What The! Is Ati Any Good?

[kamolahy]

I just bought a custom computer. THere was an ATI RAGE PRO included with 32 MB memory and what not. I tried to run some games on the comp that i previously ran on my LAPTOP with 16 MB memory and they are slow and laggy! I can't get anywhere with it! I have 256 Ram but that's what I had on the laptop and it was fine. My Laptop's processor used to be a 1.8g celeron, this one is 1.8g AMD.. what's the deal?

[Force Flow]

What are the specs on both machines?

What games were you trying to run?

What O/S's are you using?

[RJ]

Well, what games are you trying to play ?
The Rage Pro is a very old chip. I used to have the Rage Pro, too, bought in early 1998, and lasted till mid 2000. When I got that card the competitive chip from nVidia was the Riva 128, and the TNT was released during that time.
The Rage Pro can't handle today's demanding games, but ATI itself is a very good graphic chip manufacturer.

RJ

[kamolahy]

The laptop was a 1.8Ghz Celeron, 256 Ram, 16 MB integrated video, Toshiba Satellite.

This custom comp has a AMD 2200+, 256 RAM, 32 ATI RAGE PRO, 40GB Harddrive.. yadda yadda... they both run windows xp..

Games such as Warcraft 3, Dungeon Seige, Unreal Tournament 2003, and Diablo 2 all ran fine on the laptop.
So far not one of those games has ran as efficiently, if even at all, on the new customized machine, regardless the better processor and better grapics card.

[kamolahy]

Can I use any newer AGP card in the system?

[Force Flow]

Try a GF4 TI-series card or a radeon 9000 or above (but not any of the GF MX cards or radeon SE cards). They should be able to handle all those games.

All your other hardware will be able to handle them.

[kram 2.0]

You can probably get a Radeon 9500 Non-PRO 64MB. The supply is rather low, but the price is still also rather low. If you can find it, go for it. It is probably the least expensive (besides the 9600 Slow Edition) card that supports DX9 (and actually works with DX9 - not the FX5200).

Hope that helps,
kram

[nocturnx]

Does your machine support AGP? I assume it would since it has a AMD 2200+ processor. How much are you will to spend on a video card? To play those types of games your definatley gonna want a better video card and more ram would help alot. Get another stick of 256mb ram and a better video card is my suggestion.

[glc]

The 9600 non-pro non-slow edition is right around 100 bucks, that's your best bet if you want to keep it cheap.

The Rage Pro you have in there now is for business and general use, it falls apart seriously with games.