Suggestions on video card?

[Leef]

The next upgrade I plan on doing to my system is a new video card. The Major one I am looking at is the ATI Radeon 8500. But I head that there are driver problems and the card doesn't run so well. Does anyone have any good experiences with this card? Another possible selection was the Elsa Gladiac 516. It's a 64 MB DDR card and I heard that Else makes great cards. I'd like to stay under $200, but I still want excellent perormance with both games and DVD movies. The 16 MB Vanta isn't really cutting it. I run really slow with Dark Age of Camelot. And on 3DMark2001 I ran a top of 15 fps on medium quality. And that's with the newest driver.

Plus..I just like having up to date stuff when possible

[Tiretool]

I have owned two Elsa cards, the Erazor X, and the Gladiac and I can't say enough good stuff about them. Both rock solid cards. I don't own any ATI cards. Never have and probably won't either.... but I don't think they're a poor choice by any means. I have heard about some inconsistencies with their drivers, and that they monkeyed with game settings via their card drivers to make their framerates higher when comparing the 8500 to the GeForce 3.

I am biased towards nVidia powered cards (Elsa ones in particular) and you can find good prices on pricewatch.com, but I would like to try to talk you out of getting an MX version of a GeForce based card. It's a crippled version of the GeForce 2 GTS and there is a noticable difference between the two. I also like Visiontek's line of cards based on the GeForce 2 GTS. Just checking pricewatch.com, I saw them for sale in the $120-$130 range. Good luck with your decision.

[morriswindgate]

See the post I put up about the 3DFX in this section of the forum.