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Assailant · Fri Mar 29, 2002 2:56 pm

In a http://www.pcworld.com gaming board review (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/ ... ,15,00.asp), I found this comment on MSI MX400 Pro-TC64S, "In Quake III, the game looked a bit jerky and took on a yellowish cast."

Is it true? The editors there did not provide any screenshots so I have no idea how serious/bad the problem is. I almost bought a MSI GeForce2 Ti board until I read this article.

Any comments on this? Thanks!

Vrock · Fri Mar 29, 2002 5:37 pm

For the most part, a Geforce is a Geforce is a Geforce. Maybe they got a bad board.

But if you are thinking about buying a GF2Ti, do yourself a favor and buy a GF3Ti200 instead. Your wallet will thank you for it 4 months from now.

Assailant · Fri Mar 29, 2002 8:46 pm

from http://www.pricewatch.com,
MSI GeForce2 Ti 64MB, $90
MSI GeForce3 Ti200 64MB, $150

In some reviews (http://www.tomshardware.com) I've seen, GeForce 3 isn't that much fasters than a GeForce 2 without a fast CPU, say, over 1 GHz.

I am using a (please don't laugh) TNT2 Ultra 32MB, with PIII 600 cpu. I think the cheaper GeForce 2 Ti will give me a better value for this upgrade.

DiMaestro · Fri Mar 29, 2002 9:10 pm

The main reason to buy a GeForce 3 over a 2 is the feature set of the card. The 3's have a much better feature set, not much faster, but have full DX 8.0 compliance ( most in hardware ) where the Geforce 2 is missing quite a bit of the features the 3 has.

Did I make any sense? :razz:

Assailant · Sun Mar 31, 2002 3:14 pm

I see.

I guess I should buy a GeForce 3 as you guys suggested.

I am choosing MSI mainly because the game comes with it (Sacrifice) and I am using a MSI mother board and I am satified with it.

So, I still like to know more about the MSI issue. Does anyone have any more comments on it?

0oALio0 · Sun Mar 31, 2002 5:06 pm

Go for one of these:

a. Geforce 3 Ti200 - $112
b. Radeon8500 - $133

I'd go for b. You'll get considerably more performance out of it. It's at least on par with the geforce 3 ti500 and beats it in many things.

legendz3120 · Sun Mar 31, 2002 7:06 pm

Assailant
"In some reviews (http://www.tomshardware.com) I've seen, GeForce 3 isn't that much fasters than a GeForce 2 without a fast CPU, say, over 1 GHz. "

yeh, your right about that. The 'higher-end' cards (e.g. geforce 3ti -gf4)start to waver a bit on the "fps" since a 'lower-end' cpu will restrain the vid card from being able to use itz full power.

...GF4 MX??....
LOL, i'm sorry but thats just the sorriest card i've SEEN/READ about. If u dig through some 'hardware-review' sites, you'll find out that GF4 MX = GF2 MX, in a sense B/C it lacks certain features (e.g. VERTEX SHADER/ PIXEL sumptin- i4got bout dis 1 =p )
The benchmarks on the majority of those reviews will show you that even a OC'ed GF4MX
is like a impreza wrx vs. a pinto (im exaggerating a bit).

Depending on your BUDGET, I'd say get a GEFORCE 3 TI 200- $120...150$ (i personally own 1)GEFORCE 2 TI
OR the 'newer' RADEON 8500- HERCULES
[***NEW RADEON DRIVERS ARE BETTER BUT STILL CRAP OUT IN CERTAIN GAMES]

In terms of BRANDS:
[i prefer:]
pny
gainward
leadtek
asus
(sometimes) msi

DIREWOLF75 · Sun Mar 31, 2002 7:14 pm

I got a few MSI vid cards, never seen them have any bad quirks; with the exception of my tnt2-m64 needing to the replace the cooling fan twice, the next time it got noisy i took an old cpu fan(just twice the size =) ) and taped on to the cooler, no problem with that card either since(even overclocked better :smile:

).

