Video card

[[AK]The Beast]

My "old faithful" Radeon 9500 is finally giving up the ghost after 3 1/2 years of loyal service--the system crashes after 10-15 minutes of gameplay. Two weeks ago, it was only during high end games (KOTOR II, WoW). Last week, it started during games that are not what you'd call taxing (WWIIOL, Madden 2005). So I went to Pricewatch last night and ordered myself a Chaintek Geforce 6600 AGP 8x for $135--that's all I'm willing to spend right now, since in a year or two, I'll be ready to upgrade my processor/mobo/RAM to a PCI Express. Hopefully it'll come in before the weekend.

[[AK]The Beast]

Epilogue: this vendor gets very high marks from me. I placed the order on Tuesday night at about 10 PM (once the frustration of crashing every 15 minutes overcame my ingrained stinginess), selected the free shipping option, and learned today that my card left the UPS depot for delivery to my office THIS MORNING. That's less than a 36 hour turnaround using the free shipping option. These guys are called FuturePowerPC.com, and they're based out of NY State, so YMMV if you don't live in the northeast.

[[AK]Clay]

I wonder if the Radion is just poorly supported in some games. I too got Frequent crashes in KOTOR I. I just installed KOTOR II, and can't even get it to play.

[[AK]JD]

Beast,

how you like this new card. My 9800 is starting to also act "funny" and has put me in the new card market. The 6600 or the x700 are in my price range.

[[AK]The Beast]

A solid card for the low price. (I wasn't willing to spend more, as I'll likely be upgrading to a new mobo with PCI Express in another 18-24 months). I haven't really seen a huge increase in framerates or anything, despite moving from 128 to 256 MB of RAM on the card, but it's certainly solid. I'll give you an update tomorrow on how BF2 runs for me tonight--from what I've been hearing, that's the current "gotcha" that tells whether or not you've got an inadequate card. I can tell you that other games that would allegedly choke out lesser graphics cards run fine on the 6600, and ran on the 9500 as well--I'm speaking primarily of Doom 3 and Half-Life 2.

[[AK]StitchJones]

Pretty much your top shelf AGP card. It was a bit $$$ but I was due for a upgrade.
BFG

[[AK]Nuts]

I'm looking at the 6600 as well (old ATI 9600 is showing it's age). Are you running BF2 with all settings maxed? How's she holding up?

[[AK]Faxman]

I picked up a 6600 GT by MSI. I haven't been able to play much BF2 yet, but I'll post a review when I get deeper into the game.

[[AK]The Beast]

I'm running at 1280 res with most detail settings currently medium and it's smooth as silk. I'm going to experiment with some settings tonight and see what I can turn up without sacrificing huge pieces of framerate.

[Bassiswild]

I am going to have to get a new video card. My current Geforce4 Ti4200 does not support BF2. Bummer. So I am looking around for a good card at the right price. I am mainly looking for a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT AGP. I have been hard pressed to find one that is not a PCI Express. If anyone has a lead on one would love a heads up on it.

[[AK]StitchJones]

I am going to have to get a new video card. My current Geforce4 Ti4200 does not support BF2. Bummer. So I am looking around for a good card at the right price. I am mainly looking for a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT AGP. I have been hard pressed to find one that is not a PCI Express. If anyone has a lead on one would love a heads up on it.

Scroll up several posts and click on my 'BFG' weblink. That will bring you to a AGP version of the 6800. I got mine over at Best-Buy.

[[AK]JD]

well i will chime in about my 9800 pro aiw , runs bf2 smooth until it crashes and reboots my system. This started happening with the demo, now with the retail release. Good times, it almost seems to be corisponding to keyboard input but who knows, its a major pita, I wasn't planning on buyin a new card as I suspected the 9800 would hold its own in bf2. I can't help but wonder if this is an nvidia thing, couldn't help but notice nvidea and creative adverts inside my dvd case... almost like a here is what you need to buy to play this game, now go and buy it you good little soldier. As much as Im upset about the problems Its still better than playing DC, I only hope that EA responds to the communities outrage.

[[AK]Hylander]

well i will chime in about my 9800 pro aiw , runs bf2 smooth until it crashes and reboots my system. This started happening with the demo, now with the retail release. Good times, it almost seems to be corisponding to keyboard input but who knows, its a major pita, I wasn't planning on buyin a new card as I suspected the 9800 would hold its own in bf2. I can't help but wonder if this is an nvidia thing, couldn't help but notice nvidea and creative adverts inside my dvd case... almost like a here is what you need to buy to play this game, now go and buy it you good little soldier. As much as Im upset about the problems Its still better than playing DC, I only hope that EA responds to the communities outrage.

Im using a 9800 Pro 128 and have never had a crash to desktop with the demo or the retail (all 1 night of it).

I'm running the game at 1024X768 with 85 refresh. All settings are at "medium" and my sound option is switched to hardware (why it defaults to software I have no idea) at high quality with EAX enabled.

[[AK]JD]

Mine is an all in wonder, and some people tell me its different but I dunno. I am starting to suspect it may be my power supply but at this point im troubleshooting by process of ellimination.

[[AK]FiGHT*CLuB]

I just bought a Dell Ultrasharp 2005FPW 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor but now I need to upgrade my video card. My 9600 wont support the monitor.
So I know nothing about vcards and haven’t gotten any good recommendations reading this post. Stitch's 6800 is out of my price range. 399 is to much in my opinion. Ill pay 300. SO what do you guys recommend? And is pci better than AGP now?

How’s ATi vs. Geforce?

If you had 300 to spend, which card would you buy right now?