What Agp Graphics Card ?

[Ill_handle_it]

I have two old PC's which I've cobbled together with parts lying around and purchases from eBay.

One is a Micro ATX running a socket A Athlon 2600xp chip and 1gb of Corsiar ram with an ATi 9000XT 128mb card AGP. I installed Half Life 2 and the game ran very well with no issues whatsoever.

The other PC is Biostar cube running the Athlon 3200XP chip and 2gb of ram and a Geforce 6200 512mb card. Despite the higher spec chip,ram,card and a sata drive,the game runs badly.

In the game settings it has box which suggests the game is improved with an ATi card. Clearly this is the case,at least for this game. I would like to put a different card in the Biostar but my knowledge is somewhat limited. I don't think I can justify spending a fortune on a card but would like to get the best bang for my buck.

The ATI Radeon 9250 256MB can be purchased for about £20.00 but I'm not sure ? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Horridbloke]

From the model number the 6200 would have been pretty low-end when it came out around 2005 or so. I seem to remember playing hl2 okay on am AGP Radeon 9700 (respectable in 2003 so probably not vastly different to the geforce 6200) but it struggled on anything we'd currently consider a decent resolution. Can I ask what screen res it's running at?

[Ill_handle_it]

From the model number the 6200 would have been pretty low-end when it came out around 2005 or so. I seem to remember playing hl2 okay on am AGP Radeon 9700 (respectable in 2003 so probably not vastly different to the geforce 6200) but it struggled on anything we'd currently consider a decent resolution. Can I ask what screen res it's running at?

Seems okay at 800x600. If I change to highest LCD panel it doesn't like it much.

[oracle]

I have two old PC's which I've cobbled together with parts lying around and purchases from eBay.

One is a Micro ATX running a socket A Athlon 2600xp chip and 1gb of Corsiar ram with an ATi 9000XT 128mb card AGP. I installed Half Life 2 and the game ran very well with no issues whatsoever.

The other PC is Biostar cube running the Athlon 3200XP chip and 2gb of ram and a Geforce 6200 512mb card. Despite the higher spec chip,ram,card and a sata drive,the game runs badly.

In the game settings it has box which suggests the game is improved with an ATi card. Clearly this is the case,at least for this game. I would like to put a different card in the Biostar but my knowledge is somewhat limited. I don't think I can justify spending a fortune on a card but would like to get the best bang for my buck.

The ATI Radeon 9250 256MB can be purchased for about £20.00 but I'm not sure ? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

that is seriously low end these days.

i'm sure it was loads of fun rebuilding them,but if you really want something to play games on now,then the minimum you have to be looking at is at least a dual core intel.

you could pick up a decent secondhand core2duo e6600/e6700 with a 775 motherboard for about £20,1gb of ram and then a normal,but basic graphics card(i think radeon r7/nvidia 630/650 would probably work in that setup.....and get decent-ish gaming still)

iof you are willing to play around with the motherboard then you can use an old xeon quad core from a server as long as you get the right adapter with a 775 board....plenty powerful.

otherwise, if you are on a budget,not technically minded,and don't want to play with stuff,then the a series AMD aren't actually that bad.....not so great for processing,.but the integrated graphics kicks intels @rse.I got refurbished AMD A8-6600K(overclocked to 4.3ghz) from novatech in my setup and it's crisp...graphics are very nice.

hardcore gamers on a shoestring these days absolutely rave about the athlon x4 860k with discreet graphics card...that is a very good setup indeed if you can spare £150

athlon x4 860k= £60(PIECE OF PISS TO OVERCLOCK TOO!)

mobo=30

RAM(4GB)= 25...2*2gb is better because it's faster in dual mode

NVIDIA GFORCE 730/radeon r7 250 ddr3= 40

for what you just built, I would suggest that you donate it to school,it's still chunky enough to teach kids about PC's and word processing etc, plus you'll get loads of street cred from the kids because you actually know someting about how they work and are prepared to show them.

you'd be surprised at the amount of kids now who just take it for granted,but don't have a scooby when it comes to fixing them, just like cars.

[Horridbloke]

Seems okay at 800x600. If I change to highest LCD panel it doesn't like it much.

That sounds a lot like my experience when I upgraded my monitor to a 1920*1600 flatscreen (base unit was a 2500xp, 1GB, 128MB 9700 pro as previously mentioned). Playing at native res wasn't a serious option until I splashed on the vastly more powerful next machine.

