Need graphic card recommendation

[Zeralenn]

At the beginning of this year I bought a new computer with the express purpose of being my new gaming platform. It is a 2.4 GHZ Sony Vaio with 512 MB of RAM and an ATI Radeon Pro 9500 game card with 256 MB VRAM on board.

I also wanted to separate my business computer, a 900 MHZ Dell Dimension 4100with a GE Force4 MX 420 and 512 MB of RAM with, I think, 128 MB VRAM) from my game computer.

No such luck.

EQ has never run right on the Vaio. When I bought the configuration and looked up stuff on support, it did not yet list any of the newest ATI Radeon cards and thus did not show that the 9500 was a supported card. Now it doesn't make any particular mention of specific cards the way it used to.

However, on my Dell, the graphics are smooth, even if I zone fairly slowly. On the Vaio, the graphics are extremely jerky, like I'm back in East Commons in the pre-bazaar days. Today I decided I'd give replacing the drivers for my card a shot, only to discover that the 9500 is discontinued and the drivers "recommended" for my model won't actually install for it.

I'm replacing the graphics card and adding more memory to the Vaio but I don't know what is good to get. Money is not a primary concern though I'd prefer not to spend mondo bucks on an upgrade.

Anyone have any recommendations?

...Zera

[Fabin]

I am using a GeForce4 Ti4400/128 and it is working wonderfully. I can run five simultaineous accounts on my machine with little to no lag and can even peruse the Bazaar at full clipping plane (one account) with very little lag.

Since you already have a GeForce and know you like it, why not get another one? They are relatively cheap, especially if you look on Pricewatch.com . I have an Albatron and I love it...

Just looking on pricewatch, i see the 4400s have really dropped. You can also go for a 4800 or whatever. I don't know much about the 5x series, but the 4x is solid. MSI and PNY also make great cards. XFX, too.

Here -> Tiger Direct . That 5200 for $100? LOL. Awesome!

GL!

[Dunthor Warsmith]

My experiences with ATI are similar to yours - they produce nice cards, but their driver support is severly lacking the instant the card becomes "old". Nvidia, on the other hand, has had long lasting and reliable driver support (except for one nagging bug, heh). To me, the reliable driver support makes Nvidia preferable to ATI, regardless of who has the "better card" this month.

As for a specific card though, I haven't been watching the developments closely enough to make a recommendation.

[kiztent]

I'm pretty sure that my wife and I have 5 EQ PCs all with the next from the top GEForce card at the time of purchase installed in them. I know I don't have any video problems.

[Kupek]

Just a warning on that GeForce FX 5200, I bought one at Sam's Club last week, an Interage FX5200 with 128MB DDR/8x AGP/etc. Figured even the lowest end FX would be quite a step up from my GeForce 3 Ti200.

Boy was I in for a shock. Movement was choppy, even with clip plane all the way down and all the most basic models/settings. Can run 2 sessions on the Ti200 fairly well, but couldn't at all on the FX. Dunno if it's common for that chipset, or it was just Interage's dumbness, but I'd recommend springing for at least the next higher board if you're going GeForce

[Silound]

Zera, I'm assuming that the Sony came with Windows XP. XP and EQ I have found just dont mix. Too many little issues you have to twink and retwink to make EQ work really well. Your video card is fine, I use the same thing in my machine and I have no problem keping max video settings on at all times, even when in bazaar (although as a habit I look down always, when I look up, its no more choppy than when looking at a large crowd of hte new models). You can find hte drivers online if you look enough, I imagine Sony either provided a driver CD/disk or has said support on their site. I would suggest as a first you go in and disable as many on XP's little background stability programs you can. Those are the number one bane to EQ in XP. Next, make sure XP is set to allow program control on video rendering. I'm not sure how to change that, a friend did it to mine before i went abck to Win2k. The thing is XP tries to force the program to pass all its code through the OS to get to the video card, causing a bottleneck in rendering functionality. Win2k never seemed to make that work right (ie no problems), although it's a trait of the NT platform.

Other thoughts, turn down all your settings to lowest/off and slowly reload EQ with each setting one by one. EQ has set limits on graphics settings for certain amounts of RAM, and will not function well if you have too much enabled. You may be overloading your system because of that limitation.

If none of that helps, Get rid of XP, buy and install Win2k Pro and go from there. Much better OS, well designed, stable (after you get the service packs) and much more EQ friendly.

Silound

PS - Try a few resolutions too in game. I noticed mine runs smoother at 1024x768 than it does at 800x600 /boggle

[Zeralenn]

My issue is not XP. I run XP on both machines with no problems. EQ *ran* fine on the Sony -- extremely stable, could leave my trader up for days at a time, zoned fast -- it's just that the graphics lag was horrible. That suggests a video card problem, not a system stability issue.

In fact, I used to run Win2K on my machine and that REALLY hated Everquest, especially after one of the patches that came out around October of November of last year. I couldn't sit for more than 20 seconds (literally) without getting booted, which made it hard to med. Many of us with Win 2k had this problem. Replacing Win2k with Win XP solved almost all my problems up to this point. And my Dell, my lower level system, runs with XP and Everquest runs very well on that, despite some slower performance expected of a 900 MHz machine running a very intenstive app.

