Cheapest card for Halo and other old games.

[Dan Derrig]

Here's my list of choices - what looks best? Any other options? I need cheap cards to get my old PC's doing something useful.
Radeon 7000
Radeon 8500
Radeon 9000
GeForce 4 MX
GeForce 5200

Now, the doom 3 requirements say that it can use a Radeon 8500 and GF4 MX and stuff - are those good choices? It'd be nice if I could get HL2 or Doom 3 on them, the settings aren't important because it's just for having friends over, and they can use my PC if they have a problem with it. Is there anything the 9000 has over the 8500? I guess the 8500 has something better. I don't really know what I'm talking about though, so that's why I'm asking for help. Basically, my question is, what is the cheapest card to play things like Quake 3, Halo, Wolfenstein ET, and maybe HL2 or Doom 3, min settings.

Also, what about this thing? Is it any better than those choices?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814145092
It has alright looking specs, compared to like a gf4mx at least.

Thanks,
Dan

[Avg]

I know that the fx5200 can't do because I tried, it would slow down in certain dark parts. Tell me how much your willing to spend and I'll see which is best.

[Dan Derrig]

About $30. Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it. FX 5200 was towards the top of my list :-p
-Dan

[DDR-PIII]

ouch, hmm...i cant really say, since they woul all be pretty slow.

[Dan Derrig]

yeah - but all I'm talking about is Halo and stuff I used a some strange card for. I saw the exact same-looking card on ebay as a GeForce 3 Mac edition oem, and the person who sold it to me said it was a GeForce 3 64mb, and it seems to be a geforce 2 ultra 64. Weird. Anyways, I'm only looking for something in that range for Halo and MAYBE cs source 640x480 with all the goodies off. The HL2 system requirements say "DX7 level card, 1.2ghz CPU, 256 RAM" and I have past that on my celeron if I get a new card. The GeForce in there isnt mine anymore, sold it to a friend and he's loaning it to me. it has weird screen lines too. I'd like to run source in DX 8 if thats possible... lol but anything is okay as long as I can get a framerate over 30.
-Dan

[b1029384756]

Look on eBay for a Radeon 9500 for about $30. A 9500 Pro if you're lucky, but those usually go for $40. Even those will have trouble keeping up with HL2, but the idea of any of the others doing it is a joke. Yes, they'll run it, but it'll be like a slideshow.

[Slimmy]

Look on ebay or our classifieds. I just got a geforce 3 for my sons computer for cheap.

[Sliver]

I think you should know that Halo is as hard on systems as HL2. My little brother can play it on his FX5200, but he's got 512 megs of RAM, and a sempron (socket A T-Bred). So, if you get an FX5200, you 'might' be able to play it, with all the graphics settings at the bottom, at 640x480.

[Romulox]

I have tried halo with a GeForce 4 MX and a GeForce 5200, The game was playable.
but there was some lag in certain areas.
Both cards can easily play Wolfenstein ET.
I have also tried doom3 with a Geforce 4 and it was very choppy.
When it comes to minimum requirements, companies put the minimum specs to run it as a
slide show,not necessarily "play" it

[Avg]

I think spending $10 more here would be well worth it. At least then you could get a 6200turbo cache card or a Hyper memory X300 refurbished from newegg, these would be a lot better then a FX5200 or any mx card or the Radeons.

[Dan Derrig]

My parent's wouldnt really want me to let anybody from a forum have my address so I kind of have to get it from newegg or something. Also, I ran Halo just fine on my GF2 ultra or whatever it is that that card is.
Also, the 6600 TC and x300 hypermemory are all PCI-E and I need AGP 4x/8x. My board is an intel 845 with agp 2-4x so I suppose that's also a limiting factor along with DDR266.
I've been looking on Ebay at the 9500 Pro - I think I'll get one next allowance.

[Avg]

forgot about the agp pci-e thing. Just to let you know though most of the time when a stolen credit card number is used to purchase stuff online it was probably stolen offline, by that I mean a waiter/waitress, a gas station attendant and if you stay on trustworthy sites which you can verify through reseller rating you are probably safe and some websites also accept money order so there is no credit card number exchange.

