Need help with upgrading my graphics card.

I'm not sure about ATI cards, but I ran GCII on a FX5500 256 for a while and it did a decent job. Could see everything, just a little slow down on larger maps. As far as your psu. Depending on how much stuff you have pulling from it, you might be ok. I would look into getting a better one though, because if you start taxing it hard it will die. Antec makes good ones, there's a few others, but I have only used Antec for the last few years.

For GC2, I'd recomment the Radeon. The GeForce FX series has poor AA and shader performance and can encounter stuttering and slowdown where a comparable Radeon would not.

I haven't seen ST:L myself but their posted requirements are a DX9 card with 128mb of RAM and Pixel Shader 1.4 support, which the Radeon does meet.

Personally I'd advise you to drop an extra $15 beyond the 9550 for a 9600XT (very important to get the XT, not any other sub-model). The 9600XT has double the fillrate, and is a pretty decent budget card even now. I just finally replaced one myself a couple of months ago.

Thank you for the quick reply.

So you could see the textures and everything and it ran decent? I have a 100 dollar limit. Well, I'm not likely to replace my psu. *pout* Well, my system is 3 years old and I haven't upgraded anything so the psu should be fine. I have a dvd drive, cd burner, 6-in-1 card reader and a 120GB HD in addition to the above specs.

I'm also running the latest drivers for my GeForce card (forceware 93.71).

Does any one have the new Star Trek game? I'm hoping to get that too, but I want to get a card taht will run that as well.

Or should I just wait from 7 months to 19 months to get a new computer build for gaming? The hundred dollars would go to that instead.

Th 9600XT? I'll have to ask the place I was going to order it from. I can't order it online myself because I don't have a credit card. I also have to worry about the psu. I don't want to have to connect psu directly to the graphics card. I'm installing it myself.

Th 9600XT? I'll have to ask the place I was going to order it from. I can't order it online myself because I don't have a credit card. I also have to worry about the psu. I don't want to have to connect psu directly to the graphics card. I'm installing it myself.

If you have or can get a PayPal account, I believe Newegg will accept PayPal payments, and they have 9600XT's for ~$65. That's as far as you can go without needing a dedicated power connection for the card--both the 9800PRO (~$80) and the X1300 (~$90, but they have rebates right now) need more juice than they can get from the AGP slot alone.

I wall ask at the local store, because I don't want to give paypal my bank account information. Thank you. I hope to order it from them this weekend.

Do you have a pci-e slot? if not your kinda of limited in the cards you can buy, their starting get away from AGP.

Does any one have the new Star Trek game? I'm hoping to get that too, but I want to get a card taht will run that as well.

also there is a awsome star trek mod for GCII and Dark Avatar, but its huge like 1.3GB if you have the bandwidth its well worth it!

http://s31clan.com/stmod/index.php

I also have to worry about the psu. I don't want to have to connect psu directly to the graphics card. I'm installing it myself.

You should not have to worry too much about the power supply. AGP cards should not need a direct connection to it like many of the PCI-e cards.

Yeah, my computer is three years old and doesn't have a pci-e slot. Sadly I only have dialup so downloading that isn't an option. I don't think I can wait for a new computer. I just hope I can get a good card.

AGP cards should not need a direct connection to it like many of the PCI-e cards.

I'm running a 6800 O.C. AGP card and it has the four pin connector to the power supply and requires a 300w or more PSU, I believe my friends 7800 AGP has one as well. It's just the upper line of them most likely though, and an aging one as they become extinct.

Extinct... I better order that card Saturday.

Does the 9600XT come in 256MBs? All I see is it as 128MBs online.

Extinct... I better order that card Saturday.

They'll be around a little longer just,I think we're seeing the last of the new AGP cards coming out.

Does the 9600XT come in 256MBs? All I see is it as 128MBs online.

There are a couple of 256MB models here you can look for.

I'm playing GalCiv2 on an older machine (4 yrs.?) and it runs beautifully with these specs... AMD T-Bird 1.0 Ghz, 512 mb RAM, and an ATI 9550 128 mb vid. card, running Win XP Professional. All the textures are there and it looks and runs great, but I have AA turned off, but doesn't matter, still looks and runs very well. Take Kyro's advice and move up to a better card as he suggests, the 9600XT or even go for the 9800Pro if you can afford it. The bottleneck on my system seems to be the (ancient)cpu in my case. I just play on medium size maps with no problems.

Im runnin a ATI 9600 pro... Works great...No probs with gigantic maps...

I use a Sapphire Radeon 9550 (not sure of version now) 256MB. It's a downclocked 9600! All I had to do was flash the card with the 9600 firmware and I had a Sapphire Radeon 9600. And it was really cheap (UK) earlier this year when I bought it and runs GC2 at 1440x900 (widescreen) with all graphics features on. It might go higher res but that's all my monitor can handle.

I think I can dig out instructions for the firmware flashing procedure if you want to go that route. (Though google is your friend).


Reading Borg35's reply makes me pretty sure it's a 9600 Pro.


Edit - and it's AGP.

Edit2 - just read Kryo's post re 9600XT. I'd say believe him - he knows what he's talking about!

Edit3 - re the PSU - when I bought my 9550 (UK) i could easily have got a new 500W PSU as well for less than $100 ... and prices have dropped since then (in the UK anyway).

I ordered the Sapphire Radeon 9550 256MBs AGP today. The guy at the store coldn't order the 9600XT for me. *pout* He said my card will come in in a few days. I'm hoping it comes in by Wednesday, so I can install it on Thursday, but probably not. I can't wait, I'm so excited.

What's the AA?

I'm probably not going to get a new power supply. I was hoping to get a new computer at the end of next summer, but that is not looking good at the moment. I'm not willing to upgrade anything else, maybe the system RAM. But not until I'm sure I'm not getting a new computer next year.

I'll see how it runs first and then look in on the fireware option.

Have you tried your card with the new Star Trek game?

AA is alcoholics anonymous....j/k
It's actually Anti-Aliasing, basically where the video card renders each frame more than once and combines the renders together to get a smoother final frame that is displayed. (it actually has to do with signal processing, but that could take a while to explain, that was just the short and easy version)

You won't have to worry about a PSU, even if it is only 250W they power consumption on you system doesn't sound like too much and the 5550 won't cause any problems. I have a 325W system and I have 3 hard drives, an x1600xt, sound card, modem, wireless card, several case fans, cool case lights, and a AMD 4000+ SD core, with no problems.

I hope you end up getting a new computer, that’s always exciting. In the mean time the 5550 should work just fine, however, I don’t know how it will work for Legacy.

lol. Thank you. I'll have to check to see if the AA is off in the game next time I play. I can't wait for the ATI card. I already downloaded the latest drivers for it (35MBs on dialup). It's been a while since I've had a computer with one of their cards. My last ATI card was an All-In-Wonder.

I'm tempted to try to get a new computer with an All-In-Wonder, but I really want my next computer to be a gaming computer. If I go with an ATI card on a new computer I can always get a tv card added to it. I can't wait to start asking what people would suggest when I get around to seriously considering a new computer.

Can't wait to see textures on ships.