Upgrading G400

[Dan F]

So I'm going for the upgrade while I can get a new card cheap. There's two Geforce 2 Pros, the ASUS AGP-V7700 and the Creative labs 3d blaster 2 pro.

Any ideas which is the best?

I wouldn't mind getting the one with the best 2d image (I know it will suck anyway...)

[Dan F]

Anyone know of a good GeForce forum that I could ask at?

Cheers

[Gurm]

Nope, don't know anything about either card, or any GeFart forums.

But I can recommend a Kyro2. They're cheap (around $100 OEM), and fast, and have better 2D than any GayFart card.

- Gurm

[birdy]

i'm quite happy with the 2d on my asus 7700 geforce 2.

i use a 19in iiyama monitor at 1152x864 (or something very close) and the 2d seems pretty good.

[Gurm]

No offense intended, Birdy, but you are in a small minority - especially around here.

OEM's for GeForce cards have FAQ's that say stuff like:

Q. Why is my display blurry.

A. nVidia chips have dodgy output.

Q. Why are there ghosts on my screen?

A. nVidia's chipset has poor output quality.

Funny shit, man.

- Gurm

[Dan F]

HaHa,

Is there ANY alright Geforce 2 Pro cards on the market?
I only need it for games likes

I've got a 19" moniter as well...

The G400's going to the parents

[Gurm]

GeForce 2's? The only ones with GOOD output are the really pricey ones or the Quadras.

GeForce 3's - many have reasonable output.

But seriously, why not just get a Kyro2? It's cheaper, better, faster...

- Gurm

[Dan F]

What ones are they?

The ASUS?

Wouldn't the Geforce 2Pro oc to 450Mhz beat the KyroII in most tests?

Also is the Kyro still experienceing issues with some games due to bad drivers?

Cheers

[Gurm]

The only games the Kyro2 has trouble with at this point are the ones whose coding breaks their tile-based or deferred rendering. There are a couple, but they are last year's versions.

It's up to the manufacturer of the game to fix those issues though, since they are using tricks they shouldn't use, based on the Direct3D spec.

As for which cards, I'm talking the Elsa or Gainward cards (Elsa I know is nice, dunno about others though - Gainward is a guess).

As for winning - a Kyro2 and a GeForce2 Pro/GTS are neck-in-neck.

- Gurm

[Guru]

ASUS cards are known for their bad 2d quality! In my opinion go for a Kyro 2 or a Radeon DDR (Don't by an ati if you are runing w2k)!

[Dan F]

Yeah, Radeons have held there price in the UK so they arn't that good FPS/Buck.

I'm just looking for a good gamming card till I replace my system next year with a Radeon 8500 or Matrox GXXX :-)

[Guru]

If the radeons are expencive over there go with the Kyro 2 you won't regret it!

[Nuno]

KyroII all the way, DanF. Just look at the sig It was my natural upgrade to my G400 too.

Hey, Geforce2 aren´t bad cards either. But too many have 2d problems.

Then again it depends if money is not an object... People tend to say that KyroII is not worthwhile because you can get Geforce2 Pro at the same price. That´s false. For a Hercules 4500 retail price you can get a Geforce2 "pro" (that actually run at GTS speeds or half-way between GTS and pro) 32 Mb from a no-name brand who probably will have el-cheapo video filters good enough for 1024x768 if you´re lucky...

Brand name Geforce2 64 Mb still are much more expensive than KyroII. And then again that depends where you live.

I got a Hercules 4500 some months ago and I´m really happy with it. Driver support has been fine, they listen carefully to feedback in PowerVR fori. Each driver release has fixed some problem (somtimes intoducing another ) and gives a small performance boost. Latest DX8 drivers were a bit "detonator 4" like, big performance boost, mostly in OpenGL.

The impending doom every new "T&L" game promises to deliver on the KyroII was false every time. Max Payne runs blazing fast on the KyroII (did you see Ace´s hardware benches?). Black&White runs superb too. Aquanox leaked demo runs wonderfully at 1024x768x32, 32Mb of textures. Wolfenstein compatibility test, after a 15sec tweaking benches 132 fps at 1024x768x32 everything maxed, 6 fps less that a GF2 Ultra on a Athlon@1320 Mhz.

As a matter of fact mostly every game out there run just fine out of the box. Games that tend to be more problematic are those mixing 2d sprites (instead of a texture on 2 triangles in 3d mode ) + 3d rendering mode. That involves locking the framebuffer and a performance hit on any card, but that´s a major KyroII weakness. Grand Prix 3 is the major representant - it really performs bad on the KyroII and there´s nothing you can do about it. CollinMcRae2 also does it (but you can fix it in the registry, loosing the lens-flare effect). But pay attention that´s mostly poor coding from louzy programmers and you don´t see that often.

[Bohrn]

hey Nuno, what sort of tweaks are you talking about to achieve those huge framerates in the Wolfenstien test? Did it get really ugly and low res? Or just something simple?

[Gurm]

Yeah, do tell.

I am getting good framerates, but not lightspeed...

And...

I get ugly flickering corrupt polys when zooming in with the sniper scope.

- Gurm