Sundance Kid
01-03-2004, 02:41 PM
Well, I went and bought a GeForce 5700 FX Ultra 128 MB AGP card. I did a lot of thinking about it first, and I came to the conclusion that I wasn't buying it just for DEIW, so I went ahead and spent the money.
I was a little apprehensive about the whole thing, because even though I knew I had an 8X AGP slot, I also have an onboard GeForce 4 MX. I like to yank jumpers off the mobo for that sort of thing and I didn't know if it even had any for the GeForce 4 MX.
First, I went into the BIOS and chose "AGP/PCI" for display instead of "auto". Then I disabled the onboard nVidia device and drivers from Device Manager. I then deleted my display drivers using "add/delete software". Then I powered down, and installed the card.
Installing the card was a breeze. The card package I got (It's an Asylum brand, never heard of it but then again I haven't heard of most things) has included with it a VGA adapter for the digital output plug, and a "Y" cable for the required hard drive power cable. I had an extra "dongle" -at least that's what I think somebody called it, I'd call it a power plug, but whatever- for my slave hard drive (which I disconnected after pulling my old files off it) but the darned thing was about a half inch away from the card plug socket and it wouldn't reach, so it was nice to have the Y cable after all! It would seem to me that it pays to have a high watt power supply for this card. The card also has it's own cooling fan, with a nice heat sink, it looks like it's CNC'd. Very nice package with all you need to install the card. I was impressed because I don't expect much from the manufacturer, but this was a nice kit.
New drivers installed quickly, and that was that. I checked out some other games I have first, before Deus Ex IW.
Freelancer was the first I grabbed. It's a pretty game, but I got bored with it. I must say, I was disappointed with this one and the new card. I should uninstall the game and then reinstall it and see if that helps. I was dropping frames, whereas with my old Geforce4 MX it was smooth as silk. Odd. I am currently blaming MS for any problems with the game. ;)
Mafia was next. Turned all the options for graphics all the way up. Mafia is a bit of a memory hog. I noticed some small hiccups but then I always had before too with everything all the way up graphics wise. I turned shadows down and it was glass-smooth even with the maximum draw distance.
Hidden and Dangerous 2 was next. Ran great. I had some cutscene stuttering with my old card, but otherwise it was perfect. Now it's perfect with no cutscene troubles.
Next at bat, an old title, Vampire, the masquerade: Redemption. I used to love this game, but on my new PC it would never run well even though it far exceeds the requirements in every single area. Now it runs better than ever, with 5 shadows per character, vertex lighting, blah blah blibbity blah.
Deus Ex IW was next...it was rather anti-climactic actually. It just worked, no surprises. At 1028x720 it was a wee bit choppy sometimes, at 800x600 it seems rock solid. I spent ten minutes throwing a basketball at that security guard and laughing:) My roomate thinks I've developed an aneurysm. I have done nothing but install the game, I haven't tweaked anything yet.
I have yet to check other games but I don't expect trouble. I may look into drivers for the AGP mini port as suggested in the manual for the card but it doesn't seem critical.
I checked my system before and after the swap. Before, I had 512 MB RAM installed and about 230 available at best. Now I have 330+ available. Very nice.
The machine is a Pavilion a220n, 2.08 GHz Athlon, 512 MB DDR SDRAM, Win XP, and some crummy audio card or other (I have a SB audigy here waiting for me to get off my butt and install it, maybe tomorrow), and now with the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra. The system seems very nice now.
Thanks to all who took the time to help me out.
I was a little apprehensive about the whole thing, because even though I knew I had an 8X AGP slot, I also have an onboard GeForce 4 MX. I like to yank jumpers off the mobo for that sort of thing and I didn't know if it even had any for the GeForce 4 MX.
First, I went into the BIOS and chose "AGP/PCI" for display instead of "auto". Then I disabled the onboard nVidia device and drivers from Device Manager. I then deleted my display drivers using "add/delete software". Then I powered down, and installed the card.
Installing the card was a breeze. The card package I got (It's an Asylum brand, never heard of it but then again I haven't heard of most things) has included with it a VGA adapter for the digital output plug, and a "Y" cable for the required hard drive power cable. I had an extra "dongle" -at least that's what I think somebody called it, I'd call it a power plug, but whatever- for my slave hard drive (which I disconnected after pulling my old files off it) but the darned thing was about a half inch away from the card plug socket and it wouldn't reach, so it was nice to have the Y cable after all! It would seem to me that it pays to have a high watt power supply for this card. The card also has it's own cooling fan, with a nice heat sink, it looks like it's CNC'd. Very nice package with all you need to install the card. I was impressed because I don't expect much from the manufacturer, but this was a nice kit.
New drivers installed quickly, and that was that. I checked out some other games I have first, before Deus Ex IW.
Freelancer was the first I grabbed. It's a pretty game, but I got bored with it. I must say, I was disappointed with this one and the new card. I should uninstall the game and then reinstall it and see if that helps. I was dropping frames, whereas with my old Geforce4 MX it was smooth as silk. Odd. I am currently blaming MS for any problems with the game. ;)
Mafia was next. Turned all the options for graphics all the way up. Mafia is a bit of a memory hog. I noticed some small hiccups but then I always had before too with everything all the way up graphics wise. I turned shadows down and it was glass-smooth even with the maximum draw distance.
Hidden and Dangerous 2 was next. Ran great. I had some cutscene stuttering with my old card, but otherwise it was perfect. Now it's perfect with no cutscene troubles.
Next at bat, an old title, Vampire, the masquerade: Redemption. I used to love this game, but on my new PC it would never run well even though it far exceeds the requirements in every single area. Now it runs better than ever, with 5 shadows per character, vertex lighting, blah blah blibbity blah.
Deus Ex IW was next...it was rather anti-climactic actually. It just worked, no surprises. At 1028x720 it was a wee bit choppy sometimes, at 800x600 it seems rock solid. I spent ten minutes throwing a basketball at that security guard and laughing:) My roomate thinks I've developed an aneurysm. I have done nothing but install the game, I haven't tweaked anything yet.
I have yet to check other games but I don't expect trouble. I may look into drivers for the AGP mini port as suggested in the manual for the card but it doesn't seem critical.
I checked my system before and after the swap. Before, I had 512 MB RAM installed and about 230 available at best. Now I have 330+ available. Very nice.
The machine is a Pavilion a220n, 2.08 GHz Athlon, 512 MB DDR SDRAM, Win XP, and some crummy audio card or other (I have a SB audigy here waiting for me to get off my butt and install it, maybe tomorrow), and now with the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra. The system seems very nice now.
Thanks to all who took the time to help me out.