Through the looking glass

[61_OTU]

Yes 61_OTU in the hardware forum, what is the world coming to?

Red pill, blue pill, red pill, blue pill........who knows?

To my point however. I have a Geforce 4 MX 440. My PC claims to have 128M dedicated video memory. It's a 2.8 Ghz Pentium 4 with 1 GB DDR-SDRAM.

What options do I have for upgrading my video card?

Can anyone make any suggestions, or if you're going to ask me about my motherboard then give me directions how to find out, it's not my natural home.

*Stalks back off to the photo forum*

Blue pill, red pill, blue pill, red pill.........

[Chris_F]

Going through the same thing now with my PC.  The first snag I hit was the interface type.  Does your PC have PCI-E or AGP?  Mine only has AGP and that limits my card selection quite a bit.  To find out check your owner's manual or find a spec sheet for your PC somewhere.  I've got a Dell Dimension and the info was available through the Dell website.  

If it's not available through the maker then I'm at the limits of how I can help you.  If it were me I'd crack the case open and see what there is to see.  You probably could grab a make and model number off the motherboard and do a search or find some photos of AGP and PCI-E slots to see what yours looks like.  I used to know how to get 'hold of that info back in the DOS days (on bootup you hit some button or other to go straight in to the hardware setup and the moboard info was right in there.  Though you gotta be careful 'cause you can break stuff in there).

[ctjoyce]

Well as its an MX 440 you dont even need to look at anything to know its a AGP card. So the question now is how much do you want to spend? The bare minimum would be about $150 for a 6600GT or you could go wild and spend $311 on a 7800GS. Just about anything will be better than what you have, so just make sure you get a deadacated gameing card that is DX9

Cheers
Cameron

[61_OTU]

Well as its an MX 440 you dont even need to look at anything to know its a AGP card. So the question now is how much do you want to spend?

Thanks Cameron, so as long as I go AGP I'll be ok? Anything else I need to consider?

[ctjoyce]

DX9 cards with atleast 8 (preferably 12 or more) pixel pipelines. And good RAM. eVGA, and BFG Tech seem to use good modules. And Sapphire Tech and connect3D for ATi

Cheers
Cameron

[Chris_F]

Checkout my thread regarding video cards on this forum for some helpful advice ctjoyce has already given me on the subject (lest he be forced to repeat himself).

[congo]

Well as its an MX 440 you dont even need to look at anything to know its a AGP card.

IT could easily be a PCI card and you may have no AGP slot, you indicated you have onboard graphics, (128mb dedicated video), many boards like this had NO AGP slot.

You'll need to peek inside and see if the video card is in an AGP offset slot, PCI slots are all in a row and even in distance from the rear of the case.

Also, you can tell which video card your PC is using by following the monitor cord to the back of the PC and see if it's hooked up to the mainboard riser or the back of the MX440

[61_OTU]

IT could easily be a PCI card and you may have no AGP slot, you indicated you have onboard graphics, (128mb dedicated video), many boards like this had NO AGP slot.

It's AGP, we had to take out the HD and I made a point of checking

[congo]

Ah good.

Now grab Everest here:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

and learn if your mobo has a 4x or 8x AGP interface, what mainboard you have, how it works etc.

It seems a few people are having issues with 4x AGP mainboards and 8x AGP video cards, though this should technically not be the case.

If it all seems to much, take both pills.

[61_OTU]

The existing card specs say 8x, but when I watched the drivers loading the other day I saw an entry with AGP4X, so I'll check.

What do you guys think of this then? Is it inadvisable, given what has been said about cheap memory on generic cards?

http://www.techfever.co.uk/products.asp?partno=5301

[congo]

I cant get the link to work.

[61_OTU]

Site must be down, it worked earlier.

It was a 'Peak' 256MB GEFORCE 6600GT AGP8X for stlg 106.45

Seemed mighty cheap

[61_OTU]

Everest says 4x as far as I can see, so should the 'peak' card work ok, given it's an 8x?

[congo]

The "Peak" sounds like a con to me, I smell a rat, bigtime.

256mb of ram on an el cheapo 6600GT ?

Come on......

If you could even find any documentation on the card that is accurate, you'll find it's prolly labelled incorrectly and that it has substandard ram (and lots of it), prolly a 6600 or lower. Not a great choice, but then, you wouldn't want to spend much on an AGP card on a 4x rig anyway so................... up to you really.

Can't you get a "Real" 6600GT for that money in AGP ?