Best video cards for SL?

I'm planning on upgrading to a better video card soon, and want to get the best I can (though I'm not made of money...the price has to be resonable.) So what kinds of cards do y'all use? I'm planning to get an AGP card this time around, they seem to be better. I'm currently using a nVidia GeForce FX5500 PCI.

System specs:
AMD Athlon 3300+ 2.4GHz
1.5 GB RAM
1 AGP slot, 1 PCI slot, no PCI-e

Seriously, the best recommendation is to get a machine with PCI-e. PCI is so old and outdated, you can get a machine that runs SL very well with a PCI-e slot available for around $600. That AMD is outdated as well. Plus you will be getting Vista if you decide to go that route.

First of all, I built this computer less than a year ago, and its other specs suit me quite well. I'm quite attached to it and have neither the intention nor the money to get rid of it anytime soon. As for Vista, why bother when XP does everything I need it to? PCI-e isn't supported by much either. Don't bother posting if you don't have anything to say about the question.

I would just get a higher end nVidia AGP card. Go for the best that your budget can afford. Using a AGP card will improve your performance in SL.

As far as I know, the GeForce 7800 is the highest end nVidia card available with AGP connectivity. I'm pretty sure anything newer than that will be PCI Express only.

From what I'm looking at, it seems to have good specs for an AGP card, and it's not too pricey.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814143046

You may need to upgrade your power supply to accommodate it, depending on what you have now. Newegg offers a combo deal with a 500W Coolmax for $279. Not bad.


That having been said, I feel I should mention that in principle I do agree with Batao. You would be far better off investing in a more up to date machine. Since your computer is only a year old, it may not feel outdated, but it really is. The technology has changed. PCI and AGP have gone out the window for PCI Express. IDE has all but disappeared in favor of SATA. The short term good news is that the old stuff has gotten way cheap. The bad news is that it's more expensive in the long run since you're gonna have to replace it much sooner.

If you can at all afford to put together a new machine, that's what I'd recommend. If not, then that GeForce 7800 will likely work well for a while. I wouldn't count on getting more than one good year out of it though.

For goodness sake, what part of "I can't afford a new computer" is not clear here? I'm disabled, have no insurance and lots of medical costs, and the US government moves slower than a Galactic so SL is my only source of income. A video card is within acceptable buisness expense but a new machine is not. I can afford a hundred or so for a better card but NOT the $700 or more a better machine would cost. I asked a simple question, "What's good on THIS machine" not "What's a good machine I can waste money on".

/endrant

Thank you for pointing to the card, Chosen Few. I have a 450 watt power supply which should be suffient. I'm wondering though, about the 256MB memory. There are other cards with 512. What exactly does that mean? I'm not very good with hardware.

For goodness sake, what part of "don't go ape out over a simple suggestion" is not clear?

Sorry, couldn't resist that.

To answer your question about the megabytes, that's the amount of video memory that is on the card. To put it simply, the more video memory you have, the more visual elements your computer can "remember", or keep track of, at one time.

If you can find a 512MB version of that card, by all means get it. I didn't see one, but then I didn't look very hard.

It's hard to say whether a slightly lesser card in other respects that has more video memory is better or worse than a higher end card with less memory. It might be a good idea for you to poke around the nVidia website for a while, compare all the specs of the different cards, and learn as much as you can about what they all mean. If your budget is indeed so tight, and so short-term dependent, this probably isn't a purchase you want to make without a good education on what you're buying.

As I was getting at earlier, you're kind of treading the top surface of yesterday's technology. Go too far back, and you might be able to stay afloat for all that long. If it's possible for you to finance something that would be more forward-looking, that would be a better and safer investment, but if you truly can't do that, I'd advise you to do some real research and learn as much as you can about how to keep that old tech as new-software-friendly as possible.

Sorry I don't have more concrete answers for you right at my finger tips.

Just get a Nvidia 6800 card and you will do fine.

I have a Nvidia A9250 wich works great.

Actually in the same boat and you got beter sytem then me.
Not sure personally if I want Vista mysself.
Just put aside whatever you can until you can afford to update.
When I first started to play I didn't even have recommend video card, I had only 256 ram.
I got only 2533 mhz pentinum 4, 756 ram and Geoforce 6200.
PCi thing got no clue.
It works for me that all that matters.

If I were to get a new card based on what you have currently, I would get GeForce 7600GT. It is currently on sale for less then $150.