Have you turned off antialiasing? That feature is a serious performance hog (apologies if you know enough to have tried this already).

[Rave]

I've no idea why you'd want to get such an ancient PC rolling again when you can just input your old Valve serial numbers into Steam and more or less instantly ifget all your games ready to play again, often in much better definition. I bought HL for a quid from a charity shop for a pound, entered the serial, and got the lot.

I've a Radeon 9500 here- totally softmodable to 9700 Pro, yours for the postage. I practically wet my pants the first time I got the softmod going and played Far Cry- one of the most gorgeous games ever. Anyway if you want it let me know.

[MarkG]

I played through HL2 at 2048x1536 on an AGP Radeon 9500 when it first came out, but I'm guessing the game engine has been updated plenty of times since. I think the Geforce 7800 was the most powerful AGP card made, though ATI may have released another after that.

[Ill_handle_it]

that is seriously low end these days.

i'm sure it was loads of fun rebuilding them,but if you really want something to play games on now,then the minimum you have to be looking at is at least a dual core intel.

you could pick up a decent secondhand core2duo e6600/e6700 with a 775 motherboard for about £20,1gb of ram and then a normal,but basic graphics card(i think radeon r7/nvidia 630/650 would probably work in that setup.....and get decent-ish gaming still)

iof you are willing to play around with the motherboard then you can use an old xeon quad core from a server as long as you get the right adapter with a 775 board....plenty powerful.

otherwise, if you are on a budget,not technically minded,and don't want to play with stuff,then the a series AMD aren't actually that bad.....not so great for processing,.but the integrated graphics kicks intels @rse.I got refurbished AMD A8-6600K(overclocked to 4.3ghz) from novatech in my setup and it's crisp...graphics are very nice.

hardcore gamers on a shoestring these days absolutely rave about the athlon x4 860k with discreet graphics card...that is a very good setup indeed if you can spare £150

athlon x4 860k= £60(PIECE OF PISS TO OVERCLOCK TOO!)

mobo=30

RAM(4GB)= 25...2*2gb is better because it's faster in dual mode

NVIDIA GFORCE 730/radeon r7 250 ddr3= 40

for what you just built, I would suggest that you donate it to school,it's still chunky enough to teach kids about PC's and word processing etc, plus you'll get loads of street cred from the kids because you actually know someting about how they work and are prepared to show them.

you'd be surprised at the amount of kids now who just take it for granted,but don't have a scooby when it comes to fixing them, just like cars.

Thanks for some of those suggestions. I do however,own several other higher powered PC's with later pci express cards. I'm a hoarder and a PC is for life. The Biostar is actually a very nice and at the time expensive aluminium cased form factor. It maybe single core but it runs XP exceptionally well and plays 720p movies. However,I am interesting building other PC's such as you suggested. Thank you again.

[Ill_handle_it]

That sounds a lot like my experience when I upgraded my monitor to a 1920*1600 flatscreen (base unit was a 2500xp, 1GB, 128MB 9700 pro as previously mentioned). Playing at native res wasn't a serious option until I splashed on the vastly more powerful next machine.

Have you turned off antialiasing? That feature is a serious performance hog (apologies if you know enough to have tried this already).

I misled you. The lower spec micro ATX is running the game at 800X600 without any obvious issues. However, the form factor with the Geforce isn't coping well. The game appears to prefer an ATi card but I'm playing with the settings. I may swap out the cards but would prefer to have ATi running in both. Yes antiliasing is off on both units as default.

[Ill_handle_it]

I've no idea why you'd want to get such an ancient PC rolling again when you can just input your old Valve serial numbers into Steam and more or less instantly ifget all your games ready to play again, often in much better definition. I bought HL for a quid from a charity shop for a pound, entered the serial, and got the lot.

I've a Radeon 9500 here- totally softmodable to 9700 Pro, yours for the postage. I practically wet my pants the first time I got the softmod going and played Far Cry- one of the most gorgeous games ever. Anyway if you want it let me know.

Thank you - will PM.

[Ill_handle_it]

I played through HL2 at 2048x1536 on an AGP Radeon 9500 when it first came out, but I'm guessing the game engine has been updated plenty of times since. I think the Geforce 7800 was the most powerful AGP card made, though ATI may have released another after that.

Yes a good card but quite expensive.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BFG-NVIDIA-GeForce-7800-GS-OC-256MB-GDDR3-AGP-Graphics-Card-FULLY-TESTED-/252013741970?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3aad308792