Ok, it's now time for an upgrade.  I finish work in two weeks and go back to Uni in October. In the meantime, I have to do a few 4000 word reports for University before I go back  , but that should leave me with some allocated time to gaming! 8)

However, I am in need of an upgrade to the old graphics card if I'm to play any decent games!
I would turn my head to the latest 3dfx card (as you all obviously would) but seeing as there will be never such a thing, I have to look for alternatives, unfortunately.

Time to ditch the old GeForce2 Pro and get a beefier card. But what?  ??? I'll admit, the GF2 Pro has served me well, running any game with medium/high visual settings right from July 2001 when I got it! (As I said in a previous post, it had no problem running Hidden & Dangerous 2 @ 1280 x 1024, 30fps, full highest visual seetings including complex real-time shadows and full environment mappings). But saying that, I wouldn't go back to nVidia.

1) Because of the money-grabbing strategies I believe they incorporate and they way they try to confuse the customer with their 'XT' and 'LE' versions of cards, which 'XT' clearly opposes the rules that ATI goes by.
2) A personal vendetta against them due to their harsh treatment towards 3dfx's staff, their loyal customers, colleagues and 3dfx company as a whole.
3) Frankly, I see nVidia's cards as lagging behind ATI's rival card (e.g Radeon 9600 vs. GeForce 5700, Radeon 9800 vs. GeForece 5900/5950 etc..).

As a student, I cannot afford the prices of a Radeon 9800 card, so instead I was looking at the 9600 Pro (256Mb). A powerful card, but good value for the money.
However, will this card be able to support games of the future, well enough? e.g. Doom 3, Half-Life 2?

Or does anyone recommend a better all-rounder, good power and performance, against value for money.  ???

Definately a Radeon of some description matey...but I'd avoid the budget ones and save up for the PRO cards...

Such as 9700Pro, 9800Pro or X800.

They may be a HUGE wad of cash, but it's worth it in the long run as you'll not need a new GFX card for quite a long time!

I myself own a modded 9500 (modded to a 9700Pro) and it wipes the floor with my uncles 9500Pro card! 8)

Ya' know it makes sense!

Nuff said! 8)

Thanks for the tips guys, this sure helps! 

@DenisF - When do these X600 cards expect to appear, and how long will we be waiting for them to arrive on the customer market?

@paulpsomiadis - Cheers matey. I heard the 9500 cards were good as they could be softmodded to 9700. But if yours is a 9500, how did it beat a 9500 Pro?  ??? Is this because you softmodded to 9700, and your uncle did not?

@FalconFly - Cheers for the info bud. One of my mates owns a 9600 (cannot remember if it's either a Pro or XT) and he said he had trouble running FarCry at top quality even on his card.

I do want a card that will last a couple of years, but I don't want to fork out a great wad of cash.  I just don't know which to start looking at.

I bought the Creative 3D Blaster Voodoo2 in December wither '96 or '97 (I can't remember! ).  It originally cost me £188.00.
6 Months later I went and bought a second one for only £70!!!8)
And 3 months after that, I bought a Creative 3D Blaster Banshee for £99. I remember having a voucher for the Electronics Boutique store (now GAME, you'll know it Paul!  ) where if I bought a 3D Accelerator I got Half-Life for FREE (Bearing in mind HL had JUST come out!).  The store obviusly didn't know their standard display adapters from accellerators and I managed to get a brand new JUST CAME OUT Banshee for a discount price, plus Half-Life for FREE!  RESULT!
However, I was one of the very first to experience the conflicts between the cards, forcing me to install a Glide Switcher from Creative!

If you *only* have an AXP 1500+, you really shouldn't spend your money on anything better than a 9600pro

your cpu will become a bottleneck even for a radeon 8500

"How come it causes a bottleneck? What features start to unimprove when I run the cards on a mid-range PC?"
you won't be missing features, just speed.

It's like running a voodoo5 on a Pentium-II

Anyway, the 9550 is a heck lot slower than 9500/9600, stay away from it.

Id'e say that if you can find a 9500pro right now, go for it don't even think twice.


here's an example;


note the difference between the 9500pro and the 9700pro when used with an Athlon 1000, only 1.9fps difference!!!

If people at rage3d can link to THG, i'm sure tom won't mind about my little linky 

what the poop ???

iv'e even done a couple of forced refresh [ctrl+f5] and i still see it  ???