video card upgrade?

Last night on ZDTV's Screen Savers program, they talked about PC upgrades and said that it makes sense to upgrade older 2D video cards now to a 3D card. They said even an inexpensive card like the TNT ($89??) would be a noticeable improvement. I currently have an ATI Winturbo (Mach64) PCI video card with 2MB VRAM. I also have a Monster 3D graphics accelerator. The PC has no AGP or USB capability at present. We have a family PC, a Gateway2000 Pentium 233 MMX, 64MB RAM, and a 17" monitor. It's used as a general purpose machine; my son uses it for *** and school work (in that order!); the wife surfs the Net and uses MS Office; my daughter uses it for school work and occasional games; and I use it for all kinds of things (MS Office, Visual Basic programming, Internet and e-mail, Linux, and racing simulation games). The performance now seems very good - in Viper Racing for instance I'm getting about 25 fps frame rate at full detail, and I get 25-30 fps in MS CART Precision Racing at full detail. The question is, should I bother to replace my ATI with a newer card? Should I keep the Monster 3D, or get an all-in-one 2D/3D card? The only reason I'd want to upgrade is if I'd get a noticeable frame rate increase in the 3D games, and keep the Linux compatibility. <remove 7of9 for e-mail replies> -- Bill Jones e-mail addresses: (860) 437-5650 WWW: http://pages.cthome.net/billj

>Last night on ZDTV's Screen Savers program, they talked about PC upgrades >and said that it makes sense to upgrade older 2D video cards now to a 3D >card. They said even an inexpensive card like the TNT ($89??) would be a >noticeable improvement. Hi Bill, For about the same price you could upgrade your CPU, and probably get as good or better improvement overall in your system. Really, try buying a nice boxed Celeron 300A and OC it to 450Mhz... if your system is up to the FSB 100 speed, you'll be flying much faster, video cards are nice, and they will help, however you're CPU is now probably as much behind the pack as your video card, and the cost to upgrade is comparable... check out some overclocking newsgroup discussions and celeron discussions... then think about where to put your cash. Regards

As I understand it - you wont see much improvement with the newer 3d cards (voodoo2 etc) over a voodoo1, with a P233. The newer cards need a PII300 and over to get the most out of them. Perhaps you could try overclocking your P233 a bit - http://www.tomshardware.com/overclock.html

Good luck getting the Celeron to run in a socket 7 MB. Let me know how it turns out. Maybe if you twist the SEC into a tight square ... naw. I actually believe you can get alot of good out of a newer 2d/3d card. A modest increase in framerate and a noticable improvement in 3d visual quality. G200 comes in a 8 meg PCI for around $100 dollars. Voodoo Banshee comes with 16 megs in PCI for slightly less. I haven't personally seen a TNT for as low as 89 but it may happen soon. JP On Wed, 3 Feb 1999 21:49:15 -0500, "Gary"

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>>Last night on ZDTV's Screen Savers program, they talked about PC upgrades >>and said that it makes sense to upgrade older 2D video cards now to a 3D >>card. They said even an inexpensive card like the TNT ($89??) would be a >>noticeable improvement. >Hi Bill, >For about the same price you could upgrade your CPU, and probably get as >good or better improvement overall in your system. Really, try buying a nice >boxed Celeron 300A and OC it to 450Mhz... if your system is up to the FSB >100 speed, you'll be flying much faster, video cards are nice, and they will >help, however you're CPU is now probably as much behind the pack as your >video card, and the cost to upgrade is comparable... check out some >overclocking newsgroup discussions and celeron discussions... then think >about where to put your cash. >Regards

I just got a Celeron 300A, Abit BH6, and new ATX case. It is overclocked and running well so far at 450 mhz. I am very pleased with the results, GPL is a whole new game for me, I had a 233 mmx before. Wife and kids have it now <g>. -- Don Burnette Palmetto Racing Dburn on Ten >Hi Bill, >For about the same price you could upgrade your CPU, and probably get as >good or better improvement overall in your system. Really, try buying a nice >boxed Celeron 300A and OC it to 450Mhz... if your system is up to the FSB >100 speed, you'll be flying much faster, video cards are nice, and they will >help, however you're CPU is now probably as much behind the pack as your >video card, and the cost to upgrade is comparable... check out some >overclocking newsgroup discussions and celeron discussions... then think >about where to put your cash.

That's sort of what happens when you get hardware shipped to you for free. You end up having no clue how much hardware actually costs. I think there is a TNT driver in the latest XF86 version, so you shouldn't have any problem in that area, but you will encounter problems with something like a Banshee. Not all new boards have Linux support yet. Considering that your system is a no AGP system, stay with what you've got. You might get a bit more performance out of a PCI TNT, *BUT* you'll find that you may be disappointed later if you upgrade to an AGP system as the PCI card might be a bottleneck. Given that you're relatively satisfied with your current setup, and The ATI card is an adequate 2D performer, and the Voodoo1 is also adequate, I'd suggest staying put for now. Upgrade to a faster AGP card like TNT (or something newer later) when you upgrade or replace your system. Thanks MCheu Reply to either (not both please) address, but remove nespamezpas_ first.

Has anyone tried to OC the new Socket 370 Celeron 300? I've been enquiring about prices and have found the old Slot Celeron is no longer available from the main suppliers in the UK (Simply/DABS etc). Abit are doing a BM6 mobo (more expensive but with more features than the old ones) but I don't know whether Intel have locked the new Celerons. Follow ups set to r.a.s Thanks -- Mike Buckley Cotswold Pig Development Co Ltd Tel: 44 (0)1472 371591 Fax: 44 (0)1472 371208 WWW: www.toastyhamster.freeserve.co.uk