5700 & 5950 Review

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/88/

9800 XT Review

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/96/

Bad thing about NVIDIA card's now i dislike, is they are like the size of hovercraft's.

Someone mentioned 5800 Ultra... they will or are a collectors item!

#45 by IPlural - 1/10/2004 1:52:12 AM though the drivers on the CD sucked

Always are, usually by the time its made theres atleast 3 - 6 new drivers out by the time the cards are shipped.

As for NVIDIA as one or two keep saying "SUCKS d00d" id only say NVIDIA are great for nForce2 but nForce3 which is still to mature which unfortunately has no SoundStorm :/

The reason 3D cards these days have so much power well the top of the range line, for people who want to run their games with 4 - 6xFSAA 8 - 16 xAF 1280x1024 and higher resoloutions, these cards are just a waste of money when people dont use FSAA & AF.

so does AGP 8x now mean we're gonna see 512mg video cards in a couple months?

So does this all mean that a good graphics card is needed while gaming. It would not really impact the visual experience of stardock products?

yes, deesh. any card that gives you 16k to 32k colors and at least 1024x768 resolution will show you the majority of the graphics on here in their correct form, 1024x768 res is becomming a standard. all new computers that i can think of, say from Dell or HP, come with video cards that are at that new standard. even if you build a computer yourself, most motherboards out there come with built-in video cards that are at that standard.

if i'm wrong on any of those points, someone please feel free to point them out.

Screen Resolutions

640x480
800x600
1280x1024
1600x1200

Why the jump to 1280x1024 instead of 1280x960? I know that 1280x960 is readily available, but seems like most everyone uses 1280x1024 which slightly stretches images horizontally.

when your video is rendering graphics is where you start to see the limits of a card. Games render graphics, and programs used to BUILD the graphics you view on here use rendering. as a general rule, the more video memory your card has the more rendering it can handle. things like desktop x, i believe, and object dock definitly, will render graphics and require a bit more processing power by your card. most 'packaged' cards top out at 32megs of video memory. this is fine for anything on this site, and is good for some games. but if your object dock seems to drag or is real choppy, this is your video card hitting its max (or your refresh is too low but that's another story). more rendering power would make it run smoother.

I am running object dock on a 4 mb onboard video card. never had any problems for months.

64mb of shared RAM for video here (256 total)... really drags the system down if you're running more than one memory intensive prog.(i.e. Photoshop and Word) And playing Age of Mythology while running other progams? Not gonna happen.

shared video baaaad.

Kona i'm really impressed with that 4mg video.. 4mgs is like, the origional voodoo 3dfx overlay card.. a good 8 years old

Essencay, 1280x1024 is in the same proportion as 1024x768.. if its stretching for you, your refresh is off or your screen is misaligned. i can only go from 1024x768 to 1280x1024 on this machine (nvidia..) but when i get home i'll back myself up.

Kona i'm really impressed with that 4mg video.. 4mgs is like, the origional voodoo 3dfx overlay card.. a good 8 years old

yeah get this. I can play DVD's on it and Red Alert 2 as well with no drop in performance. Must be the Pentium 3 processor doing alot of work. It is a Intel 810 onbaord Video card and it can go as high as 1024x768 but stuff that small hurts my eyes trying to read so I keep it at 800x600
[Message Edited]

1280x960 is 125%x125% larger than 1024x768
1280x1024 is 125%x133% larger than 1024x768
1600x1200 is 125%x125% larger than 1280x960

My screen looks fine at 1280x1024, I was just wondering why all other jumps in resolution are the same horizontally and vertically except moving to 1280x1024

you know, even when I go out and buy a top end video card and install it in my Dell, I will still use 800 x 600.

essencay is right that 1280x1024 isn't the proportions as 1024x768. But 1280x1024 is more common so more people use it. I don't know why. My laptop only supports 1024x768 or 800x600 so I don't care.

and kona why on earth would you use 800x600. at least use 1024x768. there is a big difference in the quality of the images on your screen. If you look closely you can still see the pixels with 1024x768 but not nearly as much as with 800x600. The higher the resolution the better the image quality. The only problem is that sometimes the words get to small as you increase your resolution

because I have TROUBLE reading anything at higher res because 1024x768 shinks all the stuff down. I like 800x600. So do my games and DVD player.

Just wondering 'cause I bought a 19" monitor last week. Initially I set it up for 1280x960, but then noticed that the manufacturer recommended 1280x1024 and most wallpaper is 1280x1024 not 1280x960. Next step will be a new video card and sound card with tax return monies

mmm, pleanty of descriptions of the standards on the net that will answer any questions you might come up with

Next step will be a new video card and sound card with tax return monies

other than a bike I have no clue what to spend my Tax Monies on as here in Oregon you get 2 refunds. One federal and one state.

kona i couldn't do it.. i need desktop room so anything below 1024, i beat my head on the desk. i've invested in larger monitors over the last couple years, though.. my job sorta requires it.. on a 19 in monitor, 1280x1024 looks like 800x600 on a 15in monitor.. with a WHOLE lot more room

all these flat panels comming out now is driving down the cost of nice biggie crt's. i think you'd be happy moving to a larger monitor.

I only have a 14" monitor. i guess if I went bigger I would switch to the higher res as long as I could read it.

1280x1024 is 125%x133% larger than 1024x768

oo i see what you're saying.

Oregon you get 2 refunds

New Hampshire....No State Taxes

I'm definitely gonna get an ATi card, not sure which one yet, but I'm not spending more than about $150-$180 for it. I don't play 1st Person Shooters, but I do like to play racing games and they require a high FPS to look good with more than a few cars on the track and if there is a big pile up ahead, it's kinda hard to avoid it when the frames dropout

New Hampshire....No State Taxes

Oregon: no sales tax

esseceny's math skills prompted me to check something i otherwise never would have thought about, when i got home, on my trinny display. i dropped it into 1280x960, and my display fit the screen perfectly, and more crisply. adversely, on my VDS at work, also a 19", 1280x1024 fits cperfectly. just goes to show the slight variations between monitors. this one is a little wider and i never thought to recalibrate it for the other resolution, because it is in fact slightly smaller and 1024 is more common. but having the display this tad bit wide makes a big difference to me.