johnwhelan
Well-known member
This arrived via PM, however because there are a number of variables I thought it might be sensible to put the answer in a public area.
"thoughts on a vidio card for my system.
Sorry though, I am limited to PCI/AGP x8, not PCI-E!!
I currently have a MX-400, 128Mb and it is not only a pain in the [rear]!!, but also the fan has packed in now.
The rest of my system is "reasonable":
A-Open MS4SGI-N MB
Ram 768mB
Processor 2.8Ghz P4"
First comment is my personal cpu is a 2.4 p4 and I get reasonable Trainz performance with 2gigs of memory and a reasonably fast video card, an ATI 80 XT PE. It's not balanced video card / cpu but it works.
Second comment is the MX-400 is an nVidia product so staying within nVidia might help on the driver side but on the other hand it's a very old nVidia product so old bits of driver might be a problem.
Third comment if the motherboard is a MX4SGI-N then it can take 2 gigs of memory, CT2KIT12864Z40B or around $130 US.
Fourth comment would be the best performing AGP card would be an HIS X1950Pro 256MB 256bit GDDR3 Dual Link DVI TV HDCP AGP Graphics Card from ebuyer.co.uk for £94.99
However this card would require some sort of driver cleaning software to remove old traces of the nVidia driver.
I find it hard to locate AGP nVidia cards on ebuyer.co.uk. Two memory slot motherboard suggests price was a factor when the components were put together. Aopen isn't a tier one motherboard manufacturer either both suggest a new power supply of say Antec 500 earthwatts around $100 US, wouldn't be out of line.
In the end you end up with something that benchmarks about 50 fps on the TC benchmark.
Alternatives would be bring up nVidia in ebuyer.co.uk then search within and drop in AGP, then make a price / performance trade off based on tomshardware.com video card reviews.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/01/the_best_gaming_graphics_cards_for_the_money/page6.html
The cheapest nVidia card will probably be OK on your power supply.
Perhaps others have some thoughts.
Cheerio John
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/126851
"thoughts on a vidio card for my system.
Sorry though, I am limited to PCI/AGP x8, not PCI-E!!
I currently have a MX-400, 128Mb and it is not only a pain in the [rear]!!, but also the fan has packed in now.
The rest of my system is "reasonable":
A-Open MS4SGI-N MB
Ram 768mB
Processor 2.8Ghz P4"
First comment is my personal cpu is a 2.4 p4 and I get reasonable Trainz performance with 2gigs of memory and a reasonably fast video card, an ATI 80 XT PE. It's not balanced video card / cpu but it works.
Second comment is the MX-400 is an nVidia product so staying within nVidia might help on the driver side but on the other hand it's a very old nVidia product so old bits of driver might be a problem.
Third comment if the motherboard is a MX4SGI-N then it can take 2 gigs of memory, CT2KIT12864Z40B or around $130 US.
Fourth comment would be the best performing AGP card would be an HIS X1950Pro 256MB 256bit GDDR3 Dual Link DVI TV HDCP AGP Graphics Card from ebuyer.co.uk for £94.99
However this card would require some sort of driver cleaning software to remove old traces of the nVidia driver.
I find it hard to locate AGP nVidia cards on ebuyer.co.uk. Two memory slot motherboard suggests price was a factor when the components were put together. Aopen isn't a tier one motherboard manufacturer either both suggest a new power supply of say Antec 500 earthwatts around $100 US, wouldn't be out of line.
In the end you end up with something that benchmarks about 50 fps on the TC benchmark.
Alternatives would be bring up nVidia in ebuyer.co.uk then search within and drop in AGP, then make a price / performance trade off based on tomshardware.com video card reviews.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/01/the_best_gaming_graphics_cards_for_the_money/page6.html
The cheapest nVidia card will probably be OK on your power supply.
Perhaps others have some thoughts.
Cheerio John
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/126851
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