so after all is said and done.. (video cards)

Myself, I'd get a V5. I don't play many 3D games, and I love the FSAA. Not to mention fewer hassles with UT.

I think it depends partially on what games you're gonna play. If you planned on playing nothing but UT for the next 2 years, the V5 is the way to go without question. However, that is likely not the case. With that in mind, I think a Geforce DDR is definitely the best bang for the buck. It's very similar to the Geforce2 GTS in terms of performance and features, and can be had at a significantly lower price then the GTS. If money isn't really an issue, then I would have to say the GeForce2 GTS is the way to go if you were buying a card today. I tell ya though, if you have a little patience, you can get the Geforce2 GTS Ultra (or whatever it's called) when it comes out later this year. I believe it will have 64MB of DDR memory running at a significantly higher memory speed then the any of the previous incarnations...helpng to eliminate the memory bottleneck so many cards are facing at higher resolutions. It will be very pricey though...if you want to be the first on the block with one of those you'll likely have to apply for a second mortgage.

Jeff

The new ATI card, the Radeon

With the Radeon, you better pray ALL your game are in 32bit. Some won't support it.

Hey if they can't make new games in 32bit then they shouldn't make em .

Like I've said before, if I had the money, I'd hold on to it and get the V5 6K.

Voodoo5

I also think the Voodoo5 would be a great choice. I have one and UT runs great on it (obviously) but also a lot of games have issues with the GeForce II, even non-Unreal engine games like Diablo II. And while the GeForce II may get you 5-10 fps more, you're not really gonna notice that difference when you're talking 60 with a Voodoo5 and 70 with a GeForce 2. And people will proclaim how T&L is what everyone needs to get but hardly any games take advantage of it now and ones that do in the future are still a long way off. Plus, FSAA support is better with 3dfx in my opinion. And you hardly ever see people talk about image quality, just fps. The few side-by-side shots I've seen comparing the GeForce 2 to the Voodoo5, I think the Voodoo looks better. I don't really know enough about the Radeon to offer an opinion on it but I really think you'll have less problems and issues if you go with a Voodoo5.

All I have to say is that I love my V5. But UT is the only game I play (and I hope to play it for a long while still, since I'm nowhere near sick of it yet), so for me it was the easy choice.

I just don't like the idea of needing a damn power plug for my video card. Speaks poorly of the design.

Any peripheral cards that require that much power intake for, in all statistical test, a marginal fps gain doesn't hold much respect for me.

Of course I've never been a fan of 3dfx ever since they began slapping a second proc on their video cards and throwing it out as a new card.

The V5 is a sweet card, esp for UT. But in this hypothetical purchase I would be hoping that the Radeon would be a great card for the games in development this year and the next. Plus it also has FSAA at just under the speed perfomance of the V5.

I would get an ASUS board, win a PuFladder match, and get ranked .

I would really get a V5. FPS is where its at with me. It doesn't hurt if the games is purty, but you really stop being awestruck with the graphics after a few days.

Do_or_Die. I thought the exact opposite when I saw side by side pics. To each his own I guess.

I've never had a hitch in any game with any of the Voodoo cards I've ever owned...with my TNT1 tho it was a different story. Pain in the a$$. And my cousin has a GeForce, decent card I guess but many, many lockups and such with a variety of games, and he's always juggling different drivers trying to get it to be more stable.

I have a V5 and I get great performance in UT. Yes its probably true that glide is on its way out, but by the time glide is obsolete, there will be cards out there that are 10x times better than what we are debating now. The only game in the near future that would probably benefit more from a Voodoo would be DNF(it uses Unreal engine, so if you plan on being into that game maybe voodoo is a good choice)

Either way I dont think you can really go wrong, and I dont especially know what the hell I'm talking about concerning all the techie crap in the cards, but simply judging from my past experiences I say go Voodoo.

Oh wait..I forgot one thing! This free kicka$$ mouse pad you get when you buy a v5! Contest over Gefarce owners!





This guy's fans locked up on his Voodoo 5 and he was instantly consumed by the flames.

if i was going to get a new vid card, i would wait to see which will do better v6k or geforce ultra.
that of course is if money isnt an issue.

Personally most of ATI's cards have sucked major *ass* (|)

Now they come out with this truly kick ass card called the radeon and man is it getting good reviews. In the upper resolutions it actually beats (and sometimes by a large margin) the mighty geforce 2.

