Eenie meenie miney moe, so many choices I just don't know!
May 31 '00 (Updated Jul 10 '00)
Choosing a graphics card can be a real head spinning plight for people unfamiliar with them. They can range from $50 to over $300 in price and some professional cards even higher than that. This is not a technical comparison between cards but rather a guide for what to look for and consider when thinking of buying one.
The main thing to look for is performance vs. price. You also want to take into consideration what capabilities you want and compare those cards that fit your needs. If you are looking for a card just to play games on your computer you can get a relatively low cost graphics accelerator and many times you can find a card with the same specifications as the popular brand for a much lower price.
For example, I was looking for a good card for my brother's computer so we could play games together. I was comparing the Diamond Viper V770 with the I/Omagic TNT2 M64. Both cards have the same frame rates and memory. Both cards use the same graphics processor, the NVidia TNT2 chipset. After careful consideration I chose the I/Omagic and can tell no difference in performance from my Viper V770 in my old computer.
Another thing to consider is, do you want cutting edge technology or do you really need it. If you are a hard core gamer like me, you'll want the best graphics card you can get for your money. The best does not necessarily mean the most expensive. You can get an AGP video card accelerator with 8MB of memory to play most games and display 3D graphics for about $50.00 but the latest games and graphics programs are designed to take advantage of the higher quality cards out there. The high end cards can cost close to $400.00 but are superb in frame rates and texture and lighting effects. These cards are designed not only for the latest games but for games to be released in the near future.
You also need to know if you want to use the card for video capture or DVD as well as acceleration. In this case you may want to look at higher end cards that support either software DVD decoding or hardware. If you computer is under 400MHz you may opt for hardware DVD decoding because software can tax the system and may cause glitches in DVD playback as well as other system related glitches. You can buy a decoder card separately, they don't cost very much but if you're limited in slots you may want a video card that combines these features. TV out is another option you might consider with this type of card. Many gamers like to play on a big screen television and this is a nice feature for DVD playback as well, especially if you have a really small monitor.
Another thing to think of is the games you will be playing. If you don't play 3D games like Quake, Shogo, Need for Speed but you do play RTS games and other non-accelerated games like Age of Empires, Starcraft and Diablo you may want to get a low end card for cost effectiveness. Most Real time strategy games do not require acceleration and can be run on any card capable of 16-bit color.
You also want to check your computer for compatibility with the new graphics cards before you buy the 'top-of-the-line' AGP card. If your computer is more than 2 years old you may not have AGP capability. In this case you can still get an accelerator but you will have to use a PCI video accelerator card. PCI video cards are slowly fading out but you can still find them in most computer stores and online.
I hope this review helps you in deciding which card is right for you and your computer. If you have any questions feel free to email me for detail on specific cards and anything I may have left out here. My email address is on my members profile page.
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