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squidfinger

Join Date 09/2005

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Tell me which 3D card to buy so I can play this game.

I'm stuck at home with nothing to do. Help me!!!!!!!

Hey yall,

I've recently become stuck at home due to some severe health issues and have alot of free time on my hands. I was wanting to buy a 3D card just to play this game (I'm a huge MOO2 fan) but go so exasperated trying to figure out which 3D would work with my computer (the more I read the more confused I got) I bought a PS2. I feel now this was a mistake as most console games are so simplistic and shallow I quickly become bored with them. I miss the intelligent gaming I had with games like C&C: Red Alert and MOO2 in the past and that seems like something you can only get on the PC nowadays.

Please, I'm fighting cancer right now and it would be really nice to have something to take my mind off it. My budget is $100. Here is all the info I know about my computer (read off the sticker):

Emachine T6211

3200+ AMD Athlon 64 processor
2.2 GHz
512 KB L2 cache
1600 MHz FSB

512 MB DDR SDRAM

ATI Radeon Xpress 200
PCI-Express slot available--->(don't know what that means)

I dimly remember that it seemed liked very few 3D cards with would work with an AMD Athlon and that my current card used some kind of special slot. Maybe I'm completely wrong. Anyways I want to applaud Stardock for making what looks like an amazing game and am looking forward to playing it (hopefully). I really apprecaite any help you guys can give me.

Thanks,

Daniel Waters

Edit:

Almost forgot. Here are some links about the card that came with my computer:

WWW Link">Link

[link="http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/radeon-xpress200/index.x?pg=1"]WWW Link">Link

[link="http://www.beyond3d.com/previews/ati/rs480/"]WWW Link

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Not sure ont he model number you need but i am running a GeForce 6600 on a P2 2.4!! Oh and it happily takes all the animations and anti-aliasing the game throws at it.
price should be about right for you too.

Good luck for both counts!!

DG

PS the card comes in both AGP and PCI formats

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Just make sure the card you decide on is PCIe, not AGP or regular PCI.

Good luck with your difficulties.

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GPU and CPU have nothing to due with each other and there no compability issues.

The only issue you have to look at is your mobo.

Find out the slots you have.

AGP, PCI, PCI express. If express, how fast, 4x,16x. Then with that just go to newegg.com then click video cards and all the specifications you can. Price range, pci and what not.

Also getting a slightly worse card from a more well known company is better then the inverse. Such companys are PNY, BFG, ASUS, there are a few more but these are the 3 biggest in my opinion.

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I have used several eVGA brand cards. They are good performers and have good prices.

My current card is the eVGA Nvidia 6800 GS - the overclocked version. It performs very well with this game, but the price is around $175.00.

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You don't need to much to play this game-

I'm running on an old Homebuilt server

Athlon XP-m Barton XP2600 2ghz (133fsb) (2 years old)
a7n266-vm motherboard (5 years old)
1 gig of Memory (DDR266) (3 years old/not double pumped)
128mb Geforce2 ti4600 (Current Card) (4 years old)
Have ran it on the onboard Graphics
32mb Geforce2 MX (runs, but leads to choppy sound) (5 years old)
80 gb hard drive (System Drive) (3 years old)
640 gb Raid Drive (Media Drive) (18 months old)

Am able to run this game on the Gigantic settings with max. opponents without a problem. Thou runs much better with the Ti4600. The G2 MX onboard card with its pathetic 32mb of shared memory does a fine job thou (Considering the only game that should be played using that old of a card is Freecell)
My guess is your current card well play it just fine (Since my 5 year old onboard video runs it graphicly fine (CPU is overtaxed, your computer has twice the CPU that I have)- the ATI xpress 200 should put it to shame) The only problem your going to run into is lack of memory (Exp. if you are sharing system memory with the video) I'd upgrade my memory to a gig if I where you, and if you wanted a video card, a Nvidia 6600gt PCI-express version is a nice card. Good luck!

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You can get some pretty nice 7600GS cards with passive cooling (XFX do a good one). Silent and more than good enough to run GalCiv2. They're not expensive.

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Also make sure you upgrade the 512mb ram to 1 gb for extra comfort.

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I personally like ATI's cards--I have a 256MB ATI Radeon 9600, and I have no complaints about it. Heck, my old card was a 64MB ATI Radeon 7000 that actually ran Civ IV, which is supposed to be impossible (something having to do with TnL). Of course, that's just my experience with them.

As for your new card, you'll definitely want something with a good amount of memory on it, as you don't have too much system RAM; with my current video card, 1.5GB RAM, and a 2.1GHz AMD Athlon 2800+ processor, I'm able to play gigantic maps with abundant everything and nine opponents, without having to wait too long between turns.

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Considering that the chipset that is on the motherboard is ATI it would be a very bad idea to buy a Nvidia card.

