made by albatron. It suits me just fine

[Fatjon]

Dont whine when i first got morrowind i was playing it on a pci gefore 2 64meg card. It ran fine. But i moved up to a 128meg g4

[mikey101]

While on the subject, Can someone explain to me the difference between the ti4200, and the ti4600? Thanks

[devildog]

the 2 cards are built on the same basis, but the 4600 has a couple advantages, like higher bus speeds, higher clock speeds, memory speeds, ramdac speeds, and the core processor is sometimes a little higher. i dont know the numbers for the 2 cards off the top of my head, but its not going to make a difference for morrowind, go with the 4200 to save some money

OR

if you dont have to go with gateway, get nvidias new series the fx series

the geforce fx 5200 is under 100, just as fast as the geforce4 ti 4600 (almost), and IS direct x 9 compatible. its a great card for an unbelievable price, look into it, here is a link:

http://www.amamax.com/vdspecialgfx52sa316.html

*edit* the link is to one that is on sale, 74 bux, generally they are around 90 dollars or so, just do a search for geforce fx 5200

[FutureMagOwner]

cool thanks! the thing i need to know now is that i heard the reason why i cant use opengl on my computer is because its now pure xp and not ME upgraded to xp like it was pre-reformat when the thing crapped out the first time... will this work in opengl because that is what i definantly prefer to use rather than direct 3d for games like half life