Best sub $200 NVidia card?

RWBRWB Icrontian
edited August 2004 in Hardware
Been having a hell of a time trying to find a suitable sub $200 video card to rpelace my dieing 9700 Pro. I don't want to spend too much becuase I hope to buy a top notch system sometime within the next year, but I can't afford anything right now however this crashing bullcrap is becoming too much for me to handle now.

I like to play Unreal Tournament 2004 at highest detail, but also want a card that can handle some high detail 3D modeling I do. My understanding is that NVidia is best for that last part. UT2k4 is currently the only game I really play, though I would like to get DOOM3 sometime soon too. And now that I think of it, BattleField 1942 and the Desert Combat Mod are alot of fun too, but haven't played that in a LONG time due to crashing.


So, any advice? I'll go with a Radeon if NVidia is just too expencive to compaire to ATi.

Comments

  • entropyentropy Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
    edited August 2004
    From what I hear, and I may be *totally* wrong because I'm not positive on this, but you can get a 9800pro for under $200 in most cases (granted, it isn't real far below 200) and it'll kick the crap out of any of nVidia's sub-$200 cards...Might want a second (or third) opinion on that, though..
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    entr0py wrote:
    From what I hear, and I may be *totally* wrong because I'm not positive on this, but you can get a 9800pro for under $200 in most cases (granted, it isn't real far below 200) and it'll kick the crap out of any of nVidia's sub-$200 cards...Might want a second (or third) opinion on that, though..

    True and this is one of the reason I love ATi so much, but I do some models that are well over 2million poly's ;) And this 9700 Pro can't handle anything smoothly past 200,000. I understand that NVidia can handle up to 800,000 or so according to Nomad. Plus we use GFFX 5200 cards at school, and they run pretty damned smooth for some models I do. Wishful thinking on my part to believe that I could find a good NVidia card for less than $200 huh?
  • mondimondi Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    for gaming yes - for any more professional 3d work an nvidia card is definitely more desirable...

    I have a 5900XT right now, soft modded to a quadroFX 3000, its incredibly fast at pro work, and average in gaming - when i bought it a few months ago it was 210 .. and now theyre about 175 or thereabouts. I couldnt tell you which one is the best but theres numerous threads @ nvnews / guru3d about this ... or maybe someone here can chime in ..


    m
  • entropyentropy Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
    edited August 2004
    Well, if you want it mostly for modelling, then nVidia may be the way to go. You'll just have to live with prolly getting crap frames on a handful of games. I don't know jack about modelling, so I can't really recommend anything, sorry :-/
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    then 5900XT? How does it compair to a Radeon 9800Pro/9700Pro?

    I'll look at those sites as well...
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    RWB wrote:
    True and this is one of the reason I love ATi so much, but I do some models that are well over 2million poly's ;) And this 9700 Pro can't handle anything smoothly past 200,000. I understand that NVidia can handle up to 800,000 or so according to Nomad. Plus we use GFFX 5200 cards at school, and they run pretty damned smooth for some models I do. Wishful thinking on my part to believe that I could find a good NVidia card for less than $200 huh?

    RWB ...what specification determines whether it handles high polygons smoothly?
  • mondimondi Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    also just out of interest, what in gods name are you doing thats "well over 2 million polys" ?? ...
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    csimon wrote:
    RWB ...what specification determines whether it handles high polygons?

    What do you mean?
    mondi wrote:
    also just out of interest, what in gods name are you doing thats "well over 2 million polys" ?? ...

    Large Scenes.... mostly me testing ideas out.
  • mondimondi Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    you seriously have a scene that has more than 2 million poly's onscreen at the same time??? theres something wrong here ... think about it:

    a 1600*1200 screen, would be rendered totally opaque @ 1 poly per pixel - thats one seperate polygon for every infitessimal point on the screen...with less than 2M polys ... even accounting for perspective, it seems that if youre just trying ideas out then youre vastly over modelling ...

    just a word of advice - if you want ot work in the film/FX/game industry - then 2M+ scenes just arent going to cut it ...

    [/jaded realist mode]

    :)

    m
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    mondi wrote:
    you seriously have a scene that has more than 2 million poly's onscreen at the same time??? theres something wrong here ... think about it:

    a 1600*1200 screen, would be rendered totally opaque @ 1 poly per pixel - thats one seperate polygon for every infitessimal point on the screen...with less than 2M polys ... even accounting for perspective, it seems that if youre just trying ideas out then youre vastly over modelling ...

    just a word of advice - if you want ot work in the film/FX/game industry - then 2M+ scenes just arent going to cut it ...

    [/jaded realist mode]

    :)

    m

    True, but I tend to test ideas out for various things, I think the one time I had 2 million poly's, and I was in mesh mode, it took a long to find out how many I had, it was like 1.8 or so to be more exact. I had multiple instances of the Union Class dropship I made, plus many high poly trees and bushes... in the end it took 7 hours to render out a very small scaled movie that was only 10 seconds long, 320x240 I think. It was nothing less than an utter dissapointment.

