On board graphics swap

[Sundance Kid]

OK. If you have anything at all to say about how I shouldn't have bought the PC, or how I need a real PC, go peddle yer papers, I don't want to hear it. I know how some members of this type of forum like to act like tough guy know-it-alls when someone has a PC they don't think is "good". I left the playyard years ago and I don't have the time to bark at you. If you have a constructive comment, I'd love to hear it; if you take the opportunity to try and be better than me because you have a better PC, I hope the fleas of a thousand camels infest your jockey shorts.

Now then. I have an onboard GeForce 4 MX. I'll be wanting to install an AGP card (yes I have the slot). I've done this before but never on a motherboard with onboard graphics. In the old days, I'd have a motherboard manual to tell me what jumpers to pull. Nowadays, I have no manual, I contacted HP and the say that simply disabling the onboard graphics under device manager in WinXP will do the trick. This seems way too easy to me.

I have an:
HP Pavilion a220n PC.
AMD Athlon XP (2.08 GHz)
120 GB hard drive
512 MB DDR SDRAM
48x cd-rom
Geforce4 MX 64 MB DDR memory
WinXP

Anyone have any other input on my video card swap? I used to build these PCs back when 8 mb of RAM was a big upgrade:D But recently I have stopped keeping up with new PC components because I just don't have the time and my money goes into things like aluminum cylinder heads for big block muscle cars nowadays.

As for the card itself, I tend to stick to what I know works...I have some other sims and games that I like to play now and then and I really don't want to have any issues playing them. That said, I'd like to stay with the GeForce line of video cards because I've never had a problem with them until now, and it's not the card's fault the game doesn't support it. Which card would you recommend? I don't want to spend 400 bucks on a graphics card, but neither do I want to have to buy another one next year.

Thanks in advance for the help

[thegrommit]

Normally you'd be able to disable the onboard video in the BIOS (or set the default video device to AGP). But as you have a HP (or any prebuilt), who knows what they've done.

Depending on your budget, you will get better value by switching to some flavour of Radeon. However, as you want to stick with a Geforce, my only advice is to NOT go with a 5200 or 5600.

[KingRat]

IIRC just installing an AGP card disables the onboard gfx...

[Sundance Kid]

Hmmm. I hope that just installing the card does it. I'm definitely disabling the device via device manager as well. Going into the BIOS doesn't bother me if I have to.

I'm going to look at the Radeon series, I'd be dumb not to. Are there any game titles that have issues with Radeon cards? What models?

[thegrommit]

The only games I know of that don't play well on Radeon cards are from Bioware - in particular Neverwinter Nights or the Infinity Engine games (Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale etc). Apparently Biowares' attitude is that they developed and tested on Nvidia hardware and it works, therefore it should work everywhere. :rolleyes:

As to which card to get, it depends on your budget. A 9600 Pro (~$150)or 9600XT (~$180) for the mid-range, or a 9800 Pro if you have a bit more cash ($~270).

You can find highly detailed reviews of these cards at Beyond3D:

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/index.php

Note that they've stopped doing direct comparisons between Nvidia and ATI due to various driver "optimisations" and differences in implementation of FSAA and AF.