Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests suggestions for new video card?

Hi, I would like to get a new video card for my pc. Currently I'm using an nvidia geforce 4 mx400 "I think". I can play most of my games fine but it's a disaster when playing GTA 3. My comp is a dell dimension 8100 p4 1300 mhz with 128 mb ddr ram. I know I should upgrade my memory too but I would like to do the graphics card first. What do you guys/gals suggest? I would say my budget is around 100.00. Thanks for any advice. Vinny

I have a VooDoo 3 that I'd be willing to part with...for a small fee, of course.

You graphics card really isn't that bad. Few games should be taxing it too terribly hard, including GTA3.

You would almost assuredly notice a far larger gain in your gaming experience by getting a stick of 256DDR than by upgrading your card, and for far less money at that.

There isn't a game that comes out, and that includes the tiny ones that no one hears about, that I do not own. And I can play every one of them at 1024x768 resolution, max details, on my GeForce2 GTS. That includes GTA3 which, coincidentally enough I just picked up again to try to get 100% completeness this time around.

But, if you really want to get a new video card, wait about 6 weeks and buy a Radeon 9700 if you have the money, or 9500 if you don't have $200 to blow. ATI is coming out with 2 new cards shortly, which will drive down the price of the 9700 and 9500 about $50-$100 less than they are now.

The only problem with that would be that ATI doesn't play GTA3 very well. I guess because it's a port optimized for hte PS2 which I believe uses a nVidia based chip.

You could wait until the new nVidia chip comes out and then pick up a 4600 for probably in the neighborhood of $200 or so wholesale.

I'd still recommend more RAM though. That will help out your experience in GTA3 a lot, as the problem is that you can't cache enough of the city in memory to play it well enough. It's a huge system memory hog. much more so than video memory. My old GeForce2 can run it so well because I run it with 512MB of RAM.

Whoops, I just caught your mention of price.

With just $100 to spend I'd definently recommend RAM.

$100 won't even come close to buying you a video card that would come close to providing a significant impact on your gaming experience.

$200 would buy you an alright card, like a GF4 4600 or ATI 9500, but anything less would hardly even replace what you already have.

On the other hand, $100 will buy at least 2 sticks of 256MB DDR RAM.

Well..I think you should beable to run GTA3 with your current setup and it should look pretty good. What version of DirectX are you running?

Go to START/RUN and type in DXDIAG, this will tell you what version you are running. If it's anything earlier than 8.1 you need to upgrade it.


You can download the latest version of DirectX at www.microsoft.com/directx

Sigma, thx alot for your help. I really don't know too much about computers so maybe you can help me out with what kind of memory to buy. I do know that the kind I have has to be installed in pairs. Should I get 2x256? Where is the best place to buy it in terms of price, and is there any particular brand I should get? Thx again for your help.

I'm using 8.1

Try http://www.crucial.com/. Type in your system and it will tell you what ram is the right one for your machine. I upgraded my ram from 256 -> 512 last year. Good prices, a good product and free shipping.

I checked that website but they don't sell the memory I need.

Wow... If I ever wondered how Dell made money, I know now...

Unfortunately, for you, Dell uses a not-so-common model of RDRAM in their 8100s. At least, so far as my research goes. And, not-so-common means not-so-cheap.

If it is what I think it is, which is standard 64x18 PC800 RDRAM, then it will run almost right at $100 for 2x256MB from http://www.newegg.com

The best thing to do would be to find the documentation that came with your computer and find where it talks about the memory so you can confirm that. I can't access Dells Tech Support page on the 8100 and get the info myself because you have to own a Dell computer to access that page.

Hopefully it's a model of RAM you can pick up from an OEM. If you have to buy it from Dell, it's gonna cost you considerably more.