HELP! What kind of VIDEO CARD should I buy ???

[flownaway9]

HI EVERYONE! =o)
I have a problem =o(
My Score on the Benchmark 2 Wasn't good enough.
The highest I scored was 1,900 For Low resolution. I feel that my machine is good But I need a BETTER VIDEO CARD, that's where you(the reader) come in. My GeForce 2 isn't going to cut it.

WHAT KIND OF VIDEO CARD SHOULD I BUY?
WHAT WEBSITES CAN I VISIT FOR INFORMATION OR TO BUY ONE?

I need something that works with my System.
I don't want to spend more than 50 bucks.
I don't where where to shop for one, online or in stores.
And I know nothing about what the differences are between video cards.

Here are my Stats.....

Sony VAIO
2.0 Gighertz AMD Athlon Proccessor
480 MB of Ram
60 Gig Hard drive
56K Modem
Windows XP home edition

Sony HMD-A240 and NVIDIA GeForce2 Integrated GPU
On-board Memory - 32 MB
IRQ - 19
total Phisical Memory - 490,000

THANKS EVERYONE! =o) Happy playing[SIZE=3]HELP! What VIDIO CARD should I BUY???

[Rubik]

Unfortunately for $50 you aren't going to find anything that will really improve your score. The "low end" card that will really gain you anything is either the ATI Radeon 9000 for about $90 or the (less impressive) GeForce 5200FX for about $100 which myself and others have been less than thrilled with but which might be better than what you have. Anything with an 'MX' or an 'SE' in the name is probably not worth your money. These cards are just weak. Some would argue that the GeForce FX are not even worth considering but I think your options are pretty limited by price.

The breakdown is more or less like this (in order of increasing quality)

GeForce 5200FX - $100
ATI Radeon 9000 - $90 - best value for a low budget IMO.
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro - $170

If you can find either a decent GeForce 3 or 4 series (not an MX)or any Radeon 9000 series (not an SE) in your price range I would pick it up. Unless you find a smoking deal somewhere or get a good auction on eBAY, I think you are out of luck for your price range. Sorry.

Try these sites and good luck.
http://www.outpost.com
http://tigerdirect.com
http://www.computergeeks.com

[Romance]

Re: HELP! What kind of VIDEO CARD should I buy ???

Originally posted by flownaway9

I don't want to spend more than 50 bucks.

Sorry but theres no way your going to get a decent card for 50 bucks.

www.newegg.com has some of the best prices online, so you might want to start by looking there, but if you want to get the game to run smoother your going to have to spend more. BUT, I think you should wait before you go out and buy a card and see how the game runs on your pc. If its really bad then save up some more (like 150$) and invest in one.

[Fire]

Gigabyte ATI Radeon 9000 64MB SDRAM , Model GV-R9000 50$
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...ion=14-125-118

[flownaway9]

Anyone know if FX 5200 Series is good?

[Micah]

Correct me if I am wrong (I very likely am) but isn't a Sony Vaio a laptop?

[Solidsnake]

well...i have an asus geforce fx 5200...i can play the game in 512x512 as my background size...w/o any delayseven with bunch of mages are around me shooting magics like crazy(actually a little delays when magics are shooting like crazy..i think..but no biggie) ....well..if i set the background resolution 1024x1024..then i can really feel the differences..everything starts to slow down...unless i turn off the weather affect, then things would be a bit better....by the way, i got my fx5200 for $78..which is a decent price i belive...but i was expecting more from fx5200 not until i found out that fx5200 is merely a mx440 w/ the directx 9.0 support and some little enhanced functions...my advise is if you want to enjoy the game in high quality, go for the geforce 4 ti series....that is the babe will bring the game on!!

here is my pc spec.:

p4 2.4g
512 ddr ram
geforce fx 5200
120gig hd
win xp professional

[Solidsnake]

well...i have an asus geforce fx 5200...i can play the game in 512x512 as my background size...w/o any delayseven with bunch of mages are around me shooting magics like crazy(actually a little delays when magics are shooting like crazy..i think..but no biggie) ....well..if i set the background resolution 1024x1024..then i can really feel the differences..everything starts to slow down...unless i turn off the weather affect, then things would be a bit better....by the way, i got my fx5200 for $78..which is a decent price i belive...but i was expecting more from fx5200 not until i found out that fx5200 is merely a mx440 w/ the directx 9.0 support and some little enhanced functions...my advise is if you want to enjoy the game in high quality, go for the geforce 4 ti series, it is the babe that will bring the game on!!

here is my pc spec.:

p4 2.4g
512 ddr ram
geforce fx 5200
120gig hd
win xp professional