Can someone recommend a video card for me?

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hi guys. I want-no NEED-to know-for Civ4 what is best, based on current experience. nVidia, GeForce or Radeon? What brand? How many Megs of RAM on the chip? What Drivers? Personally, I am thinking that 256 meg of ram is not all its cracked up to be when compared to the problems that Radeon 9550 has caused me to date-so I might even move back to a 9500, or up to a 9600. Anyway, advice would be MUCH appreciated.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[X sheehan C]

Yeah i need help with this to, i need a minumum costing video card because i am on a budget... any suggestions??

 

[Roland Ehnström]

Radeon 9800 Pro - best bang for the buck IMO.

I guess the 256 MB version is best if you wish to use high resolutions, but in fact I run Civ4 in 1600x1200 on a 128 MB version of this card and it's just fine (on a standard map - never tried any larger).

-- Roland

 

[Lorteungen]

Ram isn't all that important, most cards today have 128 and the extra price for 256 or 512 just isnt worth it. If the price is the same or close to go with the card with the more ram (unless it's not GDDR3, in that case go with GDDR3). So many people have bought a fx5200 with 256 mb ram only to find out what a piece of crap it really is. It probably wouldn't give you a boost in civ4 anyway. Geforce and nvidia are the same thing, btw.

So far I have seen most complications with ATI (radeon) cards reported here, and generally speaking the nvidia cards have a slight edge at the moment, especially in the medium range cards. I'd go with a geforce 6600GT, it's still the best bang for the buck and it's more than enough to run a game like civ4 and all other games on the market at the moment. Only if you play a lot of new fps games like quake4 and FEAR in very high resolution and high image quality would I consider going above that. What are you looking to spend and what are the specs for the rest of your machine?

As for brands, in my experience it makes very little difference, at least performance wise. The only thing you should look for is the heatsink/fan. The standard cooling on a lot of these cards is often very loud. Look for one with a non-standard cooler.

 

[Lorteungen]

Radeon 9800 Pro - best bang for the buck IMO.

I guess the 256 MB version is best if you wish to use high resolutions, but in fact I run Civ4 in 1600x1200 on a 128 MB version of this card and it's just fine (on a standard map - never tried any larger).

-- Roland

No offense but that's a bad advice. It was true maybe 1 year ago but the price tag is almost the same as a 6600GT and the 6600GT has the 9800pro beaten in all areas by a rather large margin. It's by no means a bad card though, so if you can get one used or at a very low price it may still be a good deal.

 

[Roland Ehnström]

I take your word for that, as I have never tried a 6600GT.

The good thing about the 9800 Pro though, is that you can get a used one for next to nothing (like $50 US I guess), since many people are now upgrading their 9800 Pro cards to X800's and X1800's. I guess it's more difficult to find a used 6600GT.

-- Roland

 

[Lorteungen]

I take your word for that, as I have never tried a 6600GT.

The good thing about the 9800 Pro though, is that you can get a used one for next to nothing (like $50 US I guess), since many people are now upgrading their 9800 Pro cards to X800's and X1800's. I guess it's more difficult to find a used 6600GT.

-- Roland

Absolutely, a non-overclocked 9800pro at 50$ is a bargain. Especially since he probably has an AGP slot and (judging from his last card) an aging machine. No need to introduce bottlenecks to your system.

 

[Lorteungen]

Yeah i need help with this to, i need a minumum costing video card because i am on a budget... any suggestions??

What are your specs and what games do you play?

 

[X sheehan C]

What are your specs and what games do you play?

i wanna play civ 4, but i get the black terrain thingy so i need a better video card... i just need a general price range that is cheap and will work,

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK to be more specific, my machine is around 16 months old and is a celeron 2.4 GHz machine with 768MB of RAM. The Radeon 9550 card I have is actually only 2 weeks old, but is having problems with graphics artifact and crashing-especially during MP games . What I am wondering is either (a) should I simply get a new video card, (b) boost my system to 1 Gig of RAM or (c) wind back my catalyst drivers to some earlier, more stable version, (d) perhaps free up space on my hard drive, defrag my hard drive, improve air-flow to my video-card et al or (e) some or all of the above. Please help me because, though I can tolerate the artifacts and occasional crashes in SP games, it really is getting intolerable during MP games! Thanks again.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[GreenMonkey]

refurb 9800 pro @ about $80-$90
find a deal on a 6600GT, about $150

My 9800pro is just now starting to feel a bit underpowered (mainly because of Quake 4).
Best bang/buck if you are only a moderate gamer.

 

[Lorteungen]

OK to be more specific, my machine is around 16 months old and is a celeron 2.4 GHz machine with 768MB of RAM. The Radeon 9550 card I have is actually only 2 weeks old, but is having problems with graphics artifact and crashing-especially during MP games . What I am wondering is either (a) should I simply get a new video card, (b) boost my system to 1 Gig of RAM or (c) wind back my catalyst drivers to some earlier, more stable version, (d) perhaps free up space on my hard drive, defrag my hard drive, improve air-flow to my video-card et al or (e) some or all of the above. Please help me because, though I can tolerate the artifacts and occasional crashes in SP games, it really is getting intolerable during MP games! Thanks again.

Well if that's the case I'm not sure I'd upgrade at all. Your current card should be able to run the game ust fine and you can't be sure that replacing it would cure any of those problems. In fact if you replace the video card without doing a fresh install of windows you may run into worse problems.

I would definitely try some of the older drivers before doing anything else and then simply wait for a patch. More memory will make the game run a little bit faster but it'll still be slow as hell (trust me!) and it may actually cause you even more CTD's (see the memory leak thread)! If you have 5+ GB of free space that should do it, but a defrag is always a good thing although I doubt it will make the game a lot more stable.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, quick update. I decided that, sometimes, 'you have to go backwards in order to go forwards'. I bought a Radeon 9250 128MB card, and now have 1GB RAM. The good news is that the graphics are now totally beautiful, with no artifacts or crashes. The bad news is that it IS a little bit slower (but not by a lot). I have over 14 GB of spare hard drive space, so that isn't the problem. All I can think to do is get Catalyst 5.10 or 5.11 drivers (is that a GOOD idea?), defrag my hard drive AND wait for a patch. If anyone can make any further recommendations, I will greatly appreciate it !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[BeefontheBone]

A few people have had more joy with the latest Omega drivers than they were having with catalyst ones - but try the fully supported cat ones first.

Incidentally, I've no problems with the game on my X800XT, Cat 5.10 (might be 5.11, not sure), 1GB RAM - it's a little slow the first couple of minutes when I load a saved game from later in the game while it loads the animations into memory but other than that it's fine. Not tried enormous maps yet, but it eats enough of my free time as it is!