Which Card is the best for a RPG / RTS Type person?

[Tracert]

Star Craft, WarCraftII (soon to be III), AOE (all of em), etc.

Am I correct in saying that the most important aspect for these types of game is how well the card does with Direct 3D?

What would be the best card for these types of games? I want it to be fluid, smooth as silk, as I scroll accross the screen. No jitters or "sticky" areas. Also I want a pretty picture with lots of detail (dosen't everyone). Is there a card out there designed for gamers like me?

Getting lots of bang for my hard earned dollars is important to me (as you can tell by the system I have in the sig) also, so lets try to keep prices within reason.

[Soyo Boy]

I play all types of PC games, I own about 50 or 55 games for the PC. I have all the games you listed, except of course warcraft3. One thing you must consider is what type of RTS and RPG's youre going to be playing... A GeForce2 ti 500 will do you well. I run Empire Earth (a 3d RTS) clean with no frame drops with more than 80 units on screen at once. You said you play AOE... AOE is a 2d RTS, and the GeForce2 ti 500 will run that game clean and smooth... you can get GF2 ti 500's for less than 150 now, so there shouldnt be any reason why you cant get this awesome card :D

[Tracert]

I have noticed with these types of games, for instance with my Radeon VE, the driver support is not that great. One example is with AOE II, I was unable to play this game with any HW acceleration. I had to disable it completley or else it would lock.

Could this be because I am running Win2K? Also my daughters games wont run unless I do the same. It was really a let down to get this card but not be able to use the 3D capability because of driver / OS issues.

With the newest drivers posted at madonion, I am now able to play AOE with HW accelaration on but it is still not the smoothest. My daughters games still wont work w/o disabling HW Acc.

One more question, what type of DX support does that card have for my type of gaming?

[Soyo Boy]

Not to imply Nvidia has the best cards out there (i think they are!) they do have the best driver support. I am running WinXP Pro and havnt had any problems with my games. It wont be likely that youl encounter driver problems. WinXP Pro runs the same NT kernel as Win2k so if I'm not having problems, you shouldnt either. You cant go wrong with a Nvidia GeForce2 ti 500! If you have any other questions, just ask.

[slim_lim]

Well, actually I think you should use the same guidelines for buying a card for playing RPG/RTS as for playing FPS. The simple reason is that all types of games are going 3D nowadays - so you'll need the power to push those polygons. I'll make my case that to play fully 3D RTS you actually need more graphics power that for FPS. Why? Because you have to display so many individual 3d models (units, buildings, etc.) onscreen at the same time. Many more than in a typical FPS.
Sure you'll be able to play old 2D games like Starcraft or AOE II with any graphics card. They don't use 3D acceleration at all, so the CPU is the only factor affecting the performance.
But if you want to prepare for the future and make sure Warcraft III or whatnot runs nice and smooth when it comes out, then you'll need a shiny new 3D GFX card. Since you want your games to look as good as they play smooth, you may want to consider someting pretty powerful that can run FSAA at high-res while still maintaining a good framerate.
Personally, I'd be inclined to recommend the new GeForce4 Ti4200 for $200 or under when it ships in a month or so. If you're on a tighter budget, then a Geforce3 ti200 should do the job, but I wouldnt buy it until it drops in price some more to around $100.
Some people would recommend the new Radeon8500 for superior image quality. I'm not sure about that though. I never owned one, and there seems to be a number of people who totally hate Radeon equal to the people who adore it.

[Tracert]

So should I stay away from any of the GF2 varients (Including the so called GF4 MX's) because they lack support for Hardware DX8?

Do you guys see DX 8 as something important to have due to the RTS and RPG games reliance on DX?

[Pinky]

Besides everquest, I can't see why anyone needs directx8 with RPG.

[Soyo Boy]

i would suggest getting a card with good 3d quality. Later in the future, rpg's and rts's will be using lots more of 3d and if you dont get good one now, youl regret it. The 3dmark2001 benchmarking program shows you how important direct X is... becaues like i said, more games will be utilizing this feature.

[Tracert]

So Pinky,

You don't see DX8 as playing a big role in RPG & RTS anytime in the near future? Is that what your saying?

For example, if I go back to AOE II, this game uses DX 6 I thought quite heavily, but I may be wrong. I am trying to get a grasp on what I need to be looking for in a card for my type of usage and I am having a hard time doing this because of my unusuall taste in games.