Help/Advice video card

 

Hi All
I am looking to install Hells Highway on my PC when it comes out  ( I have
Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood)but have been told that my NVIDIA
GEFORCE 5700 AGP graphics card is not man enough for the job.

I have an Asus P4c800 E deluxe board with 2g of ram 3 g pentium 4.
I am using all the onboard  stuff (sound, network, firewire etc) so none of
the other slots are being used.
Can any one advise me on what graphics card to fit on the board to be able
to play the game?
 As I am out of touch on the hardware side of things.
thanks
Peter(in UK)

 

On Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:16:21 +0100, "catman"


Their spec list (
http://brothersinarmsgame.us.ubi.com/news/detail.php?newsItemId=8369
)

shows 128MB, DirectX 9 or 10, that it ships with support for
ATI RADEON X1600/1650, 1950/HD, 2000/3000 series
NVIDIA GeForce 6800/7/8/9 series

As always, what you buy can depend on the budget.  In this
case it's also limited by what is available with AGP
interface.    Although you're in the UK, I link a US website
whose search filtering provided a list of cards roughly
meeting or exceeding the requirements to show a few models
for example.  If you run the game at higher resolutions
(because of the native resolution of an LCD monitor for
example) it will require a faster card to retain acceptible
framerates.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=48&Description=&Type=&N=2010380048&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=696%3A9639&PropertyCodeValue=683%3A27613&PropertyCodeValue=683%3A40784&PropertyCodeValue=683%3A37187&PropertyCodeValue=683%3A20729&PropertyCodeValue=683%3A10557&PropertyCodeValue=683%3A14597&PropertyCodeValue=683%3A9611&PropertyCodeValue=683%3A24927&PropertyCodeValue=685%3A24926&PropertyCodeValue=685%3A9618&PropertyCodeValue=685%3A20521&PropertyCodeValue=685%3A9619&PropertyCodeValue=685%3A40783&PropertyCodeValue=685%3A37188&PropertyCodeValue=684%3A9613&PropertyCodeValue=684%3A23256&PropertyCodeValue=684%3A9614&PropertyCodeValue=684%3A40865&PropertyCodeValue=686%3A25271&PropertyCodeValue=686%3A9623&PropertyCodeValue=686%3A42010

An ATI 3850 would be the best longer term value, but of
course it costs more too... but the price has dropped to a
very reasonable level for the performance it offers from an
AGP slot.

 

wrote:


Some people would opt to replace the motherboard, processor
and memory before paying much for an AGP video card since it
wouldn't be reusable the next time the system is upgraded.
I expect your present system will play the game given a
decent video card but only you know when the other parts
might be upgraded, whether the right time for that is now
(and getting a PCI express video card instead) or later.

 



Thanks for the reply
I think I will opt for a PCI card and put my currrent AGP card into an older
computer that I use.
I will look around and check up on prices.

thanks Peter

 

catman wrote:


Do you mean PCI Express x16 (the current standard for video cards), or
the old PCI 32bit 33MHz standard ? They do still make the old PCI cards,
and the bandwidth is not that great. Make sure the card you're getting,
is a match for your spare slot, whatever it is.

PCI             -  133MB/sec
AGP 4X          - 1066MB/sec
AGP 8X          - 2132MB/sec
PCI Express x16 - 4000MB/sec (and bidirectional as well)

Some activities don't really require that much bandwidth, so in
fact, while that table looks pretty intimidating, the effect
of the bandwidth limitation, isn't that severe. But when you
spend good money for a video card, you generally don't want
to be robbed of the performance, by a crappy bus connection.

Generations of video cards, overlap. All the video cards made
in 2008, are not faster than all the video cards made in 2007.
In fact, some might be so bad, as to be in the same league as
a TI4200 or ATI 9800Pro. So, just because a video card you
saw, has a "higher" model number, doesn't mean in fact it is
a better card. You need either some benchmarks (if you can find
good ones), or to look at the raw vital statistics.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=165&card2=550

The best deal in the right hand column, is an HD3850 AGP for $130 USD.
(Because nobody is going to waste their time applying for a $10
rebate :-) You'd waste that much in gas, driving to the bank to
cash the cheque.)

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131090

    Paul