GameBanshee Forums

Current I have a SiS 32MB on-board card. It is alright but not good for 3D games. I am looking for a decent video card at price range no more than $150. Should I get AGP or PCI? What brand? I have PIII 1GH, 512 RAM PC.

Thanks for your advices.

Have you actually got an AGP slot on your motherboard? If not then that only leaves PCI as an option; unfortunately there are very few PCI graphics cards available. I think that the Hercules Prophet 4500 can be found in PCI, they are decent enough cards but will only be useful for the next year or so before games start needing more to run.

If you have got an AGP slot then you could possibly get a GeForce 3 TI, although i think they are still over your limit, perhaps if you wait another month or so they will have come down a little more They are selling 64MB GeForce 2's for about 60-70 pounds now and that is probably way better than your current 3D card.

As for brand always go with GeForce, ATI are not quite up to scratch with their drivers yet.

For instance the Doom 3 engine is going to require a GeForce Titanium 3 and above just to run properly.

By the way the prices i quote are in UK sterling, you might have to wait for a person from your native country to answer specific pricings.

Check this thread out for some more advice.

You can get a Hercules Prophet 4500 / 64 MB for about 90 € at the moment. I have one and can't say anything negative about it (except that you should use the newest drivers in order to avoid problems with Dungeon Siege). I haven't played a game yet which forced the 4500 to it's knees, eg Return to CW runs well with high details in 1600 x 1200 mode.

In the long run I'd wait for GF4 prices to drop, for ATI to improve their drivers or maybe for the Kyro 3 processor.

Originally posted by Mr Sleep
ATI are not quite up to scratch with their drivers yet.

I'll agree that ATI's track record as far as drivers are concerned is less than exemplary, but I purchased a Radeon 8500 a couple of months ago and have had no problems with its performance at all, even with my extremely modest processor (Duron 900).

However, apart from this relatively new card, which is still probably quite a way out of your budget, I would agree with Sleep that Geforce cards are very reliable and you can be sure of what quality you are getting.

Thanks ppl.

Am I the only one who has problems with the 4500? I can't run Madden 2001 or 2002, or pretty much any EA Sports game over 2 years old. I got the latest drivers and all that, but still, they will not run. I extremly dislike the card.

Matrox is working on a new 3d card too!
The market is getting very interesting with 2 newcommers lately.
Damn shame I've just bought a card...

Originally posted by Bloodstalker
Am I the only one who has problems with the 4500? I can't run Madden 2001 or 2002, or pretty much any EA Sports game over 2 years old. I got the latest drivers and all that, but still, they will not run. I extremly dislike the card.

I used to have that problem with Fifa 2000, it would only run in software mode, i think EA's engine of that time just wont run GeForce cards.

The Prophet 4500 is not a G-Force card, it has a Kyro 2 chip. Maybe that's exactly the problem with the engine. I never ran EA sport games on my computer.