ATI radeon is more stable and has a wider feture set then the nvidia cards and is also gonna be at a decent price. It handles open GL (quake) VERY WELL and it also does D3D pretty nicely also. Of course it supports Rave but nothing uses that anymore...

I think you should go with the radeon...seems like a very nice card and give ATI another chance....they are looking mighty good with this card.

A true plus of this card is this hyper Z technology. It isn't some marketing term...it works! What it does is NOT render al of the stuff your not seeing on the screen therefore giving your CPU more time to feed the graphics card the graphics that you are actually seeing on the screen. I have proof...the Mac BUS/PCI/AGP/Memory speed is the major limiter (which is being fixed in a few months ...anyways...since the mac can't feed the voodoo 5 fast enough to get pc like fps...what is wrong? Well the Radeon get's fps on the mac and PC both equally because the radeon takes the load off of the other mac components leaving tyhem to do more important things. Now being that your getting a 700mhz pentium 3 Jenn...you won't have that problem but when games start maxing out your system...atleast you know it **should** last longer then normal cards as it will help your cpu by not rendering all that extra stuff...

So you have my opinion...buy the ATI Radeon I highly suggest you do that. An person who i can't name has tested the card for both mac and PC and has said that it easily trounces voodoo 5...very close to geforce 2 and surpasses it in higher res mode...and is very stable...it handles FSAA very nicely but only at 4x. It easily gets the best fps with FSAA on

Besides I am also getting one for my mac here in thje office and my bro said..."yep it's getting the same fps as the pc version". just goes to show how good this card is if it can turn the current bottlenecked apple products in to lean mean gaming machines !!!!!



Kaz

well, i guess it's all a matter of preference...

if you're an eye candy freak i'd go with the voodoo5 cause of it's fsaa, i hear it r0x.... if u plan on playing mostly glide games for now and in the future then go with voodoo5..

if you want performance... i'd go with the geforce2.. geforce 2 ultra if it's possible... plus nvidia has a great driver history (probably the best?)... this is a big plus in my book...

if you're strapped for cash.. i'd go with the radeon.. kick ass in 32bit, not sure if a lot of games run well in 32bit though... fsaa performance is pretty good too...

personally, i'd go with the geforce... not really a fan of 3dfx, missing a complete product cycle really hurt them... so i guess i'm kind of biased... and ati.. well, i'm not too fond of them either... hope this helps...

If money were no object. . .

GF2 Ultra all the way (OC for more insanity). You can't beat that kind of power. Q3A 1600x1200x32 at 55+ fps. . .I bet it does close to the same in UT--or it would if we had decent D3D support.

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/geforce2u/default.asp

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/det3/default.asp

1600x1400 @32bit @ 60fps?!?!?

Give it to me baby

blah blah blah you want to run UT blah blah voodoo5500 blah blah Nvidia hard to setup blah blah bullshit.

How old is UT?
How old is the engine?
Do people honestly think that epic aren't working on there next titles/engine (Unreal Warfare anybody?) avoiding the dumb mistakes they made the first couple of times round (like basing it on Glide?).

Pull the other one.

My system - P3-600E @800EB with a GeForce DDR 32mb (anihilator pro to be precise). AGP4x, Fast writes, yadda yadda yadda, 1024x768@32bit everything on (including volumetric lighting, 44khz 3d sound) 69.something fps.
No crashes.
Every other game is bloody perfect (apart from Carmaggeddon 1, but thats glide only, if I get that desperate I can alwyas whip the voodoo 2 out of my other machine).
Christ, 3DMark2000 makes me wet
A fair number of GeForce problems are caused by crappy memory sub systems (your "generic" sticks of ram) and shoddy motherboards whose implementation of AGP4x is a bunch of arse.
You're getting a new system right?
Save yourself a LOT of trouble in the long run and make sure you get a damn fine motherboard (Asus, Gigabyte, etc ... the usual suspects).
Check out Anandtech for some decent advice (avoid TomsHardware - he seems to let personal feeling interfere with objective reviews).
The biggest upgrade in UT performance will come from upgrading the cpu, not the graphics card (ineffiecent engine design anyone? - though I play it WAY to much), if you can think you can hold out that long get a fatter cpu and a voodoo3 and wait till we see the nextgen stuff (NV20, that Napalm thing of 3DFx's, the ATI - Radeon (am I the only one who thinks that, yet again, ATI will fail to live up to their hype), and whatever innovative big thing will come out of Matrox labs).

wheeew

/me takes a drink of water.

Anyway, must finish typing, have to look like I'm actually doing the work I'm getting paid for