Sketch - I really hope you're happy with your 5200. Because unless you are exceptionally happy, you just wasted whatever cash you flopped out for it. :P

Look, the GF3 Ti was the top of the range DX8 3rd generation part. The 5200 is the bottom of the DX9 range - (4th gen) and when they say "DX9" - it's meant, as in "It's DX9 compatible, but it is inconceivable to activate any of it".

In many ways, the GF3 is probably a better card. The only speed increase you will see will be in games that utilise more texture memory than the old GF3 was capable of holding. (AGP bus accesses to main memory are suicide for frame rates)

In general, you should utterly avoid any and EVERY nVidia card right now - UNLESS IT FELL OFF THE BACK OF A TRUCK. In other words: the performance bites for the price compared to ATI.

You bought well with your GF3 - no doubt about it - they were great cards - just like the R8500 it competed against.

Sadly, none of nVidia's current offerings come close to the better-priced ATI offerings. When ATI say "DX9" they really mean it. Playable frame rates. Also, ATI's Anti-Aliasing and Anistropic filtering is faster.

Your best bet would have been an ATI 9500 128MB, or the replacament part, the 9600 (if unavailable).

You think cards are expensive where you are? Well, an ATI 9800 Pro 128MB card here is $1180 including tax. Hell, I paid $800 for a Matrox G400 and $900 for an R8500. *sigh*where to buy abortion pill abortion types buy abortion pill online

Well, again, I'm very happy with this card. It might not be the greatest card in the world compared with others, but it gets the job done and is in my price range. Keep in mind I'm in college right now, so I can't just go out and buy a $1000 video card. I've already lost an arm and a leg with tuition cost. *hops around on one leg*
I've learned to be happy with what I can get.

I think that Sketch has made a good choice in video cards. Like Kia_puridy has said. She had suggested it as a alternative. I agree with both of them on this. You don't need to rag on him.

LOL, NIK!

...do those even exist? O_o

Nikster Wrote:Yeah...the 5200 was Atari's follow up to the 2600. It was essentially an Atari 400 computer modified to just play games, if I remember correctly. It was supposed to compete with the Colecovision et all. Buuuuuut, in the usual Atari fashion, more stuff was PROMISED for the 5200 than was actually ever released, so it never really went anywhere

<geek>Yea, the two main downfalls for the Atari 5200 was bad controller
design and the original promise to play 2600 games (Later they developed an adaptor
to play it for an additional $100) and even then, people thought playing 2600
games on a 5200 would improve the graphics. Oh well, the 7800 was better anyway
</geek>