Graphics card and Vista questions

Hi all,

Got a quick question about graphics cards - please no flaming about which is better ATI or NVIDIA

I am looking at a (very) budget system and would like to ask which card people would choose for general gaming use, eg Half Life 2, CS:S, etc

X1950Pro or 7900GS - don't think I will be able to stretch the budget any further than these as building a completely new base unit including OS for preferably about £500 but definitely no more than £550

I have also got another question around Vista - which version should I get, the 32bit or the 64bit???

I am looking at probably an E6300 Core2Duo but if (and that is a very big if) I can afford it then I will try for an E6400

Thanks in advance

Glenn

Bang for buck.. get the X1950pro

32bit as its more hassle free.

Dont bother with the e6400 ..you could overclock to those speeds even if you have no idea what you're doing.

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Originally Posted by staffsMike

Bang for buck.. get the X1950pro

32bit as its more hassle free.

Dont bother with the e6400 ..you could overclock to those speeds even if you have no idea what you're doing.

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Thanks a lot for the prompt response Mike :thumbsup:

Will bear that all in mind

x1950 pro

32bit unless you have a need for the 64bit specific features (search these forums)

I'd also recommend the 6300.

x1950pro also

and 32bit also


but be warned vista is very buggy i tried ultimate for a wekk and went backto xp

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Originally Posted by danroyle

but be warned vista is very buggy i tried ultimate for a wekk and went backto xp

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Out of interest - what problems were you having? Can't say i've had anything substantially go wrong that wasn't related to duff drivers.

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Originally Posted by danroyle

but be warned vista is very buggy i tried ultimate for a wekk and went backto xp

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Hmmmm, might get XP for the time being then?????

I am not overly concerned about being right at the top of the tree when it comes to this kind of stuff, I just want a machine that will handle the things I throw at it and my old PC is starting to struggle a little bit.... not surprising considering it is an old XP2800+, 512mb memory and a plain 6600 graphics card lol

You shouldn't have too many problems with it to be honest.

Drivers are rolling out slowly but surely..

I wouldn't go Vista until after SP1 and the bug hunt has died down. Besides many peripherals do not yet have Vista drivers yet (neither 32bit nor 64bit). My beloved m-Audio hardware is in this position but I suppose that now m-Audio is owned by Avid then until they port pro-tools to Vista, why would they bother with their consumer hardware?

X1950 Pro.. all the way.

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Originally Posted by danroyle

x1950pro also

and 32bit also


but be warned vista is very buggy i tried ultimate for a wekk and went backto xp

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No its not.
The 32Bit version is completely hassle free accept for Nero.
You mustve been doing something wrong.

The 64Bit is buggy though with driver just starting to trickle through.

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Originally Posted by Gibbo

I wouldn't go Vista until after SP1 and the bug hunt has died down. Besides many peripherals do not yet have Vista drivers yet (neither 32bit nor 64bit). My beloved m-Audio hardware is in this position but I suppose that now m-Audio is owned by Avid then until they port pro-tools to Vista, why would they bother with their consumer hardware?

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Only very old peripherals arent supported so i have no idea where you get this from.
Most peripherals, using 32BIT version, run on the XP drivers anyway.

Check my system ;)

I'm running

Sapphire x1950 Pro 256mb which is now around £115 from scan

can play all current games (including supcom) at full settings at my monitors native 1440 x 900 resolution.

c2d e6300 which has been overclocked from 1.83 to 2.8. But I'm a nub at overclocking, and my friend thinks we can get it to 3.2 if we change the voltage (something I was scared of doing, I simply upped the fsb speed until it no longer liked it)

so, 50% + overclock at standard volts :)

running 32 bit vista home premium, no issues whatsoever. Except my camera which is made by a4tech, for some reason, have a 32 bit driver and a 64 bit driver, but for windows vista they only support 32 bit, and you have to use their x64 bit driver. ?? But it still works, it just took me a while to work that out.

Yeah the X1950 will do you fine. I'm using an X1600 at the moment until the new ATI cards come out, and my X1600 runs everything upto Battlefield 2142 on the highest settings without any problems! So an X1950 will do you wonders.

If you're going for a budget system, bear in mind what product is the absolute most overclockable.

The E6300 will do you great for overclocking, and it might be worth changing out the stock cooler for an Arctic Cooler 7 for a good, cheap cooler. I have an E6400, but without the step up to a bigger L2 cache, there is little point in your stretching to it.

Buy named brand RAM such as OCZ or Corsair. OCZ has great Overclocking potential, with good stock heatsinks and brilliant warranty.

Best to get a variation of the P5B motherboards (so i've heard) as they are great OCers and fairly cheap.

Get 32-bit Vista Premium OEM. Just make sure you get the absolute correct motherboard that you will want, because it's a pain in the ass to change your mobo with an OEM copy of Vista, So try stretch as far as absolutely possible with your motherboard, in terms of being able to upgrade.

