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Graphics Card

OpenGL
Started by MeeZ Oct 20, 2004 at 7:10 AM 13 replies 2.3k views
Original Post
MeeZ
MeeZ
G'day there, just a quick question. I have a mate offering to sell me a GeForce FX 5200 graphics card reasonably cheap. Can you tell me if it is any good for my game programming, and for pixel and vertex shaders (cg programming) and stuff, i am no good with that sort of thing. Hope you can help me out. (oh yeah, just FYI i am an OpenGL programmer). Thanks for your time.
MeeZ
technomancer
technomancer
if you just want to try openGL programming then a FX5200 will do (its faster than ref) it can render most PS/fragment programs reasonably well. When you say cheap how cheap you would only want to be paying around $30-40US as you can get new 5200 128MB for around $50US.
thedo
thedo
In terms of features its not a bad card - it can handle PS2 and VS2 shaders.

In terms of performance they're not great. If you have a GF4TI I'd stick with that for now, and maybe wait until the new Geforce 6XXX range come down in price, or look out for bargain Radeon 9X00s.

I had a GFFX5600 and it performance was about the same as my GF4TI4200, so a 5200 will likely be slower still. Have a look on Toms hardware for reviews of it.

Neil

WHATCHA GONNA DO WHEN THE LARGEST ARMS IN THE WORLD RUN WILD ON YOU?!?!
MeeZ
MeeZ
Thanks for your help. I still am not too sure though. I mean, i am not too sure about other brands and versions of the FX range anyway. What sort of things should i be looking for in a graphics card? Sould i just save my money and put it toward a better graphics card?!
At the moment i only have a GForce4, so if i stepped up to the FX5200 would it be worth it for like AUD$60???

Cheers.
MeeZ
izzo
izzo
A brand new FX5200 is about AUD$100 - AUD$120.

cheers
sam
Slaru
Slaru
If you have a GeForce4 MX, that isn't much better (if at all) than the GeForce 2's. If you have a GeForce4TI4*00, then the only thing u r misssing is support for PS2.0 and VS2.0. I would say save your money and buy a better card (midrange ATI or NVIDIA).
Nemesis2k2
Nemesis2k2
Well it really depends what vcard you have right now. I had an MX440 and made the switch to the FX5200 because I wanted to do work on fragment shaders. I did some benchmarks when I made the "upgrade", and noticed worse performance on the whole. The main limitation of the 5200 is the fill rate, which is actually lower than the MX440, and fill rate is absolutely gobbled by effects in games right now. If you've got an MX440, yYou'll get the bonus of pixel shader support, and vertex shader support in hardware, but you won't see any real performance boost on the whole.
izzo
izzo
Hm you upgraded to an FX5200 and saw WORSE performance?! I find that hard to believe... surely the fill rate of the FX is much higher than the fill rate of the GF4MX (since it's basically a GF2 clocked higher)?! Actually I do recall reading that the 5200 wasn't that much faster than a regular GF4.

Also the MX doesn't have any pixel or vertex shader support in hardware; any support you might find for these operations is provided by the drivers (and you wouldn't want to be using software pixel shaders).

cheers
sam
izzo
izzo
Actually I can believe that first statement now. Tom's have a nice table summarising the various video card types and speeds.

cheers
sam
Ravyne
Ravyne
Quote:
Original post by izzo
Hm you upgraded to an FX5200 and saw WORSE performance?! I find that hard to believe... surely the fill rate of the FX is much higher than the fill rate of the GF4MX (since it's basically a GF2 clocked higher)?! Actually I do recall reading that the 5200 wasn't that much faster than a regular GF4.

Also the MX doesn't have any pixel or vertex shader support in hardware; any support you might find for these operations is provided by the drivers (and you wouldn't want to be using software pixel shaders).

cheers
sam


Performance can be worse, it depends on the card. The super-cheapo 5200s usually have a 64-bit memory bus. Spend a bit more and you can find a faster 128bit bus. They're never that great, but the 128s are passable for the price.
throw table_exception("(? ???)? ? ???");
MeeZ
MeeZ
O.K. so i have decided to look at a couple of other options for a graphics card. Here are my choices:

256M Winfast A360TD GF FX5700 VIVO DVI - AUD$249.00
OR
256M Giga-Byte GF FX5700 VIVO - AUD$220.00
OR
256M HIS ATI 9600XT DVI VIVO 8x - AUD$260

Do any of these seem like they will offer great performance?! If so which. Which one would you choose? How do i work out their "bus width"? Should i go for a 256 over a 128, or won't it matter for some time?

Thanks for all oyur help and suggestions.

Cheers.
MeeZ
technomancer
technomancer
AFAIK the ATI 9600XT would be the best option, the 5700's are okay but if its not an ultra then the 9600XT would be quicker. They both have the same sorts of feature sets so pick the one thats faster. $260AUD is not too bad for a 256MB 9600XT either, what shop is that from?
nts
nts
another nod for 9600XT, fastest of the lot there
google
C0D1F1ED
C0D1F1ED
Your best option is a Geforce 6200 or 6600. They are cheap but have the full DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2.0 feature set. For developers, there is no better.
HippieHunter
HippieHunter
im not sure if im allowed to say this but you should never buy anything ultra, or XT. the std. versions can all be flashed to behave as XTs or Ultras. for example my 6800 GT is now a 6800 ultra. my roomates 9800 pro is now a 9800 XT. There are a few cases where this wont work, if you got the saphire 9800 pro its not really a 9800 pro, its like an OCed 9800. Anyway what im saying here is newer 6x00 from nVidia are fantastic but if you dont have the money for a 6800, you probly dont have PCIe so forget about it. buy a 9800 pro 256 meg and turn it into an XT or buy a 5700 and make it an ultra. But if you choose nVidia im sure you could find a 5900 for the same price as was listed above me.

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