Does and donts when buying a video card
Sep 20 '00
Before I start, I have noticed there’s another topic under this category labeled “buying a computer for gaming”, in which my article might fit better since there are certain hardware components (such as monitors) that actually have more impact on graphic performance than people may think. But instead of writing three or four separate editorials just to rack up the royalties, I’ll focus on the term graphics as a whole, talking about the different things that have something to do with visual performance.
What do you want it for?
For once, if you are the kind of person that uses his/her PC to chat with friends via ICQ/AIM/whatever, likes to surf the web or plays a bit of Age of Empires and some flight sims from time to time, wasting your money on the next GeForce 2 (Ultra) isn’t going to help you.
It’s just you don’t need such an insane amount of power to handle those mundane tasks, go for a cheaper solution instead (more on that later).
If you didn’t identify yourself with the group described above, it’s because you use your PC for a different purpose. So you are one of the following types of person, then (there are many possibilities actually), you are:
1) A graphics geek/web designer
2) A hardcore gamer
3) A secretary/teacher/college student/ etc
4) The guy from The Matrix movie
If you are part of the first group, go for a Mac instead.
I’m not into web design and most of the info you should know about this issue was already covered somewhere else (and if you’re into web design chances are you already know all you need to know).
Option number two
Now, if you are a gamer, hardcore or not, you will want your machine to play games, don’t you? If the answer is no, and you aren’t the guy from the Matrix, chances are you are not from this planet :-)
After this elimination process, the remaining crowd will opt for two kinds of game formats: 2D or 3D.
I know that identifying a genre by its angle of view isn’t possible anymore since the once 2D-only RTS and RPG games are both rushing to embrace the 3D format, a welcomed change most of the time. That’s not to say two-dimensional painting isn’t an art...
Anyway, if you are a fan of Command & Conquer or Starcraft (2D games), you will find a GeForce card worthless and pocket-unhealthy to say the least.
2D games require very little calculation from your video card, and 15-20 frames per second are more than enough to make you think your little soldiers are actually moving . So pick up a cheap ol’ card, 16 MB will do nice, because there’s no need to store much data on video RAM in a 2D game, and these games aren’t going higher than 1,024 by 768 anyway.
I recommend a Voodoo 3 generation card for this job, as these cards are cheap and still produced in good amounts since many people still buy ‘em (and it’s the only time I’ll be recommending you a 3dfx card, I promise!).
ATI Radeon + 14 inches monitor = waste of $$$
Before you run to the store after being hypnotized by some evil banner add, think it carefully and thoroughly. Look at what you have now, and I’m not only talking about your current video card, but also monitor, RAM memory, CPU speed and even hard drive.
A very common mistake is to purchase the latest thing on the market without even knowing whether it will fit in your PC or not. A person I know, and a very stupid one I have to say, bought his ATI Rage Fury Maxx card the first week it was released. The problem was that he had a machine so old that it didn’t have an AGP slot! He had to threw the whole piece of junk away in order to make his new piece of silicon work.
The morale? Look at what you have before venturing in the dark lands of the computer store, don’t make quick (and stupid) decisions, you will save a lot of money in the long run.
Monitors:
This component is even more important than your own graphics card, since if it’s too old, it can render most of your new 3D card’s features useless.
If you have a 14 or 15 inches monitor, you are out of luck with the “next generation” cards. If you have one of those monitors, it means your resolutions can go up till 1,024x768 frames per second (fps), not a single pixel more. (there can be some exceptions but I don’t know them).
And if you are buying a card that’s capable of 35+ fps in 1,600 by 1,200 by 32 (like the ATI Radeon) while you can use just a third of its power (because of your little monitor) you are literally burning your money.
Can you see the irony here? You have the hardware necessary to run at insanely (and unnecessary?) high resolutions but you can’t go any higher because of your monitor... a pathetic case of misinformation and too quick purchasing.
My advice:
14” and 15” monitors: There are many cards that will run your games at a smooth rate at such resolutions, but the TNT2 is running around the $90-115, making it very easy to recommend.
17”: You are done with a GeForce (the first one) based card, DDR if possible. If you can wait a bit more, hold your bucks until the GeForce2 Ultra is released, it is almost certain that prices for the original GeForce will go down a bit more then.
