Advice on new budget graphics card

[Ovi]

Hi everyone!
I finally managed to set enough money aside to enable me to upgrade my graphics card- I have a G200 (8 MB) currently, but the latest games are now barely playable on it. I’m on a very tight budget, but I don’t want to move away from Matrox. I’ll try to get a G400 (if it’s still available) or a G450. I guess the G550 would be too expensive. However, if I can’t get any of these, then I would have to look at the TNT2 M64 (Nooooooooo…) which is extremely cheap here. Now the question is, if I am pushed against the wall, should I get this TNT2 M64? My monitor is a 15” one, so I’ll be playing games at 800x600 @ 32bpp with as much eye candy enabled as possible. So would this TNT2 suffice? Also, at this resolution, would its lower image quality be apparent? Please advise, although I really hope that such a situation doesn’t arise, and I get a Matrox card!
And lastly, are all of these cards compatible with AGP rev1 slots (The old 2x ones) as found on i440zx based mobos?
Thanks
Cheers
Ovi

System:
P-III 450MHz, Acorp i440zx mobo, 192 MB PC100 SDRAM, 4.3 GB Samsung HDD (ATA33), Matrox Millennium G200 (8MB), Creative Vibra 128 etc………..

[Taz]

Another option is a Kyro II card like the Hercules Prophet 4500 as they've come down a lot in price.

[Ovi]

Hi Taz
The problem is that here in India, the range of brands is limited- its basically Nvidia, Matrox, Ati and some cheap brands like SiS!! For example, no dealer here even knew that Philips made soundcards!!!! But I'll check to see if the Kyro 2 based cards are available.
Cheers
Ovi

[KeiFront]

Don't get a TNT2M64 pure crap but I guess you knew that already, try to get a second hand G400MAX on a online auction (probably there are also some online auctions in India).

[Tempest]

I too think that the G400 would be your best bet. And if you want to be able to play games, don't fall for any "Vanta" or "M64" models of the TNT:s. Don't get a G450 either, it's a good card but doesn't offer as much as the G400 in ways of game performance. If there's much nVidia cards around you could of course always try to find a used Geforce 1 that is not overclocked to pieces. Cards to avoid are ATI Rage Fury MAXX (no driver support) and the Voodoos (no support, but people tell me that the situation is not as awful as it could be).
I don't think the image quality will matter too much if you intend to run a 15" monitor.

Edit: Removed the Kyro II, didn't know it was such a CPU hog

[Ali]

I wouldnt worry too much about your 440zx chipset. Its identical to the 440BX, just missing ECC support, and max ram is a little lower I think.

With a 450Mhz processor, a Kyro might not be the best option. I dont have one, but I hear they need lots of CPU power to run well. Not 100% sure what kind of power they do need though.

The G400 (or MAX) would be your best bet, failing that a TNT2 (Not a m64 or vantra) would do, and would probably be cheaper.

If they are over there, a Radeon 1 LE would be a good choice. I bought one about 8 months ago for US$70 and its still going strong. About twice the speed of my G400, and at 1024*768 or below you wont notice any difference in quality with your G200.

Ali

[TdB]

With a 450Mhz processor, a Kyro might not be the best option. I dont have one, but I hear they need lots of CPU power to run well. Not 100% sure what kind of power they do need though.

your absolutely right, don´t buy a kyro2 with a cpu like that, a g400 will be way faster, on a p3800 a g400max is nearly as fast as a kyro2 in low resolutions(talking about low peaks in framerates)
even with fsaa enabled you cpu will be a bottleneck.
the kyro2 uses the cpu more than most other cards, on slow cpus it might be slower than what you already have, however you will probably be able to use fsaa, without ANY perfomance hit(i think).

if i were you, i would upgrade the cpu instead, newer games will be close to unplayable, no matter what graphic card you have.

if you really must buy a graphic card, then buy a cheap gf2mx(even a mx200, will help), because of the T&L.

and don´t flame me for suggesting a card that sux at 2d, on a 15" monitor you wont notice it.

