video card thoughts

just wondering what people are using for video cards now a days.
the redaeon 8500 or the geforce 3? what are your thoughts?

I have a geforce2 mx400 with 64megs of ram

have you heard anything about the redaeons? i have been geforce all the way but the price differance is begining to matter.

I have an Asus V7100Pro.
That is a GeForce2 MX-400 w/32 RAM and 2 tv-outs (Coax & SVideo). It can output video at 1024x768

Coupled with my 1333 MHz TBird it can be a bit of a bottleneck, but I really don't notice any slowdowns in FPS games or whatever. Besides, benchmark numbers don't turn me on that much...

Funny you should mention video cards.
My GeForce II Ultra is playing up and unfortunately has to go away for what could be ages while it's repaired.
Can't live with on-board video so I've just bought a new card (The GeForce II Ultra will go into my second PC once it's returned).

Did a lot of ummm'ing and arrrr'ing and in the end I went for:

Hercules 3D Prophet III Titanium 200.

Will install tonight but from what I've heard these are sweet cards and at a quite sensable price.

I would stick with Nvidia. Their cards are pretty much the industry standard. You can bet that if you buy a game or application, it will work with Nvidia cards. This is partly due to the unified driver.
ATI makes a good product too. I don't know what they've been doing with their drivers lately, but The Radeon Image quality is very good.

I have a Visiontek 6964 (Geforce 3 Ti500). Before that, I had a Geforce 2 GTS, which was also great.

Personally, I would stick with the more industry compatible hardware. In the video card department, the leader right now is Nvidia.

hey guys thanks alot! i think i am going to pick up a geforce3.

lots of help!

Seems like just yesterday, that Voodoo was the standard. Funny how things change so quick.

*mumbles on about evil nVidia and destroying 3dfx etc. blah blah*

well I still have my Voodoo5 and I like it. It plays all my games just fine. If you're in a strange mood and want a non-standard videocard that's really good get a Kyro2 from Hercules.

...which will unfortunately go the way of the other tile-based rendering chipsets from NEC. They have a good idea, but unfortunately they are ALWAYS late in delivery. Matox had a zippy little add-in card a long time ago (and for the life of me I can't remember its name) that was similar to a Voodoo1, but a helluva lot cheaper. GLQuake ran really well on it, and it was a pretty nice card. It ran on the PowerVR chipset (grandfather of the one in the Kyro) and was fairly successful. However, they were *supposed* to get another one out for the PC, but got distracted with the Sega Dreamcast bid they made (and later won) and then focused their attention on that. Well, production issues and lackluster game production for the platform isn't doing it any justice, and delays in getting the Kyro out the door (forget the drivers, just making the damn chips was a problem ;)) are just bringing up old memories. NEC just can't get it together, and will probably washout on this one too.

having a GeForce 2 MX (32MB) card myself, i am still saving money to get a Geforce 3 Ti200 ...seems to pack a lot of power for reasonable :p money right now...to be honest i loved my Voodoo 3 a year ago, but nVidia seems to lead the graphics market (probably for years to come). Also drivers are released FREQUENTLY, a major indication that they support their products

you must be thinking of the Kyro3, which is now supposed to be released in June 2002. The Kyro2 is out, and has been for a while now.

Nahhh, I am actually addressing the whole line of PowerVR chips. I would like to see it work though, as it would be quite an efficient method of rendering (especially at higher resolutions). Plus, having another player in the field is always a plus.

"Matox had a zippy little add-in card a long time ago (and for the life of me I can't remember its name)"

That would have been the nicely names M3D?
Nice little card and as you said, similar to the VooDoo 1 in that it was an add-in card ratehr than stand alone.
I almost bought one when we were told how much better the PowerVR chipset was over the VooDoo 1, but then when 90% of games supported Glide and not the PowerVR chipsets I'm pleased I went for VooDoo.

LOL

That sounds about right. I could remember the Mystique, Millenium, Millenium II, etc but I couldn't think of the name of that little card. At the time, I couldn't even afford that, but once I did have the money for an accelerator (to help out my ATI All-In-Wonder Pro) I decided to wait for the Voodoo2 12MB (12MB? Seemed like a lot at the time... :)) to come out.

Times change...when I think about it I don't know whether to freak out or be nostalgic: my first PC when i went to college was a 486 DX2-66, lol. Just before I graduated I had a 450 MHz AMD K6-2...wow what a difference.

Coupled with my 4mb Mystique - couldn't believe the difference, first game was Turok, looked fantastic.

Unfortunately performance always felt sub-par and there were a few driver issues so I changed to a Voodoo II 8mb (couldn't get the 12mb at the time) - now that was a card

I saved a couple of months more and purchased the Diamond VooDoo II 12MB version - I really felt that was it and computer graphics simply could never get any better!

My first exposure to accelerated 3d graphics was with a NVidia Riva128, and I was hooked immediately. I got NT4 so I could play GLQuake before NVidia released OpenGL drivers for Win95, and was immediately hooked on NT's stability.

Running a GeForce 2 GTS now.

NVidia cards aren't the only ones I played with, though. Here's a list.

Matrox M3D
Voodoo2 12MB
Voodoo Banshee
Matrox G200
Voodoo3 3000
Voodoo3 3500 TV AGP

My first graphics were integrated SiS on a Venus mobo. I had 48MB total in that system with a Cyrix 300MHz (233PR), with 4 dedicated to video. Then I got an ATI Xpert 98, I noticed a major difference when I got that baby. After that Voodoo 3 3000 AGP Retail, V4 4500, GF2 MX, GF2 Ti, Radeon 8500. The last two being my most current, as per specs in the sig line.:D

Currently, I have the Radeon 8500 (really? do tell), and it kicks much A$$! ATI has a few minor details to smooth out (refresh rate) with it, but as far as I'm concerned, there's really no reason to buy the GF3Ti500. The 8500 is cheaper on the same grounds (OEM, on-line, retail, etc.) and does the same in terms of speed as the Ti500.

Also, if you so doubt me, check through my posts in the past: I've hated ATI. That right there oughtta tell you how much ATI has come around.