Unless you are getting a better cpu as well(or at least soon), get a GF2 TI instead of GF3; the price diff is pretty good AND running any GF3 with a cpu slower than 800-900 mhz will give you a slower game than with a GF2.
I just got myself my new LeadTek GF2 TI; the upgrade from running games on my previously mentioned tnt2-m64 is so big that.....cant be described; meanwhile my friend has a GF3, and I can now get better FPS than him; he´s running a P3-800, I´m on a Duron 1GHZ; sure i got a way better cpu, but it´s a big difference in fps between us also.

OR! better yet, wait a while until the big rush for the GF4 cards start, that should lower the price for the GF3 enough to make them worthwhile.

Vrock · Sun Mar 31, 2002 7:34 pm

On 2002-03-31 16:06, 0oALio0 wrote:
Go for one of these:

a. Geforce 3 Ti200 - $112
b. Radeon8500 - $133

I'd go for b. You'll get considerably more performance out of it. It's at least on par with the geforce 3 ti500 and beats it in many things.

But NOT Opengl (serious sam) and NOT Unreal engine games...ATi still has some issues to sort out IMO. If you are a FPS player then I would disagree with you.

Assailant · Sun Mar 31, 2002 11:39 pm

Thank you all on your suggestions!

I'll go with a GeForce 2 Ti 64MB. the 50 something dollars difference between GF2 and GF3 Ti is not huge but still a consisderable amount for me (being a poor garduate student here). The GeForce 2 Ti should be a good enought upgrade to my current TNT 2 for now.

When I garduate and get a real job, I will build myself a new computer.

Thanks again! : ]

0oALio0 · Mon Apr 01, 2002 12:47 pm

Actually vrock i have an 8500 and ATi has very few driver bugs to work out now. They have been very good about leaking new drivers very often. I am an avid fps gamer and the 8500 works beautifully. Not only in terms of frame rate but in terms of image quality.

Vrock · Mon Apr 01, 2002 12:55 pm

Agreed ATi has made strides in improving drivers (at least from what I've heard/read, don't own an ATi card). However, in terms of raw speed, the 8500 still lags behind in some OpenGL games and UT engine games. Considering the HyperZ II technology that ATi has is superior compared to Nvidia's implemenation, AND the fact that the 8500 has faster default core/mem speeds than a Ti500, I would say that the drivers are still holding the card back from reaching its full potential.

Thus my statement that ATi has some driver work yet to do.

0oALio0 · Mon Apr 01, 2002 1:03 pm

Most GF3 vs 8500 comparisons are using drivers that are some weeks or months old. In the last 2 weeks ATI has pumped out some pretty amazing stuff. A comparison using these new drivers would be interesting.

Forge · Mon Apr 01, 2002 2:15 pm

On the GF4 Ti, in relation to the Radeon 8500:

I pull out my smoke grenades in CS and the ATi boys ph33r.

Aside from that, I've seen quite acceptable performance in all my FPSes from both the Radeon VIVO and the R8500.

IntelMole · Mon Apr 01, 2002 7:00 pm

Regarding driver updates:

But NOT Opengl (serious sam) and NOT Unreal engine games...ATi still has some issues to sort out IMO. If you are a FPS player then I would disagree with you.

I've seen a Radeon 8500 reveiw (linked to on the TR main page for the next few days). Yes, THAT in-depth review that was mentioned, and the latest driver, 6037 or whatever they were, were a major improvement in OpenGL over 6025, and DirectX got a boost as well...

Just my 0.02,
IntelMole

AENIMA · Tue Apr 02, 2002 12:21 am

Ive got an athlon tbird 1000 and when I used my radeon 8500 (for the FEW SECONDS IT ACTUALLY WORKED!!!!) i was getting 97.5 FPS in Q3. isnt that kinda A BIG DEAL FOR OPENGL????? i couldent even play with my GF2mx400 at 1600x1200x32! too bad my bios is mysteriously not working with it now... I hope the GF3ti500 comes soon in the mail.

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