Looking For A New Budget Video Card For Old Comp

[AngelzUnit]

Currently, the one I have is

Nvidia Riva TNT2 Model64

Well, that's what it says under the device manager.

What I'd like to know is what kind of video cards should I be looking for. I don't want to spend much at all. I think there has to be better ones than the one I currently have for a cheap price.

I don't know if the computer can use pci or agp or whatever else there are because I lost the manual for it years ago. I would think pci would work because under properties of the video card it says...

Location: PCI Bus 1, device 0, function 0

...whatever that means.

I have think I got the serial number and stuff on the back of the computer, any of that information can be used to find out what I can upgrade it with?

[KazeCloud]

So do you have an agp slot, a pci slot, or a pci-express slot?

[Spitfire]

I'm fairly certain that the TNT2 is AGP. If you only have PCI then your upgrade possibilities are quite limited.

Any on this page will be better than what you have!

[KazeCloud]

Pci graphics card are like...10 years outdated. I really suggest you get a new computer. Any cheap computers would be better than the pci card your going to buy.

[FrogMan]

The only place to find a PCI graphics card would be in a junk mail/second hand type newspaper and even AGP would be hard to get and even if you do find it might have problems depending whether ur board was agp*4 or agp*8

[Spitfire]

The ~ $168 pent 4 3.0ghz comp i got off ebay even has PCI Express, so there are plenty of cheap comps out there if you only have PCI and not AGP +

[Mushroomhead18nc]

i would recomend a radeon X1300.. plays most games and its decent for a PCI only bus.. its around 130bucks

[AngelzUnit]

Yea, from the pictures posted my Kaze, it's for sure normal PCI card.

I'm going to surf around and see if I can find a site that can show the upgrade options I have available.

Currently it has only 256 ram, 2x 128mb sticks, but I don't want to buy like 1 gig of ram and then find out it can't even use that much. Only have 2 slots so I guess 2x512 will do.

I have a screen shot of a program that shows some of my computer specs. I think I still got it uploaded one one of those image hosting sites. I'll look into it and post it here if I find it.


Here it is http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/k...elzUnit/11.jpg




Here is three that I've found. Don't really want to go more expensive that $50.00 CDN really, I want it just to last for maybe one more year until my 2 sisters start high school, then I'll look into buying a newer one.

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...acture=Diamond

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...nufacture=eVGA

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...nufacture=eVGA

I'll check around a few more sites later today, not really lots of time right now to really get into it.

[AngelzUnit]

Actually, I settled for buying a brand new budget pc.

eBay Store - LU COMPUTERS INC: Special Sale, Intel Pentium 4 PC, AMD AM2 Computers

Looking for one from the above link. That store is very close to em distance wise, I'd be able to pick up myself, saving shipping, and they a got payment plans I can choose.

I'll be looking to spend ~$200-$300. Which one's here would some of you recommend? Is it worth buying a barebone one and buying the harddrive and/or ram separate?


For my old comp, I'll be able to downgrade it to maybe windows 98, since I'll have XP on the new one. With the 256 ram on the old one, win98 should run alot faster than it currently does with XP right?

[KazeCloud]

Well for that budget, its hard to make your own. But $300 will be better than your computer for sure. It will probably come with an integrated video card in the motherboard.

[AngelzUnit]

Originally Posted by KazeCloud

Well for that budget, its hard to make your own. $300 dollars will be better than your computer for sure. It will probably come with an integrated video card in the motherboard.

I guess if it's integrated that means I can't change it later? I guess that might be a problem later on, I wonder how bad are the video cards that come with them then? Well, it says that I can upgrade them when I purchase it, maybe I should ask them for a decent one from the start so maybe I wouldn't have to change it later...

[Mushroomhead18nc]

if your computer is old then its most likely running on a PCI-bus type.. i know my computer has 3 slots for a graphics.. it just depends.. open your computer up and see if you can change out ur card first so u know what ur gettin urself into if u have more than one slot.. u can keep ur old one in there incase this new ever decides to crap out.. ya know

[Spitfire]

Originally Posted by AngelzUnit

I guess if it's integrated that means I can't change it later? I guess that might be a problem later on, I wonder how bad are the video cards that come with them then? Well, it says that I can upgrade them when I purchase it, maybe I should ask them for a decent one from the start so maybe I wouldn't have to change it later...

Motherboards with integrated video cards still come with the agp slots etc normally. Just install your normal vid card into it and disable the inbuilt one in the bios.

[KazeCloud]

Originally Posted by Spitfire

Motherboards with integrated video cards still come with the agp slots etc normally. Just install your normal vid card into it and disable the inbuilt one in the bios.

Thats right. And Agp cards can usually allow you to play up to the lowest setting of Wow.

[SpoonMan999]

Originally Posted by Spitfire

Motherboards with integrated video cards still come with the agp slots etc normally. Just install your normal vid card into it and disable the inbuilt one in the bios.

Actually, you don't even need to disable it manually . Your new card will override the integrated card automatically.

[KazeCloud]

Originally Posted by SpoonMan999

Actually, you don't even need to disable it manually . Your new card will override the integrated card automatically.

Well you plug the monitor into the new card. Lol.

[SpoonMan999]

Well, it wont work in the old slot anyway once the new card takes over. So, that's kind of a given.

[Mushroomhead18nc]

Originally Posted by AngelzUnit

I guess if it's integrated that means I can't change it later? I guess that might be a problem later on, I wonder how bad are the video cards that come with them then? Well, it says that I can upgrade them when I purchase it, maybe I should ask them for a decent one from the start so maybe I wouldn't have to change it later...

yeah for example.. mine is integrated but also i Have to other slots.. so when i upgrade mine I have to buy a new video card and sound card.. because as of now i own a dell dimension 3000.. and its sound card is tied in with the on board graphics card... i also have a PCI type.. I upgraded my computer with 2 sticks of 512mb ram and it has really helped.. just dont upgrade to vista.. because vista needs atleast 1gb to run smoothly so if its using all ur ram to run then u have none left over for your programs.. its about the same to build ur pc as it is to buy a new one.. unless u look into buying a new hardcore one.. which is on avg around 800-1200 U.S. dollars..

[SpoonMan999]

Originally Posted by Mushroomhead18nc

yeah for example.. mine is integrated but also i Have to other slots.. so when i upgrade mine I have to buy a new video card and sound card.. because as of now i own a dell dimension 3000.. and its sound card is tied in with the on board graphics card... i also have a PCI type.. I upgraded my computer with 2 sticks of 512mb ram and it has really helped.. just dont upgrade to vista.. because vista needs atleast 1gb to run smoothly so if its using all ur ram to run then u have none left over for your programs.. its about the same to build ur pc as it is to buy a new one.. unless u look into buying a new hardcore one.. which is on avg around 800-1200 U.S. dollars..

A "hardcore" system costs waaaaay more than that. $1200 would buy you a decent system.

Your onboard audio is not a part of your on board video, so buying a new video card will not force you to buy a new sound card as well. Also, Vista will run off of 512MB of RAM you just have to disable Aero, so you may as well just get Home Basic edition. Eitherway though as a gamer you shouldn't get Vista unless you get a DX10 card, just not worth it for us without it in my opinion.