[TUK101]

The 8500 or the 9000 (depending on which 9000 you get) would both be your best bet out of those choices. Get yourself another $15-$20 and pick up a TI4200 and you would then have a great card for playing older games with. The Radeon 8500 would be a good card if it is a true 8500 and not a 128bit LE or cannot be OC'ed very high. The LE's where pretty poor performers unless they could hit 285/285 or better. And try to get 128mb of memory on whatever card you get, it will help the card run more current games better.

[Dan Derrig]

thanks for the tips everyone. I am pretty sure it will be a 9500 pro from ebay. My parents just dont want anybody from a forum getting my address, but ebay is ok for some reason.
Thanks,
Dan

[Bios24]

I've got a 9000 Pro, Ti4200, and a buddy has an FX5200. Out of all those I'd take the Ti4200. It will do much better in games despite not supporting DX9. I've played Halo, D3, and HL2 with it without too much trouble.

If you can get a 9500 Pro, that should wax any card mentioned above, good luck.

[Dan Derrig]

It's no issue anymore - parents are getting a 6800XT in it if I put it in living room.

[Moto7451]

Get a Radeon 9550. Last year (around this time actually) I picked a 128MB one up for $60. The price is close to $40 for one now iirc. They are highly overclockable.

[Dan Derrig]

Why would I get that over a 6800 XT? I can unlock the XT to 12 pipes. What's so nice about the 9550 then?

[Bios24]

Why would I get that over a 6800 XT? I can unlock the XT to 12 pipes. What's so nice about the 9550 then?

I think he was just sticking on topic. I'd take a 6800XT over any of the cards talked about in this thread. FYI- I wouldn't put money on the pipes unlocking, it's a gamble that may or may not pay off.

[kraftmayo]

It's a damn shame they did such a crappy job porting Halo to PC. I have yet to see a machine that runs it well enough to be playable.

[Dan Derrig]

Yeah, it really didn't work too well. At least it looks nicer.

[Gambl3r]

The 5200 should be able to play it fine. I first got halo on a geforce 2 mx, and it ran ok on the lowest of low. I even played clan games like that, the game dident look nice, but it ran.

[Dan Derrig]

hahahaha - my friend is using a 5200 for COD2 just fine in DX9 at min settings. I think I'll go with that now that my parents aren't getting that 6800XT anymore. I'm getting some work soon, so after my Arctic Freezer 64 Pro, i'll get that (i hope)

[t12an_peter]

i used to use these specs for doom 3:

Intel Northwood @ 2.4GHz
512MB RDRAM @ 800MHz
ASUS P4T533-C
ATI Radeon 8500LE 128MB

got about 30-45 FPS on these specs with Medium quality at 1024x768. then i switched to an nVidia Quadro 4 750XGL 128MB GPU, and got like 3-5 more FPS. haha.

[Susquehannock]

It's a damn shame they did such a crappy job porting Halo to PC. I have yet to see a machine that runs it well enough to be playable.
Come on, you can't be serious. Where do people come up with this stuff? :shrug:

Guess my "ancient" nForce2 rig is the only machine that can run HaloPC

http://img425.imageshack.us/img425/6341/halo1b8mu.jpg
(1600x1200 - all game detail settings maxed out)

[Sir Golitech]

It's a damn shame they did such a crappy job porting Halo to PC. I have yet to see a machine that runs it well enough to be playable.

ummm yeah :shrug:

[NsOmNiA91130]

It's a damn shame they did such a crappy job porting Halo to PC. I have yet to see a machine that runs it well enough to be playable.
Where the hell are you getting this from? I can play it maxed out, with driver anti-aliasing on 8x, and it looks ****ing pretty, especially for an older game. Also, it has 3 levels of shaders for the lower end people, so it uses crappy 1.0 for Intel integrated crapics, semi-crappy 1.1 for older GPU's, and shiny 2.0 for newer GPU's, if I remember correctly. Plus, give it one of the best modding communities in the world, add in a dash of SDK's, and you've got one hell of a sexy game. Let's not forget an awesome story.

:p

[Susquehannock]

^^^ - Blah, just ignore it. Statements like that are obvious flame bait. :rolleyes: