need advice on new video card

Im looking to buy a new graphics card. currently i have a geforce 4 mx 440 64 mb and the game runs well.i want to purchase a good mid price range video card like a geforce fx5700 256 mb is it a good card?and what is the difference between the 256 mb and the 128 mb when i have 1gb of ram on my computer and a 2200 athlon processor.any advice would help out thanks for looking

Go to pricewatch.com for good prices.

I suggest a 256mb card so that it doesn't steal RAM from your system and it will help games perform better regardless, trust me, it will make a difference with Doom 3.

Heh it just sounds like my old situation so lets see.

The only real difference b/w the 2 cards mentioned is graphics quality. I suggest you get a 5700U 256 so you can get better fps. I currently have an amd 2400+ and a geforce 5700 256 and it doesn't run that great.

I was surprised to find my 128 Mb NVidia GeForce4 card actually handled itself well! Autodetection landed me in medium settings. Of course I'd LOVE to have a better card, but that's a lot of money to shell out.

If you're going to step to a new card do some reasearch first. Look at the readme's in the software about accelerated cards, and see if any of them are having problems before you buy. You don't want to shell out over $300 just to find out later there are doom 3 bugs out there for your card.

Oops, double posted :) Too bad the 'delete post' thingy doesn't work for regular users :-\

I bought a Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB card just before Doom3 came out. It does great with my 3GHZ cpu, but I kinda wish I got one with 256MB of ram. In High graphics settings I get a slight studder right before some doors open. I figure it's because of textures loading. Plus on Ultra High, it runs a bit slower than I'd like, below 20fps. I think if I had a x800 I'd be able to run Ultra High okay, or if I had a Radeon 9800 with 256MB, I wouldn't have the studder before opening some doors.

But anyway. I love the performance with my current card. I was able to decrease any studder by unzipping my pk4 files to the base folder so it's less noticible.

I say go with the ATI X800 or a Radeon 9800 Pro.

Heres are a couple of cards you might consider:

GeForce FX 5900Xt(only 128mb but still a great card.)
GeForce FX 5600 256mb
ATI Radeon 9800 ProAgain 128mb but still a great card
And this is what I highly reccomend if you want a mid level 256 card:

GeForce FX 5700

SmellyOgre said:

GeForce FX 5700

Bling.

Would be my choice too.

I, personally, would recommend an nVidia card because they haven't given me any trouble (TNT2 & 6800GT). But I don't want to start the endless ATi vs. nVidia war.

If you can't get the money for a 6800 or x800, than I would recommend these.

nVidia fx5900
nVidia fx5950 (whatever version you want)
Radeon 9800XT
Radeon 9800Pro

But whatever you get, get a 256MB card. Don't go for at 128, it's cheaper, but you won't get your money's worth

newegg.com is your best friend. BUT LOOK FOR COMPUTER SHOWS IN YOUR TOWN! You can get some awesome stuff for a really cheap price at local computer stores.

These are my system specs:

2.6Ghz Pentium Processor
128 GeForce FX 5200
512mb RAM

When I first got the game it ran terribly, I was getting 7fps in the timedemo. Then I just downloaded the new NVIDIA drivers from their website and now I'm getting 30 fps.

Make sure you have the latest drivers - it could make all the difference.

If you mind to pay it off over 6 months get the 6800 GT from bestbuy and it is same as cash for 6 months. Yeah 400 bucks, but it will last me for 3 or more years just like the Geforce 4's did.

I just OC'd my fx5200 with power strip and it helped alot, my 5200 also has a fan on it stock and I have the side panel off and have a fan blowing air on all the hardware. I know its kinda pointless oc'ing a 5200 but I'm gunna get a 256 card soon enough so I dont care if this one fries. The core is now at 336 mhz from 250 and the memory is sitting at 442 mhz from 350, just about 20 mhz below on both clock speeds from seeing any artifacts.