Need Some Advice
 

Well,
I'm on the brink of finishing the construction of my new gameing PC. But I'm down to one last item, which video card should I get. I need it to support OpenGL fairly well and also it needs to be 2D/3D. I have an AGP mother board, it really just needs to run Half-Life, and Team Fortress 2 whenever that comes out, and also I need it to be efficient for 6 months. I was looking at the Viper v770 but it's a touch out of my price range. Any suggestions I would really aprreciate, thanks.

Pemikiran

In a way you might get by with a good old voodoo 2 if you want to stay with a real cheap card with good performance, but they don't offer high res unless you link them with another one. You might go with a lower model voodoo 3 card also, they are going fairly cheap. I Don't know if the TNT2 card would fit the bill but they are pretty low price. It's a drag you have to limit the cost, I always like to buy one that will last for at least 2 generations of video cards and games as I feel I save money in the long run that way so I went with the Matrox G400max, it runs very well with this athlon 600mhz as it was thought to do and I can get along with it till a geforce 4 comes out at least. It's screen quality was also a huge factor in getting that card. At least you know what you want to support so half your battle is over, now to find the best deal you can which can be just as hard and I wish you luck. If you can wait till after X-mas you might find a lot better cards cheaper like a TNT2 Ultra video card but if your in a hurry I guess you may have to settle for less.. Look around as much as you can for deals and sales. Sorry I couldn't be more specific, it can be kind of a personal choice in the end as you know what your going to do with your computer better than anyone so do as much independant research and go with your own choice after you get the best independant facts about the card. I find it's the best way as everyone, even me are biased about their choice of video cards because it suits what they want their computer to do and not what you need in one.
Good hunting..
billcat

Dear Buget Minded Gamer, (hehe)

I had the same friggin problem a month ago, I would suggest you find about 3 cards which suit you needs lets say TNT2, V3, And Savage 4...so where gonna be in the $100 range no matter what. The TNT2 has got speed, but will you be able to find a good one for that price? Savage 4 is good, but is it fast enough? and V3 is fast but does it have enough features? Well I would probably go with the Savage just because of features. Your best bet is to compare prices on pricewatch.com. Good Luck Man.

BTW, I ended up with a V3 300 I got it for $105, it had enough power to satisfy me and it feeds beautiful 2d to my 17. But I still want 32bit in Games ;P

[This message has been edited by halifax (edited 12-13-1999).]

You could try lookin at the TNT2 m64 it is basd on the tnt2 chipset but is scaled down slightly ....so is the price but the good thing is that it still has 32mb onboard memory same as the TnT2 ultra,i dont know how much they are going for in the Us but over here in the uk they are about £60 which for uk prices is excellent . Im gonna buy one next week hehe