BTW i don´t think a tnt2m64/vanta is that much faster than a g200 in 3d, nvidia have crippled the bandwith(and crippled it big time) on those cards.

if you can get a g400max for cheap, then buy it, it is after all matrox quality. i had a p2400 with a g200 8mb, which i upgraded to a g400max and i got quite a framerate boost in all resolutions, if you only play older games then this is THE card to get, it beats the tnt2 cards(even the ultra i think) in everything.

[Ovi]

Thanks for the advice guys!
Okay, I checked out the availability of G400's here, but they are not available anymore. Though I haven't got the price for the G450 (that's the only Matrox card that seems to be available), all the dealers have said that it is quite expensive! I'll keep checking!
Okay, so its no TNT2M64 for me, though I'll see (as a last resort) if I can get the TNT2 (the usual one) for a low price. But before that, I'll check out the Radeon1 LE (though I guess that it would be expensive). The GF2 MX is expensive too, around $140 !!
Now by this you can probably guess that even old hardware here is quite expensive!!!! But I have to get something faster that my G200, and something which has more video memory!!
Thanks for sparing your time!!
Cheers
Ovi

[Gurm]

How much is shipping from the USA to India? I sent a reasonable sized package AirMail to Australia 6 months ago and it was pretty cheap... I'd gladly sell/send you my Kyro2 (Hercules, 64MB, TV-Out) for shipping + a good price (cheap cheap).

Mail me if you're interested.

gurm42@hotmail.com

- Gurm

[Dilitante1]

he said cheap guys

throw a VooDoo2 card and have the best of both worlds.......<$40 if you look around enough

-pickle

[Maggi]

according to recent new letters, Matrox started the sell out for their old G400 cards ... have a peek into their online shop.

[az]

I still have a VooDoo 2 lying around here which I would sell for very little money if need be. No better card for playing Diablo 2 btw

AZ

[Ovi]

Hi!
Gurm: Thanks for the excellent offer but there's a big problem- a heavy duty is levied on electronic items, even if they come thru mail! And I don't know about the shiping cost exactly , but I roughly know its around $30!! Boo hoo, there goes a good offer
Maggi: I checked Matrox's online shop, and I was shocked! They are selling refurbished G400's for $90+!! (Add to that shipping and handling!!) But I just noticed that they are out of stock!
Btw, I did some more market research today, and I'm very disappointed. No one seems to be stocking any Matrox model! Every dealer has the same thing- nVidia based cards! Even ATI is not available, in fact not even one dealer could give me the approx price for a Radeon (they didn't have it in stock at the moment, was all I got from them!). And when I said "Kyro", I got a "Huh? What's that?"!! So a TNT2 seems to be the only option left,(around $45) but I'll try to check out a cheaper GeForce Man! The market here is really immature( and damn expensive!)
Thanks for all your suggestions, I'll get a new card tomorrow, let's see..................
Cheers
Ovi

[Ovi]

Update:
I finally got a new video card- its an Asus V3800 TNT2 Pro with 32 MB video RAM, for $60. Everyone here seemed to have only TNT2 M64 or Vanta based cards, but thankfully I found this! I only knew about three variants of TNT2- the regular one, M64 and Vanta; but this is another variant - Pro (in true nVidia style!) Its somewhere between a regular TNT2 and a TNT2 Ultra. I think my luck stretched only to the point that I could get an Asus!! No one had a Matrox and the Radeons were $100+!! But still, due to my low resolution, I don't have to suffer the poor image quality!
And 3D speed is good too!
Well, even though I'm not a proud owner of a G200 anymore, I still would remain a MURCer, always!!
Cheers
Ovi

[Tempest]

Nice to hear that you got something better than a M64
Asus was one of the better manufacturers of TNT2 cards. I'm sure that card will overclock to Ultra levels... But you're probably happy with it at the moment just the way it is, after all, the 3D speed is a lot better than the G200's.