I took the machine in on Friday to have its ATI Radeon card stripped and replaced with an Asylum GeForce FX 5600 Ultra (specs at http://www.bfgtech.com/5600u_redux.html). I talked to my favorite tech (he also plays EQ) and he told me that he has heard about LOTS of graphics problems between certain ATI Radeon cards and Everquest. He also confirmed that Radeon has almost no support for discontinued boards and drivers, whereas Nvidia is great about driver support. He told me that, as an active gamer, he never buys anything BUT Nvidia cards and won't buy any ATI Radeon product.

So, we'll see. Unfortunately there were a lot of other computers in for damage done to them by the virus, so it may be another day or two before I know.

...Zera

[Monodon]

Just a sugestion, but you might try to install the vid card from your other machine into your sony (unless it's integrated on the motherboard on the other machine).

This should either prove or disprove that your vid card is at fault.

Whoops, I should have read the last post...

I hope it works out for you.

[Xenephex]

Just a warning on that GeForce FX 5200, I bought one at Sam's Club last week, an Interage FX5200 with 128MB DDR/8x AGP/etc. Figured even the lowest end FX would be quite a step up from my GeForce 3 Ti200.

The GeForce 4 TIs are an upgrade to the GeForce 3 series. The GeForce 4 FX are an upgrade to the GeForce 2, but are lesser cards (in most ways) than the GeForce 3's. That is - they are a step back from the 3's.

The 3's included some programmable shader support, which is missing in the GF 4 FX series. EQ uses some of that, and when you try to run that stuff in software emulation, it is a major dog.

i.e. NEVER buy a GeForce FX series. I really think that it is misleading (at best) for them to have introduced a line of cards that were a significant step back from some of their previous cards. I still like NVidia cards, however.

[Ngreth Thergn]

ATI makes faster (slightly) cards... but their driver support is HORRIBLE... the second they make a new card, they stop supporting drivers for older cards :/

Nvida still makes very good cards, very nearly as fast as ATI, and in a FEW cases faster... and their Driver support is awsome. Just be sure to research the cards (especially in the GeForce 4 line) as their number scheme is deceptive (though I THINK they promised not to do that with the 5 and later...)
Also... some game designers are programing to the Nvidia cards.

top of the line of BOTH are expensive... though Nvidia is slightly more (but again... driver support!!!)

Their drivers are so good they even had a benchmark company accuse them of coding it to defeat their specific benchmarking and inflate the results. It ended up that ATI was doing that, not Nvidia... Nvidia had just writen that good a driver.

[Verdandi]

This is a great thread, thanks for all the advice everyone. I'm in the market for a new card too, and having read up on it was leaning towards a GeForce 4 Ti of some flavor. I'll be more comfortable investing in a good one now.

[Sisca]

Originally posted by Xenephex
The GeForce 4 TIs are an upgrade to the GeForce 3 series. The GeForce 4 FX are an upgrade to the GeForce 2, but are lesser cards (in most ways) than the GeForce 3's. That is - they are a step back from the 3's.

The 3's included some programmable shader support, which is missing in the GF 4 FX series. EQ uses some of that, and when you try to run that stuff in software emulation, it is a major dog.

i.e. NEVER buy a GeForce FX series. I really think that it is misleading (at best) for them to have introduced a line of cards that were a significant step back from some of their previous cards. I still like NVidia cards, however.

I think you were thinking of the GF 4 MX series, there is no GF 4 FX. The new FX 5 series is a completely different card and is, generally, much better than the GF 4 (I would avoid the original FX 5800 I think it was since it has a huge cooling system and a fan that sounds like a jet engine).

For the person that was having problems with the new 5200 make sure you get the latest Detonator drivers from NVidia's site. My experience is that most of the card manufacturers drivers are out of date and slow. Also check both the card settings and your BIOS settings to make sure that 8x AGP is setup correctly. If you have DirectX 9.0 or 9.0b installed you might try upgrading to 9.1 that was just released. This fixed some serious problems for me with newer DX 9 capable 8x cards.

[Xenephex]

I think you were thinking of the GF 4 MX series, there is no GF 4 FX

DOH!! Yes, you're right. I'm sorry - relying on memory at my age is always an iffy proposition. But sometimes I forget that.

Please disregard earlier post or change FX to MX.

[Sisca]

DOH!! Yes, you're right. I'm sorry - relying on memory at my age is always an iffy proposition. But sometimes I forget that.

No problem, I blame the companies. It's hard to keep all these different X's straight

[GraemeFaelban]

The FX 5200 Ultra and 5600 Ultra should be avoided. They are both slower than the GeForce 4 ti series cards, the 5200 is only about 50% faster than the GeForce 4 MX-440. The 5600 is comparable to the GeForce 4 ti-4200 (The cheapest of the 4ti cards).

The FX 5800 Ultra comes out on top of the Radeon 9800 pro, just barely, essentially equivalent in performance. The FX 5800 is a tad slower than the Radeon 9700 pro.

The latest GeForce, the FX 5900 Ultra tests out a touch faster than the FX 5800 Ultra in most benchmarks, but, not a very big difference.