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Guest WorkingStiff

Pondering new video card

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Guest Max Cowgill

Just wanted to make a minor correction to your above statements Paul. The latest drivers from ATI are some of the most stable, highest performing ones yet and very few people on the Rage3d discussion forums are having problems with them (referring to the 605x's and up). The very latest 6071's (XP/2k) and the Omega and Plutonium modified drivers are extremely stable and very fast. Also, as far as the 8500LE's overclocking ability goes, many people are successfully overclocking from 250/250 to 300/300 (and up) levels with the stock cooling.Max Cowgill

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I am currently running on a Radeon 7500 64mb and having no problems at all with FS2002. I run with almost all the sliders maxed and can hold 20 fps even close to the ground near a cluttered airport. But then I have a 1.6 ghz processer with 400 mhz fsb. I think too much emphasis is placed on video board performance for FS2002. I've found the sim to be almost totally CPU bound. I used to run a Celeron 650 and I tried 3 or 4 different video boards (ATI and nVidia). None made any perceptable difference in frame rates. It was the new mobo, processor and ram that transformed FS2002 from the flghtsim from hell into the virtual pilots dream, and with the same video board.Mike Stone

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Guest WorkingStiff

Max,If you had a shelf tag from another BB store why didn't you just go ahead and get the 8500 from the store where you got the shelf tag?Having visited Best Buy last night and calling around the northern IL/Southeast WI area, I can confirm that Best Buy is indeed quoting a price of $299 with a mail-in discount of $50.BTW, what is the essential difference between a VisionTek GeForce3 Ti 200 AGP card and a PNY GeForce 3 AGP card. I compared these cards last night and the regular GF3 appeared faster and with a larger memory bandwidth. Now I'm confused. :-)

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Guest Max Cowgill

>Max, >>If you had a shelf tag from another BB store why didn't you >just go ahead and get the 8500 from the store where you got >the shelf tag? >>Having visited Best Buy last night and calling around the >northern IL/Southeast WI area, I can confirm that Best Buy >is indeed quoting a price of $299 with a mail-in discount of >$50. >>BTW, what is the essential difference between a VisionTek >GeForce3 Ti 200 AGP card and a PNY GeForce 3 AGP card. I >compared these cards last night and the regular GF3 appeared >faster and with a larger memory bandwidth. Now I'm >confused. :-) I had a shelf tag from another store that I never went to ;) I happened to get it off the internet, but I verified the price when I was at BB and saw the $76.50 price listed at another store in the district on their inventory screen when they were checking my story out. BTW, the reason you're getting a price quote of $299 w/$50 M.I.R. is because you're not specifiying the 64MB version of the card. They're giving you the price of the newer 128MB card. As I've already explained, they're clearing out the older 64MB 8500's to make room for the newer 128MB cards, thus the huge price difference. As for your question about GF3s, yes, the GF3 is indeed faster than the GF3 Ti 200, since it's got higher core/memory speeds than the Ti 200 (200/460 vs. 175/400)Max Cowgill

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Guest WorkingStiff

Thanks Max.Now could you tell me why the GF3 Ti is better than the GF3?

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Guest Max Cowgill

You're welcome. The GF3 Ti series is not inherently better than the original GF3, it's just a nomenclature the marketing department at Nvidia came up with to sell more video cards (by confusing the average customer). The Ti 200 is slower than the original GF3, and the Ti 500 is faster. The only difference between the original GF3 and the Ti series is the core and memory clock speeds. Recently, manufacturers have been producing 128MB GF3 Ti's, so a larger frame buffer and faster core/memory clock speeds (in the case of the GF3 Ti 500 anyway) are the only things that make a GF3 Ti 500 better than a GF3. Max Cowgill

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Guest WorkingStiff

Thanks again Max.The reason I was asking was that I saw a VisionTek GF3 Ti 64 MB for about $105 (open box) and a PNY GF3 64 MB for approximately the same price (open box also) at Best Buy last night. I was tempted but I figured I'd elicit some more opinions before spending cash.

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Guest Max Cowgill

You're welcome again :) That's not a bad price on the GF3 Ti 200, and if the GF3 is within at least $25 of that price, I'd say go for the original GF3. The GF3 is clocked 15% higher on both the core and memory than the GF3 Ti 200, so you can assume about 15% performance difference between the two cards in most 3d-apps (NOT FS2k2).Max Cowgill

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Guest WorkingStiff

Max, thanks for taking the time to offer your insight and opinion. From simply browsing this forum I noticed many folks raving about the GF3 Ti so I thought there must be some overwhelming reason. Then as I compared specs in the store last night I was very surprised to observe that the GF3 is actually faster and has larger bandwidth capacity.Maybe I'll just forget both and get the ATI Radeon 8500 instead. :-)

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Guest Max Cowgill

>Max, thanks for taking the time to offer your insight and >opinion. >>From simply browsing this forum I noticed many folks raving >about the GF3 Ti so I thought there must be some >overwhelming reason. Then as I compared specs in the store >last night I was very surprised to observe that the GF3 is >actually faster and has larger bandwidth capacity. >>Maybe I'll just forget both and get the ATI Radeon 8500 >instead. :-) Amazing what you can learn by reading the product info and not just going by the name on the box, eh? ;) The Radeon 8500 is another good card, and performs somewhere inbetween a GF3 and a GF3 Ti 500, with what most would consider to be "better" image quality as well. Check out the Rage3d (www.rage3d.com) Radeon 8500 discussion forums if you want to learn more about the 8500.Max Cowgill

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Guest WorkingStiff

Max, I'm back to bug you again since I'm at my wits' end.I bit the bullet and picked up a PNY GeForce 3 64 MB AGP card at Best Buy earlier today. I've spend the last few hours trying to install the card but despite my best efforts I cant get the installation to work. I'm turning to this forum in utter frustration now....The installation steps reads as follows:1. Remove old VGA??? drivers2. Turn off computer and install new video card3. Turn on computer and allow Windows Hardware Wizard to reinstall VGA drivers and recognize new video card4. Install video card drivers.Of course I'm running Windows XP so I am unable to remove the default VGA drivers and allow Windows to rebuild them.The Windows XP Hardware wizard is recognizing the new card but for some reason the driver installation is terminating in an error. I get the following screen. Do you know what the problem might be? Unfortunately the PNY website offers no insights.http://ftp.avsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3cd072343eb4422c.jpg

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