[geeks] Video card recommendations <cont.>

[Andrew Weiss]

On Sunday, April 7, 2002, at 02:50 PM, Big Endian wrote:

>> So the 64 MB won't help for playing at higher resolutions?
>
> Depends on the game but you are *SERIOUSLY* CPU bound here so probably 
> not.
>
>> Right now I have a TNT 1 16MB the sound stutters and when there are a 
>> lot of guys in the room on Wolfenstein it is intensely jerky.  If you 
>> add detail it doesn't seem to change it too much until you bump the 
>> res a notch higher.  I'd like it to be slightly sluggish perhaps but a 
>> whole lot more playable (smooth sluggishness if you know what I mean).
>
> This is a CPU loading issue from the sounds of it.
>
>> The 64 is still in the right price range since the girlfriend is going 
>> to buy it.
>
> Can she buy a new mb/case/cpu/ram?
>
No not right now.

She has her machine which is a K62-3 something (350 perhaps)... , but I 
was hoping to avoid using her computer...  Sort of a case of having the 
best and most looked after machine be the family gaming center for the 
PC.

> seriously... you're *WAY* more cpu bound than card limited.  The GF2 
> will help that a little bit as it offloads some of the lighting and 
> triangle setup onto the chip but still... I've seen it make a *HUGE* 
> difference what kind of CPU you have.
>
> daniel
>
And that's the reason I thought that maybe a better graphic engine would 
be good since this machine totally outclasses any of the other Pro's 
I've seen with the exception of some of the Quad and 6 CPU boards.  With 
Windows 2000, and the Half-Life graphic update (which increased the 
complexity of everything), the graphics are butter smooth... no skips... 
no drops.  It's the Direct Ecch games that are misbehaved for the most 
part so I figured a slightly newer card would smooth that out.

Andrew