This is not necessarily true: on some older cards the memory bandwidth (this means the amount of data that can be exchanged between the memory on the card and the rest (gpu) of the card/computer) is too low to have any benefit of more memory. On those cards, the data cannot get in/from the memory fast enough, so the extra memory on those cards sometimes even makes the card slower!! I don't know if this is the case here, but i'd advise to search for some benchmarks on both the 256 and the 512 version, to see if the higher cost of more memory actually benefits its performance or not!

Interesting. Thanks for that.

Thanks for the info everyone. I think I've narrowed my choices down to the 7800GS and the 7600GT, though the latter looks better with its higher scores and lower price tag. Thanks again!

Since you're limited by AGP, it probably isn't worth spending a lot anyway because that computer is outdated. I know how you feel about people telling you to get a new computer, but you are pretty limited (I had the same problem).

New Egg has a 6600GT and a 6800XT both for under $100. They should be about the same in performance I think. And both would be an improvement on what you have at a price that you can afford and is worth paying.

Just make sure that your computer can handle the power needs. I plugged an old 9800Pro card into my partner's computer and blew up the power supply.

I've got an nvidia 6200 256mb card. Can be found for about 60-80 usd. Not really top of the line, but I can run games like battlefield 2, battlefield 2142 and elder scrolls oblivion pretty well on med-low settings. Those are pretty high end graphics heavy games if you don't know. I'd get something better than what I have if you plan on buying new.

What's wrong with a 3300+ AMD processor?? Runs SL great.

Agreed. You really don't need a top of the line Vista capable machine to run SL. I've run SL on much older machines, and while I can't turn on all the fancy graphics features, I can at least get on the grid and move around. Some are just happy getting their foot into the door.

Well I said that because I run a 3200+ with an ATI 256MB PCI (not express) and it runs fine. I'm at 1.5GB of DDR1 ram and my next upgrade would be a video card not a processor. Then after that, a SATA hard drive (currently IDE) and then more memory. The processor will be last.

I run a P4 2.4GHz processor, ASUS P4P800 mobo 1GB PC3200 RAM, ATI Radeon 9600 pro 128meg graphics card is smoooooth. I think you can get them for around 60 bux these days.

What Triss says about GPU memory is very true w/ regards to "older" AGP/PCI systems. PCIe is a whole different ballgame and has a much higher bandwidth from the card to the mobo.

I don't plan on upgrading my PC for another year or so I don't think... at least a year and then upgrade my system to Vista once the majority of "trial by fire" bugs are worked out of it.

Running Vista and Nvidia 7600GT as from this weekend. Graphics quality is amazing, purely amazing. If you have 100-150 bucks to spare, this 7600GT (not GS) is the way to go.

Maya

I'm using the same processor as you but with only 1GB RAM, and I ordered an AGP7600GT last week. Should be here in the next couple of days (I hope!) so if you can wait, I'll let you know how things go.

Love Suzi

When people say the "best video card" I wonder if we're talking about the wrong kind of video card. SL is not like most games that can use all sorts of optimization tricks to render the world.

SL uses OpenGL and the world view is very complex to render, similar to the type of work a professional CAD/CAM workstation does.

I wonder if SL rendering performance would be better if we used a professional OpenGL graphics card intended specifically for OpenGL acceleration, as compared to a basic consumer/gamer 3D graphics card.


Here is what I'm talking about:

ATI FireGL V3300 128MB GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card, $200
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814195008

ATI FireGL V5200 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - OEM, $460
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814195013

PNY Quadro FX1400 128MB DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail, $450
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814133142

PNY Quadro FX1500 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail, $530
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814133179

ATI FireGL V7300 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - OEM, $1030
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814195006

PNY Quadro FX3000 256MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail, $1300
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814133103

PNY Quadro FX4500 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail, $1600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814133162

PNY Quadro FX5500 1GB GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail, $2400
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814133189


With insanely high prices like these, I am not in a financial position to try these out to see if they work better with SL.

.

Well, other than the OP stipulated AGP and only one of that list is, which also seems to be the top end of the price range I can only draw on previous threads on the subject. That is, that nVidia impliments OpenGL better than ATI at same price level and most if not all users of the 7600GT have waxed lyrical on it.
I am still quite satisfied with my ATI Radeon 9550 AGP but then I only wanted one to run a tad smoother than my previous.

Oooh Bilbo. I can't wait to wax lyrical!