Video Card/Which One

[stouthm]

We're purchasing two Dell computers for work and I have the choice of which card want. My choices: NVidia Ge Force 8300 GS/128MB $60
ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO/128MB $60
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT/256MB $150

I occasionally play Trainz 04 during down time but not very often. I will have 2 gigs of RAM. Any thoughts?

 

[bernhart_lossiemouth]

Bigger is always better! It's a rule that can be applied in many situations. Other rules that can be applied in many situations are:
1. Take a run up
2. Shut your eyes and hope for the best
3. Force and speed

The situational side of Bernie.

 

[collinsl]

Unfortunately, all of those cards are low to middle end, performance wise, so I would choose the best of the lot, the ATI HD 2600.

 

[winjmoore]

Unfortunately, all of those cards are low to middle end, performance wise, so I would choose the best of the lot, the ATI HD 2600.

ha that's probably the same for the PC. It's only a Dell afterall
They arn't building Quad cores with raid HDD's are they

 

[johnwhelan]

ha that's probably the same for the PC. It's only a Dell afterall
They arn't building Quad cores with raid HDD's are they

They do but not for the normal "commercial" office market unless you can convince someone you need a more powerful machine / card for creating Powerpoints or other graphics?

Cheerio John

 

[john259]

There are no problems getting Dell XPS models with powerful main processors and powerful video boards in the UK. I can't say for any other countries though.

For Trainz and other modern 3D programs the power of the graphics board's processor is critical, possibly even more important than the main processor. Buy the best graphics board you can afford and that your computer's power supply and ventilation can cope with.

There's an extremely useful list of ATI and nVidia graphics boards in descending order of processing power here:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Gaming-Graphic-Guide,review-30439-8.html

HTH, John

 

[johnwhelan]

There are no problems getting Dell XPS models with powerful main processors and powerful video boards in the UK. I can't say for any other countries though.

For Trainz and other modern 3D programs the power of the graphics board's processor is critical, possibly even more important than the main processor. Buy the best graphics board you can afford and that your computer's power supply and ventilation can cope with.

There's an extremely useful list of ATI and nVidia graphics boards in descending order of processing power here:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Gaming-Graphic-Guide,review-30439-8.html

HTH, John

The normal issue is that the organisation will have a "standard" configured desktop to get a different one normally needs justification. If you are preparing graphics then the normal justification is that it will save 25% of the time needed to prepare them at so many dollars per hour.

Cheerio John

 

[StorkNest]

I would suggest the nVidia.
From experience, I had an ATI Radeon 9200 and later a Stealth X1550 from Diamond. Both ran almost everthing fine.

Except for Trainz.

The 9200 worked fine in WinXP with TRS2004 but not great.
The X1550 with Vista for some reason caused problems with the model viewers, TrainzObjectExplorer and FileViewer.
I also noticed all the Trainz versions I have in the settings there is a box to check for some kind of ATI fix.
Since getting my GeForce 8500, even though not the most modern board, it runs everything like the ATI boards and Trainz programs run better plus there are no model viewer problems.
If it wasn't for whatever weird reason Trainz appears to prefer nVidia, I'd suggest ATI, but to run TRS try nVidia.

Make sure to check power requirements and DirectX version support. You don't mention whether you run Vista or XP, if Vista it would be better to find a card that supports DX10. Trainz runs on a lower version but having that could help other applications.

It also helps to check with the computer manufacturer about what boards they suggest, some may not be compatible for some reason and the manufacturer would have already checked into it. I was directed to the 8500 after talking to the manufacturer of my desktop about getting a replacement, just be ready if they try to ask you to buy one from them, I preferred getting one from the store physically, that is just how I wanted it card in hand.

 

[johnwhelan]

I would suggest the nVidia.
From experience, I had an ATI Radeon 9200 and later a Stealth X1550 from Diamond. Both ran almost everthing fine.

Except for Trainz.

The 9200 worked fine in WinXP with TRS2004 but not great.
The X1550 with Vista for some reason caused problems with the model viewers, TrainzObjectExplorer and FileViewer.
I also noticed all the Trainz versions I have in the settings there is a box to check for some kind of ATI fix.
Since getting my GeForce 8500, even though not the most modern board, it runs everything like the ATI boards and Trainz programs run better plus there are no model viewer problems.
If it wasn't for whatever weird reason Trainz appears to prefer nVidia, I'd suggest ATI, but to run TRS try nVidia.

Make sure to check power requirements and DirectX version support. You don't mention whether you run Vista or XP, if Vista it would be better to find a card that supports DX10. Trainz runs on a lower version but having that could help other applications.

It also helps to check with the computer manufacturer about what boards they suggest, some may not be compatible for some reason and the manufacturer would have already checked into it. I was directed to the 8500 after talking to the manufacturer of my desktop about getting a replacement, just be ready if they try to ask you to buy one from them, I preferred getting one from the store physically, that is just how I wanted it card in hand.

These are Dell machines so all three cards will have been checked and will have the appropriate drivers for whichever operating system is installed. I'd go for the most expensive one, in this case the ATI, my last three cards have all been ATI and I haven't had any problems running Trainz or creating content. I think there were some issues with TRS2004 in the early versions, it depended which card the content creator had used but the more recent Trainz versions such as TC run happily on both.

Might be worth checking the memory and requesting a min of 2 gigs if it isn't already on there. You have some largish spreadsheets if they would like a justification.

Cheerio John

 

[robbiehanson]

The HD2600 is easily the best.

NVidia 8300 is roughly the same performance as the HD2400, neither are very good, while the 2600 is the previous-gen middle-line ATi card. I've tested one and found it to be quite fantastic, even compared to my 1950PRO.