19”, 21” or higher: You can go all the way up till 1,600x1,200 in 32 bit mode without much trouble. Your dilemma is between the GeForce 2 and the ATI Radeon cards. If you have such monitor, I can bet you have a PIII/K7 running at 667 Mhz to say the least (can you see they didn’t want to say it runs at the devil’s speed of 666 Mhz?), so the problem here is what kind of games and features you’re searching for. [See “all the senseless bells and whistles” section below.]
However, if you own a 21 inches monitor, you must have one of the best 3D cards in town already, so unless you’re Bill Gates’ nephew or are used to having Champaign showers every day, don’t you even think of an upgrade right now!
And remember, RAM memory and your own CPU also have a big impact on performance. Your 3D card will use some of your conventional RAM to store graphics there, so it all depends on how your overall system works too.
All the senseless Bells and Whistles
Finally, we have reached the part of the article where, as Charles Darwin said, “only the strongest species will prevail”.
There has been a lot of hype surrounding certain words lately, Full Scene Anti-Aliasing, T buffer, Charisma Engine , you must have heard them at least once in your life if you are remotely connected to the PC gaming world.
Sadly, most of these things are just part of marketing campaigns invented by people that can’t tell the difference between a Voodoo 3 and a Voodoo doll, leading to misinformation and senseless folklore surrounding companies.
The latest offenders to our intelligence here are 3dfx, Nvidia and ATI (so it’s everybody actually).
3dfx
They were the best (and only) 3D card manufacturer in the world back in 1997 –the piece of garbage known as “Virge” and the ongoing trend of crap (Savage 4, Savage 2000) don’t count--.
They showed great cards, with tons of nice features, I can bet there is still a reasonable crowd running two Voodoo 2 cards at the same time in their machines. But power corrupts and the guys at 3dfx were blinded by their own success, and they started to release bad products at unjustified prices. And now the Voodoo 5 with the so praised T buffer is their way to say “forgive us”.
The problem with all these features is that there is no real point in having them if there are no developers planning to use them in their games.
Amongst other things the T buffer functions include: motion blur, soft shadows and reflections, depth of field blur, etc. But what are all these buzzwords really good for? I have no idea, and I have yet to find a game that supports them. I have read Vampire The Masquerade includes support for some of these things, but I’m not going to invest $350+ just in case some other weird development house decides to include them.
Finally, 3dfx situation isn’t difficult at the moment, thanks to all the people that still buy their products just because they have a big ass brand name. But if people starts to realize what the hell are they paying for, this company would have sunk in the ocean depths long ago.
They refused to put DDR in their Voodoo 5 5500 edition card, no matter what the benchmarks said. They ignored T&L (transform and lightning) for reasons I don’t understand, and now are finally going to implement it in their cards, but look at this, in software mode!
So what’s the purpose behind 3D cards? I thought they were developed to alleviate the CPU from performing graphic calculations so it could concentrate on other factors such as better AI, physics calculations, etc. Now it seems the guys at 3dfx want to go a step back again...
ATI
This one is easy, their latest card, the Radeon, features most of the things that are supposedly going to be introduced in Direct X 8.0. And this means developers are going to support them, so if you want those nice touches in future games, ATI Radeon is THE choice.
GeForce 2
However, if you want some extra muscle, the GeForce 2 was assembled for you. And you may have noticed I put GeForce 2 (a product name) instead of a company’s name in the title. That’s because although Nvidia does the chipset, they then license it to all those companies who want it, and the candidates are always Hercules, ELSA, Creative Labs and so on.
It doesn’t really matter which one you choose, try always to pay less. This time this formula works, but just this time. You can have some extras like a copy of Soldier of Fortune or some crappy virtual glasses if you are ready to pay some more, but the price is unjustified most of the time.
Conclusion
16 Megs for 2D games, a TNT2 for 14 and 15 inches monitors, and the latest 3D cards only for those who have enough CPU power and monitors large enough to fully support them.
If you have enough $$$, go for the GeForce 2, personally I would wait until the Ultra version is released, the prices of both antecessor cards will go down another bit then.
However, if cool features are what you want (features that will be used by developers one day that is) grab the ATI Radeon, instead. But you should have at least a 19 inches monitor to really appreciate its power.
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