The card that I would recommend is an ATI x1600XT PCIe. It runs newer games great and will certainly run GalCiv2 excellently. From newegg it will run you about $110 for the one made by Sapphire:

WWW Link

Whatever you decide to do, DO NOT buy an Nvidia card, your chipset is ATI so an Nvidia card will only cause problems.

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you need nothing.

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Don't listen to people who say a Nvidia card won't work on an ATi chipset or vice versa, that's nonsense.

The first thing you should try is the demo, if you're happy with how it runs, then you're already set.

If it doesn't run or you're not happy with the performance, buy a PCI-Express videocard, I recommend newegg.com. I'd recommend at least a GeForce 7600 or Radeon X1600 line or higher. If you wanted a really substantial upgrade that would open the doors a bit in terms of what you can play, I'd sell your existing RAM (friend, classifieds, ebay, whatever) and drop in a 2GB kit + an X1800XT.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231032
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814102007

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Thanks for all the help guys. I think I have all the info I need. I think I'll get an ATI 700 or GeForce 6600 since those both are PCI-e and are right at my budget. I'm gonna downlaod the demo first though and see how it goes. 178 MB on dial-up? Looks like I'm in for a long haul.

Thanks again,

Daniel Waters

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I run a ATI X1600 in my Intel based laptop computer. I run an nVidia GeForce 7900 GT in my Athlon 64 based desktop computer. Both systems run the game nicely, but you don't necessarily need a high-end video card for this game. It doesn't really load the graphics system as much as other 3D games.

A mid-range card like the the GeForce 6600GT will do the job, but that's last year's architecture. You should get the 7600 GT. Both are mid-range, but the 7 series is the latest architecture and significantly faster. Not as versed on the ATI cards, but the I know the X1600 will work well. Generally, nVidia offers more bang for the buck when it comes to desktop systems. ATI offers the best value for mobile systems.

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TesiaPowered, then I'd like you to explain to me why this happened:
A buddy of mine with an Nvidia chipset went out and bought an ATI card, when he started playing on it there were graphical artifacts and weird direct3d rendering errors. I told him that it was probably because of the nvidia chipset (after we updated the drivers) so he took the ATI card back and got an Nvidia card. It worked like a charm. So don't go spouting that it doesn't matter, when it certainly can, since it's the chipset that runs the pcie port!

And even if it does end up working fine, why would anyone want to mix the chipset and the video card, the chipsets are built to work with that manufactures’ video cards, why risk it?

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TesiaPowered, then I'd like you to explain to me why this happened:
A buddy of mine with an Nvidia chipset went out and bought an ATI card, when he started playing on it there were graphical artifacts and weird direct3d rendering errors. I told him that it was probably because of the nvidia chipset (after we updated the drivers) so he took the ATI card back and got an Nvidia card. It worked like a charm. So don't go spouting that it doesn't matter, when it certainly can, since it's the chipset that runs the pcie port!

And even if it does end up working fine, why would anyone want to mix the chipset and the video card, the chipsets are built to work with that manufactures’ video cards, why risk it?

Or it could be that ATI always has buggy drivers.

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Or it could be that ATI and Nvidia code there chipsets in such away as to cause problems. the old a7n266-vm/aa I'm running, I modded it so I could change the FSB by jumpers- With one stick of memory in, I can push 181fsb- and push my Barton to 2.4 ghz- but if I drop an ATI card into it, it kicks my FSB back to 133... Of course so did the sis AGP card I dug up- lol. The old ti4600, 5700le or 6600gt I have, won't do that. Never played with an ATI chipset before... So I can't vouch for them.

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Or it could be that ATI always has buggy drivers.

I have no problems with the nForce+Radeon combo on my desktop.

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It's nice to be able to match up the chipset and GPU makers. It gives you a warm fuzzy. This can only be done with Intel or nVidia. However, Intel doesn't make high performance GPU's so nVidia is it. But, with Intel, you can match the whole system, processor, GPU, and chipset. Though, I'm not particularly impressed with nVidia's chipset solutions. My desktop system runs an nForce 4 Ultra. The IDE bus is tempermental and the Northbridge runs very hot. In any case, manufacturers follow standards to ensure interoperability so it shouldn't matter, in theory at least.

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It's nice to be able to match up the chipset and GPU makers. It gives you a warm fuzzy. This can only be done with Intel or nVidia.

ATI has had its own competitor to nForce for some time, named Radeon Xpress, for both Intel and AMD boards. In fact there was a big deal after AMD bought ATI about Intel cancelling ATI's license to make chipsets for Intel processors.

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Geez, ownership changes hands so often with these tech companies, it's hard to keep up. Anyway, that's interesting and I wasn't aware ATI was making chipsets. I haven't noticed any ATI based motherboards. So, an "all AMD" system would utilize an AMD processor, ATI chipset, and an ATI GPU, cool! I'll look into going that route on the next upgrade.

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