Best gaming video card for K6-3 400? Any suggestions?

[hella356]

I've used a TNT and G400MAX. The TNT is gone and the MAX is going into a K7, so I'm looking for a reasonably priced card that can do 32 bit gaming. The TNT was faster than the MAX in this rig, I had them in a K7-700 and the MAX was way faster than the TNT. So, TNT2? Rage Fury? Savage4? I know the VooDoo3 cards are fast, but I don't think I want to give up 32 bit. Unfortunately no Matrox card seems to be very fast on SS7. Thanks.

[Dyre]

Well, if you could live with 16bit i would say V3, but since you can't... Maybe a TnT2, a CL one maybe. The problem is TnT2's use the same AGP bussmastering as the G400, where SS7 systems have trouble.

What games do you play, becuase if you use alot of glide games(UT) the Voodoo3 is pretty bareable.... even in 16bit...


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PIII 450 @ 504
generic BX motherboard
G400 MAX : )
GlobalWin VOS32!
Maxtor 13 gig UDMA 33
Maxtor 13 gig UDMA 66
Creative 36x CD-ROM
96 megs PC100 RAM
128 megs PC133 ECC RAM
NetGear 10/100
Soundblaster 32 AWE
Diamond SupraExpress 56k
Logitech Wireless Desktop (best $50 ive ever spent)
1 92mm Sunon Fan
4 80mm Sunon Fan's

[hella356]

I mostly play driving games, NFS 3 & 4, Nascar 3, Motorhead, etc. I sometimes play Kingpin, Q3. 16 bit is ok for now, but newer games are looking better with 32. Maybe since this is going to be the secondary PC I shouldn't worry about 16 vs 32. The Athlon/G400MAX will always be used for single gaming, the K6-3 rig will mostly be used for head to head network gaming. Maybe I should rethink the V3.

[Maniac]

Motorhead looks and plays incredible on my rig. I'm also a fan of driving games, and I think you still can't beat this one, especially in 32-bit!

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Celeron 366@567 2.2V, 128meg generic PC-100 RAM (running at CAS2) Abit BH6, G400 16meg DH@150/200, Western Digital Expert 18gig, Ricoh mp7040A(morphed to mp7060A) Pioneer 6X DVD slot load, Motorola Cable Modem w/DEC ethernet card, Soundblaster Live Value Ver. 2, Viewsonic GT 775

[paulcs]

I find the 16-bit output of the Voodoo3 to be very good, particularly with Glide games.

None of the boards mentioned are faster than the Max with that Athlon. I'm just curious; why are you using the slower rig for on-line play? Are you lugging it around to lan parties?

For competitive network play on a relatively slow machine, I'd go with the Voodoo3 and give up a little image quality. I think the Need for Speed series has native Glide support, although I could be wrong. Quake3 really looks better on the G400, but I think UT, a Glide game, looks very good and runs extremely well. I would expect you'd get similar results with Need for Speed.

While the Voodoo3 is not nearly as scalable as the G400, it is less inclined to offload work to the CPU. This makes it, in some ways, ideal for a slow system.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 28 February 2000).]

[RAB]

Take a look at the February PC World. (I'm sure its on their web site.) The G400 was competitive in everything EXCEPT NFS 4. I hate to say it, but it looks like racing games are not its strong point. The only thing slower for racing was a Geforce (??). The V3 3000 was fastest on NFS 4, apparently because NFS 4 is a Glide program.

RAB

[hella356]

paulcs: I built a K7 for my brother-in-law and stuck the MAX in to see how it ran and it was screaming. So the K6 is the only PC I've got. This will become my 2nd system but the MAX is going in the new one. So I'll need a new card for the K6. The more I think about it the more the VooDoo3 makes sense since it seems to be the fastest and has the best 3DNow drivers and Glide. Some of my games do use Glide. To hell with whoever's using it, I'll be on the kickass rig and 16 bit will look plenty good to them, as long as it's fast enough. Thanks for the suggestions.