video card affordable replacement

[soupnatizzle]

well i was thinking that my video card was fine and all, them i got Oblivion and the game crashs when i ajust any display settings and the game itsself shows up as white. all white nothing shows up when i try to play so,

where can i find the newest driver for a raedon 9200 video card and now much would an affordable replacment be(keep in mind i use this computer manly for gaming)

[i an not a nerd]

You can get the driver update from the ATI website. For a vidcard I would reccomend a x1600 series vid card such as this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102666

[soupnatizzle]

ok well im upgrading because of the game Oblivion as i said so unless this card is ALOT better then my raedon 9200 and will increase all my gaming the i just as well would like to put the 130 bux tword a 360 so will this card drasticly increase my pcs performance when it comes to games

[hockey man]

You will see a drastic performance upgrade! The 9200's are very old technology. Before you go out and by a new graphics card though, we need to know how many Watts your PSU is and what the ratings are for the rails. That will determine how powerful of a card we can recommend. Also, what would your budget be?

[Deagle]

Along with the video card, you need to get more memory. 256MB is barely enough to run WinXP(assuming you are) let alone a demanding game like Oblivion.

[soupnatizzle]

ok ill try to answer questions hear.

as for my PSU my dad bought it before i new the diffrence between a hdd and a CPU so i dont know ill ask him tonight im guessing its on the medium side, um 400 WATTS.

I am willing to spend around 150 dollars i want the performance but not the pricetag that goes with it (a video card that i could later put in a new machine would be nice.)

and as for ram haha ya my freinds lauph at that everytime i mention it, i play all kinds of games to, CS source halflife 2 americas army CIV4 all on 256mb or ram, with ram is thre any benifite to getting 1 stick of 1GB over 2 sticks or 512??

[saphalline]

Your PSU has a sticker on the side that gives all the info we need. It says stuff like "+3.3V 30A max", etc. Just type out the whole sticker and we can help you from there.

There's no way you can get a vid card to put in a later system. You've got a Socket A/AGP system. All the newer systems use completely different sockets, CPU architectures, and PCIe slots for vid cards. Whatever you buy now will need to be replaced again when you upgrade your system's core.

For your particular system, 1 x 1GB is no different than 2 x 512MB. For dual-channel systems, it makes a difference. But not for yours.

Upgrade the RAM and the vid card and you'll get much better performance with Oblivion. However, if you'd like to go over to gaming on the XBox 360 because it's cheaper, then by all means go ahead. PC gaming is expensive and has become quite a bit of work. I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to switch over to consoles because they're cheaper and easier to use. For less than $500 USD, you can get an XBox 360 (with a hard drive) and the Oblivion game to go with it, and the performance will be out of this world compared to what you have now. Then again, you already bought the PC version of Oblivion, correct? You'd need to find someone to buy it off you first.

[soupnatizzle]

ATX 300WATT power supply :( hope thats good enouph, if its not then i will consider saving for the 360. and um it has 30A in there and 3.3v as 12v mabye 5v to cant remember no clue what that means

PS the Oblivion was my freinds game i have not bought it yet

[hockey man]

With something like that the max you could go is a 6600GT. That would spank your 9200. But that would be it for your budget. . .to do anything you need to get at least a min of 512 RAM. 1 Gig would be best.

[soupnatizzle]

ya when and if i get a new vid card ill get a stick or 1gb ddr ram. i think i will once i get a job and start making some money i will hopfully within a few weeks.

and could you give me an estamate as to how much more powerfull the 6600GT is over my current 9200 series

o and in confused NVIDIA does not make videocards? i always though like ATI they did not just the chipset. so whats a good Manufacturer to go with on this card. there all around the same price about 120-150 dollars so any preferences?

and what is the ATI equizlent to this card? just for another possiblity

thanks kevin

[soupnatizzle]

bump. sorry just dont want you to forget :)

[hockey man]

I don't remember exactly how to get the ratings for each card to compare them. . .but here is how I think I remember Saphalline doing it (Thank you for your web site Saphalline!)-

Your 9200-
250 MHz
200 MHz 128-bit DDR
4 pipelines
1 vertex shader &1 pixel shader

6600GT-
500 MHz
450 MHz 128-bit DDR
450 MHz 128-bit DDR
3 vertex shaders

9200
200 MHz GPU speed
*4 pipelines
=800.

6600Gt
500 MHz GPU speed
*8 pipelines
=4000.

That does not take into account the faster RAM speeds either. . . .

now nVidia does not make there own cards like ATI does. They just produce GPUs and sell the to video card manufacturers. ATI does that as well as produces there own cards. At this price range/performance level, I'm not sure what ATI card would be. . .the major thing though is your PSU. . .unless you want to upgrade that, you can't go much higher than 6600GT safely.

[paul_]

I learned that one. My old computer has a 300W PSU and I put an X700PRO in it. I tried to play COD2 on it, and every time the game loaded and I started the level, the graphics card sucked so much power from it that the computer rebooted. Now I have a 550W and a 7800GT...no problems at all, and ready and willing for SLI.

[saphalline]

For older DX7 games (COD, MOHAA, etc) a 6600 GT will be about 3-4 times as powerful as your 9200. For newer DX8/9 games (Oblivion, FEAR, Doom 3, HL2) a 6600 GT will be about 5-6 times as powerful as your 9200. This is because modern shader-intensive games are measured more in terms of shader performance instead of just raw polygon-pushing power, and the 6600 GT has more shaders than your 9200 (they're also faster, more efficient, and SM 3.0 capable).

No preference, really. As long as you pick out a retail-boxed vid card (some things are best bought as a retail package) marked as a 6600 GT you'll be fine. Remember, though, it must be a "6600 GT" and not a "6600" or "6600 LE" or anything else.

There is no exact match between ATI and NVidia cards, but the closest AGP equivalent to a GeForce 6600 GT would be a Radeon X800 GTO. The X800 GTO is a bit more powerful and a bit more power-hungry, but it's the closest ATI vid card in price and performance.