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Originally Posted by Blitzen

No its not.


Only very old peripherals arent supported so i have no idea where you get this from.
Most peripherals, using 32BIT version, run on the XP drivers anyway.

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No m-Audio products are yet supported under Vista (even stuff that went to market in the last 12 months) and I got this from m-Audio themselves.

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Originally Posted by Gibbo

No m-Audio products are yet supported under Vista (even stuff that went to market in the last 12 months) and I got this from m-Audio themselves.

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Then they should get off their arses and sort the driver out shouldn't they? Perhaps they didn't know Vista was on the way.. Certainly a few of our suppliers are acting that way.

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Originally Posted by dangel

Then they should get off their arses and sort the driver out shouldn't they? Perhaps they didn't know Vista was on the way.. Certainly a few of our suppliers are acting that way.

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As I explained before m-Audio are now owned by Avid who own ProTools. Their consumer products will play second fiddle to their flagship product ProTools which currently doesn't run under Vista and it's likely that 100% of their development resource is servicing ProTools rather than building drivers for their consumer products.

.

Well isn't that ridiculous.

Yeah it's a huge annoying that companies STILL haven't fully sorted out their drivers... Creative have only just got their Vista drivers out today!

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Originally Posted by Gibbo

I wouldn't go Vista until after SP1 and the bug hunt has died down. Besides many peripherals do not yet have Vista drivers yet (neither 32bit nor 64bit). My beloved m-Audio hardware is in this position but I suppose that now m-Audio is owned by Avid then until they port pro-tools to Vista, why would they bother with their consumer hardware?

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Any idea when SP1 would be out for Vista? As I didn't upgrade to XP until they released SP1 for it and I'd prefer not to get Vista until allot of the bugs have been sorted out like.

Hate to say it but Vista actually works quite smoothly already, been a few problems but they've been fixed / I've worked round them (like the stupid webcam drivers being mislabelled - probably why microsoft insists on signed drivers!)

Yeah, i rarely use XP anymore. Vista isn't bad at all.

I've been running vista for months now and tbh I've yet to have any real problem with it that wasn't driver related (and these were fixable with a simple download). People who are saying SP1 is required just don't know what they're talking about IMHO - it's faster (and get this) MORE STABLE than my XP partition in day to day use. I'm not saying it makes sense for everyone yet, but to say that there's something fundementally wrong with it is just plain wrong.

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Originally Posted by dangel

I've been running vista for months now and tbh I've yet to have any real problem with it that wasn't driver related (and these were fixable with a simple download). People who are saying SP1 is required just don't know what they're talking about IMHO - it's faster (and get this) MORE STABLE than my XP partition in day to day use. I'm not saying it makes sense for everyone yet, but to say that there's something fundementally wrong with it is just plain wrong.

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I'll chance it then & grab myself Vista Ultimate 32Bit for my new rig, I can always format and go back 2 XP Pro sp2. :) Thanks for the praises of Vista.

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Originally Posted by Thor

I'll chance it then & grab myself Vista Ultimate 32Bit for my new rig, I can always format and go back 2 XP Pro sp2. :) Thanks for the praises of Vista.

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Well it's only because it's a decent product - if it were bad i'd say that too. There's plenty of MS products I really don't like too ;) Dual booting avoids any worries whatsoever for me - and tellingly i'm just not using XP @ work anymore. I've not switched at home yet (entirely) but that's mainly because i can't be bothered to reinstall everything just yet. It may not be fashionable to like Vista but I do nonetheless..

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Originally Posted by Thor

I'll chance it then & grab myself Vista Ultimate 32Bit for my new rig, I can always format and go back 2 XP Pro sp2. :) Thanks for the praises of Vista.

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Dual boot... Definately. Some things might just refuse to work and you'll need XP. If you have a copy or can get ahold of one, use it.

What about Third Party Firewall software, any recommendations?
I'll be using NOD32 for anti-virus. :)

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Originally Posted by dangel

Out of interest - what problems were you having? Can't say i've had anything substantially go wrong that wasn't related to duff drivers.

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when exiting games my desktop failed to load up 75% of the time so just got green screen so had to pull power
which i think was a driver issue

but mostly in the 1 week of using it towards the end of the week it came up do i wish to check if solutions for my probems were online yet and came up with all the error reports i had filed a measly 75 in 7 days of programs becoming non responding or shutting down for no apparent reason

and i only used programs thet were vista compatible

Quote:

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Originally Posted by danroyle

when exiting games my desktop failed to load up 75% of the time so just got green screen so had to pull power
which i think was a driver issue

but mostly in the 1 week of using it towards the end of the week it came up do i wish to check if solutions for my probems were online yet and came up with all the error reports i had filed a measly 75 in 7 days of programs becoming non responding or shutting down for no apparent reason

and i only used programs thet were vista compatible

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Most error reports are due to bad drivers. At least the ones i've had.