    But on many occasions I do near and slightly above 1 million, I have tried many versions of a landscape idea I got from Star Trek: Insurrection... but that was before I learned new tricks, and doing this crazy stuff allows me to learn those tricks. Gonna start messing with Normal Mapping soon for my real time game, I hope my teacher allows it, cuase that would be SUPER! Right now the package we have doesn't have the module or whatever it needs to support the Normal Mapping, or he can't get it to work. For $300,000, you'd think it would allow it or at least work.
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    RWB wrote:
    What do you mean?
    I reread the question and asked myself the same thing! LOL

    I meant in the specs of the card ...is there anything that would tell you whether the card will do what you want?

    I'm looking thru the specs of the wildcat vp cards right now ...you could prolly getta vp760 around $200.

    Sooner or later ...you're gonna get a wildcat ...just don't rely on it to play games.
  • TemplarTemplar You first.
    edited August 2004
    RWB wrote:
    True, but I tend to test ideas out for various things, I think the one time I had 2 million poly's, and I was in mesh mode, it took a long to find out how many I had, it was like 1.8 or so to be more exact. I had multiple instances of the Union Class dropship I made, plus many high poly trees and bushes... in the end it took 7 hours to render out a very small scaled movie that was only 10 seconds long, 320x240 I think. It was nothing less than an utter dissapointment.

    But on many occasions I do near and slightly above 1 million, I have tried many versions of a landscape idea I got from Star Trek: Insurrection... but that was before I learned new tricks, and doing this crazy stuff allows me to learn those tricks. Gonna start messing with Normal Mapping soon for my real time game, I hope my teacher allows it, cuase that would be SUPER! Right now the package we have doesn't have the module or whatever it needs to support the Normal Mapping, or he can't get it to work. For $300,000, you'd think it would allow it or at least work.

    Not sure if this would help, but nVidia has a plugin for Photoshop that does normal maps. I was screwing around with Doom 3 skins when I found it.
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    Templar wrote:
    Not sure if this would help, but nVidia has a plugin for Photoshop that does normal maps. I was screwing around with Doom 3 skins when I found it.

    Yeah I've seen it around before, and we have learned how to use them in class the other day and got to play with it some, but in our game project we can't use them. It confuses me why we "can't" use them if it doesn't work, yet he was able to get it working in class. Doesn't make any sence, but this guy knows what he's doing, cuase DAMN he is good. But he's also been in the industry for a while... ;)
  • JimboraeJimborae Newbury, Berks, UK New
    edited August 2004
    I bought a BGF 5900 from the U.S. that softmods straight into a 5950 Ultra apart from the 256mb of ram (its 128mb ram only model). I'd say if you can find one of them get one. I think it was only $165 at the time these can also be softmodded into a quadro thing-a-mebob too.
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    I cant sem to find the information or a good review that shows how a Radeon 9800 Pro, vs a FX5900 goes together... but I haven't had too much time either.

    I'm sure the R9800 Pro is faster than a FX5900 or whatever the NVidia card is that is sub $200, but by how much? I am buying A CARD tonight. If I had more time to do anything I would, but 12 hour days at school really bog me down :P

    Anyways, back to work :D
  • panzerkwpanzerkw New York City
    edited August 2004
    2 million polys? I can't imagine using that much. The aircraft model below that I made for Flight Simulator is 37,000

    ual319_04.jpg
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    panzerkw wrote:
    2 million polys? I can't imagine using that much. The aircraft model below that I made for Flight Simulator is 37,000

    ual319_04.jpg


    Very nice, but this kinda stuff was done before I got into my Real Time 3D class, and as I said, I liked to test out ideas. Think of it like this, many people like to play games, well I do to, but I also enjoy playing in 3Ds Max just to see what happens when I do something. I'll put in a Sphere, bump up the poly count as high as it goes, then start applying Mesh Smooth, then perhaps I'll test out a few different Modifyers, or perhaps see how far I would have to go to get it smoooth, yet have no smoothing groups ;) Animate the ball with whatever wierd combination of mod's and perhaps do something wierd with the video from that in After Effects, create crazy things.

    Just having fun in it, but either way, I got my self a new Radeon 9800 Pro, the MSI card had sooo many goodies bundled with it too. :D
  • entropyentropy Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
    edited August 2004
    The MSI card is excellent :thumbsup: Usually recognized as a 9800xt without flashing or anything...
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    entr0py wrote:
    The MSI card is excellent :thumbsup: Usually recognized as a 9800xt without flashing or anything...

    Forgot to mention that, I read the reviews on Newegg, which is usually the way I go about things on newegg, and they were all saying that. Of course, I had to get it then ;)
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