Rip....

[Rafa 5.0]

my video card, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB. ****!!!!
with Ep 2 and Portal coming out in days, i'm really bummed out.

NEED SUGGESTIONS on new vid card, something of equal or greater performance, $200-$250 range. No PCI Express, my comp only has PCI slots

;(;(;(

Please and thank you.

 

[Operational]

No PCI Express, my comp only has PCI slots

Only PCI? Sure you don't have an AGP slot?

 

[soulslicer]

obviously, you have an agp slot.

what is your cpu?

 

[Rafa 5.0]

sorry for any confusion, yes I do have agp, just thought it was assumed.

AMD Athlon XP 2.2 GHz and running 1GB of RAM

 

[Asus]

Some AGP options:
X1950 Pro
HD 2600 XT
8600 GTS

 

[soulslicer]

you sure those won't be bottlenecked by his cpu?

 

[[Dragoon]]

I'm using a GeForce 7600GT, runs TF2 very well with most settings on high. So far I haven't had any trouble with mine, whereas I had trouble with my Radeon 9600 Pro almost constantly. They cost about half of your budget, too.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150233

 

[Laivasse]

When you say Athlon 2.2 Ghz I assume you mean it's like a 3200+ or something...? Not a 2.2Ghz equivalent, but an actual 2.2Ghz clock?

If that's the case then go for the Radeon x1950 AGP (and maybe some extra RAM and a new PSU). It will give your comp a whole new lease of life as a gaming rig, so you won't regret it (ATi's support for this card is piss poor atm, however, so beware). My CPU isn't much better than yours and I can't see much evidence of bottlenecking.

 

[Rafa 5.0]

you're right Laivasse, it's a 3200+ AMD Athlon 2.2GHz

I've been reading a lot into Powercolor's Radeon X1950 Pro AGP with the Artic Cooling Accelero 2 cooler, is this the one you have on your rig? Looks like it ouperforms some PCI-e cards! http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/powercolor_radeon_x1950_pro_agp_review/default.asp

Newegg doesn't seem to carry the AGP for this card, anyone have any links?

 

[Asus]

Directron has a powercolor x1950 pro AGP card.

 

[Laivasse]

The one I have is the HIS IceQ btw, 512Mb - I'm not sure which is superior out of this and the Powercolor. Like I say, your main problem is bad ATI drivers at the mo - if you're running XP, then installing the recent Catalyst 7.8's and 7.9's for this card runs the (very high) risk of making Windows fail to start.

Another potential problem is bottlenecking, but again, as I say, if I'm affected by it then it doesn't make enough difference for me to care. My friend has a Core2 Duo 6600 processor and an Nvidia 7600GS 512Mb (PCIe) - in Bioshock on high settings my old 3400+ system outperforms his by a country mile, thanks to the x1950.