   Graphics Card
  I'm looking to get a graphics card soon and i've been looking around. My computer unfortunatley only has pci slots available and i'm working on not a lot of cash. I found a few that i'd like to know, if from a programmers perspective, were any good.- GeForce Fx 5200 256MB- GeForce 6200oc 256MB- Radeon 9250 256MBIs NVidia the way to go or Ati? Is the 6200 overclocked one ok? Any other recommendations? Thank you.   
  From a programmer's perspective, you might go for the top-of-the-line because you want to play with all the features. On the other hand, you might want to go with the low-end to ensure that your code will run on most of the video cards out there. Or from a different programmer's perspective, you might consider spending you money on a new motherboard instead.Anyway, what does this have to do with programming?;  I'm a big fan of GeoForce cards, so I'd go with one of those.  Right now I only have a PCI Express GeoForce 6800 GT.  It works good, but I bought it for like twice the price it is now.  I recommend not getting the top of the line, but rather the next best thing.  Middle of the road, unless you are a big PC gamer.   ;Quote:Original post by klayAlloyI'm looking to get a graphics card soon and i've been looking around. My computer unfortunatley only has pci slots available and i'm working on not a lot of cash. I found a few that i'd like to know, if from a programmers perspective, were any good.- GeForce Fx 5200 256MB- GeForce 6200oc 256MB- Radeon 9250 256MBIs NVidia the way to go or Ati? Is the 6200 overclocked one ok? Any other recommendations? Thank you.the fx series (5xxx) is complete trash. the 6200 is decent for low end card and supports sm3/dx9. the radeon 9250 is pretty outdated now(dx8). i'm not sure which ati cards are on the same level as the geforce 6200/7300. possibly the x1300 cards. as far as "ati vs nvidia", they both make good cards and it usually comes down to personal prefence. be wary of fanboys promoting their favorite brand.   ;  PCI is a bit of an old dog unforunately, but I feel your pain as my last PC had a non-functional AGP slot and I ended up funning a PCI 5200 myself for awhile. In nVidia's camp theres the 6200 you mention, as well as the 5200 and its various overclocks such as the 5250 or 5500s some manufacturers offer. ATI's last PCI card is the 9250 you mentioned.Feature wise, the 6200 supports DirectX 9.0c with SM 3.0 however all 6200 based cards only support 64bit memory busses which may hamper performance. Some higher-end models of the PCI 5200 and its overclocked ilk are available with 128bit memory busses (such as the one I have) and may actually have more memory bandwidth than the 6200s, though wether this will be a performance gain depends on  whether the game is more bandwidth bound or shader bound. These will support DirectX 9 and Shader Model 2.0. As far as image quality is concerned, the 6200 is much superior to the 5xxx line.ATI's best offering, the 9250 is only a directX 8 card with a fixed-function pipeline while all modern game engines have moved to non-fixed function piplines, though they may support fall-backs for fixed function hardware. Given that the 9250 doesn't even support the current minimum feature set for current game engines, its a poor choice for development going forward and it won't allow you to play with the cool new shader technologies at all.   ;  This isn't about programming, I'm going to put it in the Lounge.   ;Quote:Original post by gumpy macdrunkenQuote:Original post by klayAlloyI'm looking to get a graphics card soon and i've been looking around. My computer unfortunatley only has pci slots available and i'm working on not a lot of cash. I found a few that i'd like to know, if from a programmers perspective, were any good.- GeForce Fx 5200 256MB- GeForce 6200oc 256MB- Radeon 9250 256MBIs NVidia the way to go or Ati? Is the 6200 overclocked one ok? Any other recommendations? Thank you.the fx series (5xxx) is complete trash. the 6200 is decent for low end card and supports sm3/dx9. the radeon 9250 is pretty outdated now(dx8). i'm not sure which ati cards are on the same level as the geforce 6200/7300. possibly the x1300 cards. as far as "ati vs nvidia", they both make good cards and it usually comes down to personal prefence. be wary of fanboys promoting their favorite brand.i agree, get a 6200/7300/x1300.  you get most of the little features to play with, even if they don't run at lightning speeds.   ;Quote:Original post by HelplessFoolQuote:Original post by gumpy macdrunkenQuote:Original post by klayAlloyI'm looking to get a graphics card soon and i've been looking around. My computer unfortunatley only has pci slots available and i'm working on not a lot of cash. I found a few that i'd like to know, if from a programmers perspective, were any good.- GeForce Fx 5200 256MB- GeForce 6200oc 256MB- Radeon 9250 256MBIs NVidia the way to go or Ati? Is the 6200 overclocked one ok? Any other recommendations? Thank you.the fx series (5xxx) is complete trash. the 6200 is decent for low end card and supports sm3/dx9. the radeon 9250 is pretty outdated now(dx8). i'm not sure which ati cards are on the same level as the geforce 6200/7300. possibly the x1300 cards. as far as "ati vs nvidia", they both make good cards and it usually comes down to personal prefence. be wary of fanboys promoting their favorite brand.i agree, get a 6200/7300/x1300.  you get most of the little features to play with, even if they don't run at lightning speeds.i totally spaced the pci part. i seriously doubt you'll find a pci version of the newer cards. i'm amazed that there's even a pci 6200.   ;  BTW, how about the performance of ATI RADEON 9550 (not 9250) compare to the nVIDIA GForce 6200 (both AGP version)? Which one would have better performance?http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/howToGetItTab.do?c=1&zip=94132&oid=109712&userClick=&showMoreStores=true&originURLEncoded=For $89.99The neweggs.com also has the GForce 6200 AGP (128MB) for $50 shipped (in CA)   ;  The 6200 would stomp the 9550 in pretty much every category, by virtue of being produced at least two years later. The 6200 is probably your best bet here.The 9250 is absolutely not acceptable, and should've been reduced to an integrated graphics chipset three years ago. Ditto for the FX5200.   