Vid Card: Best Value for the Money?

[RadioStar]

Hey, I just bought CM:BO after about three years of playing the demo levels. Sadly, my Radeon 7500 won't cut the mustard anymore, as it fails to emulate fog and also has a strange problem where it randomly changes textures (Unit bases, gunfire, status boxes) to white. I've looked through the archives, and they advise me to go back about two years in drivers, and I'm not really ready to do that.

Anyway, I'm wondering what's the best vid card on the market today that can run CM without problems. Ideally, it would also support AA, AF, and fog table emulation (Apparently nixing the Radeon cards).

Economy is a plus... If I can get a card near to or below the $100 price point, I'll be a happy man.

Thanks!

[Schrullenhaft]

Which Catalyst driver are you using and what OS ? I don't know of an exact Catalyst to suggest for the problem with the 'white bases', but a different version may work better.

If you want a card that can run CM without problems, then any of the GeForces before the AGP 8X capable GeForce 4's should work with the 30.82/30.87 drivers. The problem is just about every GeForce 4 being sold in stores currently are the AGP 8X capable boards. These video cards require drivers newer than the 30.8x's and thus have problems with FSAA, 2D screen refresh ("black screens"), etc. Generally there are workarounds for these problems, but they can be annoying nevertheless.

You may be able to find some of the earlier GeForce 4 Ti 4x00 AGP 4X boards on eBay for around $100 or less. The Ti 4600 would be the nicest one to get (someone recently purchased one for US$120 shipped - but that was probably better than an average deal).

Other things to consider are your motherboard and power supply. Beefier video cards may cause havoc with certain motherboards (compatibility issues with the chipset or BIOS) and tax weaker power supplies to the point of failure or frequent lockups.

[Redwolf]

Is there a summary of problems with current video cards available? Can
you make a sticky thread out of it?


If I figure this correctly:
- ATI and Intel 852/855 GM don't give you fog
- Geforce4 AGP 8x would require you to fiddle with driver settings
(when switching between CM and other games)
- Geforce FX 5200 had some funky problem that the FX 5600 doesn't have
(what was it? EDIT: found it, color screwups)

What about this one?
Geforce4 Ti4200-8X AGP
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=323222

I assume that has the AGP 8x problems? What if my mainboard doesn't
have AGP 8x? Will the same problems apply or will aa AGP 8x card behave
the same as a AGP 4x card, NVidia driver wise?

What if you use a PCI NVidia card?

%%

I would really like to build a machine to get my current wargames
going, place in a corner of my apartment and be done with it. Which
means the full CM thing and also ATF with no video setting fiddling.
Is this at all possible?

What about these ones?
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-145-018R&depa=1
128 MB Geforce 4 TI4800:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-121-147R&depa=1
Here is a AGP 4x TI 4200:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-128-127&depa=1
A TI 4600, but will it have the AGP 8x problems?
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-133-014R&depa=1

%%

Thanks, Schrullenhaft, your support is greatly appreciated!

[ January 01, 2004, 01:09 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Redwolf]

Sorry for following up on my own, but as I understand now the AGP 8x issue is that you need newer drivers for the 8x cards - which won't work right with CM.

OK, so that opens two new questions:

1) is it really the case that a Ti4600 AGP 4x works with different drivers than a Ti4600 AGP 8x? I find that hard to believe

2) if my mainboard doesn't support AGP 8x, can I use the old drivers on a TI4600 AGP 8x?

It occurs to me that there are seperate drivers for the AGP interface and the graphics chips involved, both packaged up in one downloadable driver package. Did anybody try to seperate out these two to get old graphics chip drivers with 8x AGP drivers?

[Schrullenhaft]

The INF files for the 30.8x drivers don't recognize the AGP 8X GeForce 4 models (4200 8X/4800, 4400 8X, 4600 8X, MX440 8X, MX460 8X). An INF hack could be possible, but I'm not sure if there would be any weird compatibility problems with the drivers (as unlikely as that may seem, it still is a possibility). The AGP 8X interface itself shouldn't be an issue (whether your motherboard supports it or not - generally speaking). It's strictly just a matter of what the older driver will do with a card with the AGP 8X interface.

Regarding the motherboard's AGP interface, most of the time it should be up to the chipset drivers to properly support this interface. NVidia typically follows this route, though they may have some settings for unique and problematic northbridges. ATI on the other hand has their 'SmartGART' software that attempts to match the driver and card's settings for particular northbridge chipsets (usually ATI's safety measure for compatibility purposes). It doesn't actually 'support' the northbridge with drivers, but creates appropriate settings for the driver regarding certain northbridges.

If you want to mess around with the INF files to experiment, you could cut and paste some of the references in the INF for a low 40.xx series driver and see how well that may work. It may take a bit of time however since there are different files/settings with the 4x.xx series compared to the 30.xx series. Basically maintaining most of the settings for the closest equivalent AGP 4X model (from the 30.xx INF file) should be a starting point.

[ January 01, 2004, 02:58 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[Redwolf]

I shot me a GeForce4 Ti4400 128MB DDR on ebay. Description says AGP 4.x.

Can't wait for the new CM engine and the freedom that OpenGL brings ;)

[ January 03, 2004, 09:02 AM: Message edited by: redwolf ]