Resolution

[Walwal]

I have a PIII 450 & a 16Mb TNT AGP Graphics card. When I play Counterstrike on the net, 800x600 is the best I can use, any higher and it becomes very jerky and my ping goes higher even through a cable modem. This resolution however is a bit too blocky for my liking. In time I`m looking to upgrade my processor to something like a 1.2Gig Athlon when funds allow, but would a 32mb TNT2 be a temp. solution or am I clutching at straws??? Thank you.

[HAL9000]

It will help, but then it becomes a matter of feeding a better card fast enough. The combination of a better video card and a CPU upgrade will give you the performance you desire.

[Walwal]

Thanks for that. One more point,I`ve seen Elsa Erazor III Cards fairly cheap. Which is better, that or the TNT II.Or should I be looking at something totally different?? All views are appreciated. Thank you.

[RJ]

You said the TNT 2 is only a temp. sollution. So you want to buy another, more powerful card, right ?

The thing is, that the TNT2 is not powerful enough for the Athlon 1.2 Gig. Buy it only if you wanna buy a powerful graphics card, too, like the Radeon or a GeForce card, otherwise the Athlon would be useless and not faster than a PIII around 700 MHz.
Computers, especially the ones for games, with a CPU with 700 MHz and more need at least GeForce or Radeon, definitely not anything previous.
I've seen this with my PII. Had ATI XpertPlay and P133, upgraded to PII333, with performance boost. Later I exchanged the graphics card, with ATI Rage 128. The performance increase was incredible. Then upgraded to PIII 800 and no difference to about (maybe 2%) more speed. Bought a GeForce 2 GTS and games ran 3 times as fast (I play all games with 1024x768 that support that resolution).

RJ

[HAL9000]

RJ, you couldn't be more right there. My ATI AIW Radeon on a PIII 800 kicked a PIII 1Ghz with a 32Mb Rage 128 Pro around the block on 3DMark2001. I can score a 2470 while the 1Ghz could only hit 978. I wanted to bring my Radeon to work to try it out and see what difference it would make, but the customer was picking up the system that day, so I didn't get the chance.

[RJ]

Yeah, I also made a benchmark test. It was on a LAN-Party a few weeks ago, and we used 3D Mark 2000.

My PC (PIII 800, 224 MB SDRAM, 64 MB DDR GeForce 2 GTS): about 6400 points
Josef's PC (PIII 600, 256 MB RAMBUS, 64 MB DDR GeForce): about 4600 points
Oliver's PC (Duron 600, 128 MB SDRAM, 32 MB DDR GeForce): about 4400 points
Alper's PC (PIII 866, 128 MB SDRAM, but 32 MB TNT2): about 2300 points

I don't remember whether this TNT2 was with SDRAM or DDR.
Another friend bought a GeForce 2 MX, but with SDRAM. The CPU was a Duron 800, and with 128 MB RAM.
Score: about 2400 points in 3D Mark 2000, only slightly faster than the TNT2.

I've seen the whole test. The Helicopter test ran with over 100 FPS on my PC, whereas my friend only got 40.
In the 3D game test I got 160 fps (low res.) and he 50 (low res.) I got 50 to 60 at high res. and he only about 20 at high res.

So we see: Fast CPUs require fast graphic cards, and fast graphic cards require DDR-RAM, otherwise the system slows down

RJ

[Kalkin]

I can't help but wonder about RAM...
If DDR makes such a big difference for video cards, how much of a difference would it make for the main system RAM? Are the DDR motherboards out now making a good enough use of it?

[Xayd]

No and not much. Your PCI and AGP buses are still at 33/66, so the performance gain from DDR is raw memory bandwidth only. An overclocked bus setup with regular ole SDRAM will very nearly equal the performance of the current DDR setups at stock speed (say 140mhz plus).

Of course the Voodoo5 with 0.25 micron processors and SDRAM will equal the performance of a 32 meg DDR Geforce2, so DDR isn't the savior of all things good on graphics cards either.

Xayd