My dad wants a video card

My dad wants a new video card for one of his computers. He's not much of a gamer (aside from tetris and pinball), however he saw me playing BF1942 and asked me if his computer could handle it. I said no, he would have to get a new video card to be able to even play at 800x600.

He is running on a PIII 800 with 448MB RAM. His current video card is a crappy TNT Vanta. (It suffices for Tetris and Pinball quite well. LOL.)

Anyhow, what is the highest end card he can buy without the CPU being the limited factor? Geforce 3 Ti200 perhaps?

Thanks,

Milo

Redeon 8500 maybe?
Check what BF1942 needs I'm sure you will find a benchmark somwhere.
I think guru3d has one somewhere...

Even with a GF3 the CPU would be the limiting factor, but for cost and availability, a GF3 card would be a good choice.

I would agree with a geforce 3 or a radeon 8500 type card...both should run bf1942 fine...

Ive noticed the GF3's work a little better for slower machines than 8500's though image quality isnt as good. An MX440's would actually be the least CPU dependant and powerfull enough for 1024-32 but its only DX7 so its hard to recomend these days.

Unfortunatly on the 800Mhz P3 BF1942 wont be very playable with any more than 150-200% unit count in single player which makes it a bit boring IMO.

Unlike most games BF1942's main bottleneck(in single player) is its AI so the more you can squeeze out of that CPU the better.

I think i'd go for a GF3ti200

I play BF 1942 online quite well at my friends place. He has a P4 1.3Ghz Willamette(Equal to a P3 900Mhz I hear) and a 64mb GF2 Ti200.

I would probably get a ti4200 or 8500 for that computer. I think I'd skip on a geo3...get a 128mb ram video card.

my 8500 works fine on my system...I'm sure a ti4200 would even be a little faster on it.

Get something 1/2 way decent though...when he gets rid of that computer put the crummy old video card back in and keep the new card. A ti4200 would be ideal...doesn't really matter if the cpu runs it a little slow as he's not really a gamer anyways and won't notice. You could put a 9800 pro/5900fx in and it's still going to run faster then what he has now...

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I would probably get a ti4200 or 8500 for that computer. I think I'd skip on a geo3...get a 128mb ram video card.

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I agree. Later on it wouldn't be as obsolete.:) Both are overkill for what he needs, however.

Get him an ATI R9000 Pro 128MB. That's the best card I can think of for his computer.

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Get him an ATI R9000 Pro 128MB. That's the best card I can think of for his computer.

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That's just a rebadged 8500 with one less pipeline or something. The 8500 outperforms it and is probably cheaper.:)

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Originally posted by speedstream5621

That's just a rebadged 8500 with one less pipeline or something. The 8500 outperforms it and is probably cheaper.:)

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Yea but his CPU wont take adventage of the R8500 anyways...

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Yea but his CPU wont take adventage of the R8500 anyways...

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True, but the 8500 will be cheaper, so why spend more on less?:confused:

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Originally posted by speedstream5621

True, but the 8500 will be cheaper, so why spend more on less?:confused:

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Well I am not sure about the 128MB version...

Get a R8500 and you should be fine. Even the 64MB version would work great. I can easily play BF with my card. To save a bit more money, you may even want to consider a GF4MX440 or a R7500.

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Originally posted by irwincur
To save a bit more money, you may even want to consider a GF4MX440 or a R7500.

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and run BF 1942 like s h i t ? :D :D