should i get this vc?

[Mafia]

i have a geforce mx 440 barely getting over 1515 on the bench mark.

it's a Geforce FX5200, 128 MB, 10.4 GB/s

is this a pretty good video card? because i have found it brand new on the internet for 65 dollars and the stats on it look better than the Ti 4200 and people say that's a decent one.

[Negesh]

well my preference at the moment is to go the ati route do to all the bad press surrounding nvidia at the moment. Anyways with that aside i wouldn't really suggest the 5200 either way as it is basically a gf4 mx with dx9 features(though don't get me wrong, it is still faster than most gf4 mx's but its just not a gamers card.). If you really wanted an upgrade i would suggest getting a radeon 9600 pro/np if you have the money or a ti 4200 if you don't. In other words stay away from the 5200 line!!!!

Also what are the other stats of your comp???

[Casval]

the stats might look better than a GeForce4 Ti4200, but I can speak from personal experience and say that it is definitely not better, and actually noticably worse

I play primarily on a computer with an Athlon XP 2500+ and GeForce4 Ti4200, frame rates are respectable at 1024*768 front and back buffer with no anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering, benchmark score is about 5600

the other computer I sometimes use has a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz and a GeForce FX 5200 128mb, it is noticably slower and less responsive than my other computer, and I'm running at 800*600 front and 1024*768 back buffer on the second computer, the power of the processor is quite similar in both cases, but the GeForce FX 5200 is much slower than a GeForce4 Ti, benchmarks at around 5000

the GeForce FX 5200 is a pretty good card, but its not suited to running FFXI in high quality modes with high framerates, it is, however, a great choice if you are on a tight budget and can't afford something better like a GeForce4 Ti or Radeon 9600 Pro, it should run fine at 800*600 front and 512*384 back buffer

also this is a good time to point out that benchmark scores are not always the best measure of how well you can play FFXI, the issue is that beyond a certain level of quality in video card, the 640*480 resolution of the benchmark becomes almost completely CPU and Memory speed dependent, and that is why there is such little difference between the benchmark scores of my two computers, while the graphics card power is actually quite different

[Negesh]

Oh i forgot to mention that if you must go with the 5200 don't go with the 128 mb version as its wasted on it. Unless the difference between the 64mb version and the 128 mb version is only like 5-10 bucks save the money and just get the the 64 mb version.

[Casval]

another note about shopping for a GeForce FX 5200, make sure you don't buy a "lite" version with only half of the normal memory bus width, the performance is very nearly cut in half if you get a "lite" version, the one you pointed out says it has 10.4 GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is the memory speed of a GeForce FX 5200 Ultra model, so it should be a safe choice considering that GeForce FX 5200 specifications only call for 6.4 GB/s of memory bandwidth

http://www.nordichardware.com/review...udget_Roundup/

this review gives some relative performance numbers so you can see the difference among some GeForce FX 5200 cards, they throw in a GeForce4 Ti for comparison

[Mafia]

http://www.nvidia.com/page/5200_games.html

[Nexus]

I have gforce mx 400 and Im fine.