Plz help! (PC teccy question)

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with the release of the ESF beta and natural-selection just around the corner, ive decided to upgrade my gfx card.

at the moment ive got two voodoo 2 cards running in SLI mode (totals 16mb (with an embarrasing p450mhz pc)),ideally id like to double this (to a 32mb+ card), but there are a few things id like to know (bearing in mind i know jack-**** about the inside of PC's):

1. are there any decent on-line shopping site (amazon.co.uk is a bit crappy for gfx cards, it seems)

2. my pc is about 3yrs old, can i only run PCI gfx cards? (bearing in mind im using voodoo 2's). i remember my mate telling me that 'AGP' cards are newer & faster, but my PC hasnt got the support for it.

3. Any cheap gfx cards under, say £50? Im a student so my budget is -tiny- :)

thx for any help u can give
 
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geforce 4 Mx 400

100 USD, and is available in PCI.

i think thats the best thing for you


but, i dont know how much £50 is in america, but if its around 50 USD, then go with a geforce 2 TI. that will do nicely also
 
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Well I'll advice you to buy some new parts and not one by one.

That would be : -new processor
-new motherboard
-new gfx card

It really depends on how many money you want to spend, but your surely need a new motherboard (for the newer gvd card and processor to run on). And a fast gfx card is nothing with a slow proccesor (it wouldn't use the gfx card at full).
 
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he said hes on a low budget, and even just the motherboard is way too expensive.
 
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I agree with sonic34589732

that is the best buy if you look at money/performance.
 
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If you have a AGP ver 1.0 slot, you're good for a TNT2 card, which is between 75 and 95% faster than a Voodoo 3 (which is itself a large improvement over Voodoo2's in SLI). I faced the same problem with my 466MHz Celeron A, and the PCI bus will not handle ESF's texture load well. Buy a used TNT2 ultra and save the rest of the money to get a new processor/mobo.
 
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i had a p3 450 (500 clocked) which had an diamond viper v770 32 mb in it, my fps were on the average 30/40 in stress 15 no stress 70.
i decided that i wanted to renew my pc, short on money i bought my new video card a hercules radeon 8500 LE
thinking i could stretch it till i had enough money to buy a new pc,
but...... the performance in fps was still equal to the lower budget card.

i realized that my processor was holding me back, so buying a new grafical card might not even help u, because youre processor will slow the performance of the pc down
 
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GF4 mx won't be much of an upgrade when you're running it on a 450mhz proc. Then yes maybe tnt2 could be the answer.
 
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or rub a bank and but a whole warehouse of computers..:p

#edit:

ok but seriously.. i had a pentium 2 266mhz myself and i bought a GeForce 2 mx for it...
it works perfect with games like unreal tournament and quake 3 and halflife...
even max payne worked fine on medium graphics..

but stuff like starting up and internet got slow as hell
so now i bought a Athlon XP 2000+ with a new mobo..
its currently at the store for a repair... so i'll see how much the improvement is..
 
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thanks for the advie people!

it seems like a TNT 2 card is the best buy (although im havin trouble looking for a buyer)

I take it the TNT 2 is AGP, how do I find out if my PC has an AGP slot without opening it up?

thanks again :p
 
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Hehe why won't you open it up... ? It's the easyist way, and you'll need to open it up when you put in the GFX card anyways.
 
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am i the only english one here but him? u cannot get a gf4 mx440 for 50, 70-80 but no way 50, u will have to go with 64m gf3
 
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Geforce 3 or 4 would be a waste of many with a 450mhz...
 
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1 pound is 3 dollars so its aruond 150 bucks probably nearer to 200
 
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Originally posted by SCIxX
Geforce 3 or 4 would be a waste of many with a 450mhz...
well duh, u would need to buy a better one of them too :p like a althon 1600 or something;/
 

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