I have some old cards, want to know what they can do

[Dan Derrig]

I have an
ATI Rage 128 Pro 32mb (which I like a lot)
TNT2 32mb
and a Trident 3D 8mb
All are for AGP, but I don't think there is anything good other than Half Life which will work on them. I'm having a LAN party, and I need to get something working for my friend, and these are my choices. We are mostly going to play Halo, Unreal Tournament, and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory(Quake 3 Arena engine). Are any of my cards capable of these games? As far as I know, none will run Halo.
The comp's specs are: 2.6ghz Celeron Northwood, 256mb DDR340, and any of those cards.
Otherwise, what's the cheapest thing I could buy to play all of those games? Is a Radeon 9000 a good replacement? What about a GeForce 2? How would a 9000 compare to the GeForce 2 I had once? ATM, I have $9, so I can't spend much. I need to wait until I get $15 more next week for allowance.

 

[ColdFusion]

Get an old Radeon 8500, or a geforce 3 if you can find one. The 9000 is basically an 8500 with half as many texture units, if I remember right. The geforce 2 is a directx 7.0 generation card, so you will want to avoid them as halo uses pixel shaders and such. I used to have a Radeon 8500, and it played each of those games fairly well, and it is only 30 bucks now.

 

[Dan Derrig]

well, I do think Fry's would have an 8500- probably seen it before.
Thanks,
Dan

EDIT : Can the 8500 run DX9? because if it can't, I might look at a 9200 or something. Maybe a 9000. I don't need preformance that much. I played Halo on a GeForce 2 for a year.

 

[flamerail]

You could snatch a nvidia 5500agp for like 60$ on newegg or something for him. Good cards! Run most modern games decently!

 

[>HyperlogiK<]

tnt2 will be capable of playing wolf et at low res, the rage 128 might at a pinch, especially if you manually edit the config files for max performance. ut should be fine on all except the trident, and halflife will run on a toaster or kettle so it should have any probs whatever card you use.

 

[ColdFusion]

Like I said, a 9000 is based on the 8500, as is the 9200, so they are both DX8.1 cards, and you should avoid any Radeon 9xxx card that is modeled less than 9500 since they are all just ripped up versions of the 8500. You COULD get a Geforce fx based card for 60 dollars, but you would be better off getting a geforce 6200 for that amount of money, as they can potentially unlock to a 6600 card. I would go with the 8500, they are listed for 33 dollars on pricewatch...you'll save money, it will play all of those games, and it is a classic.

 

[Enablingwolf]

For DX8 cards. 8500 or a Ti series card. DX9 the 6200. They all run around the same price range. Though the card flamerail mentioned is a good card for the PCI variant of a DX9 card.