Looking at a new Video Card

[Jivin Gerbil]

Howdy,

I am looking at a new video card for my system and i am currently looking at the ATI Rage Fury Pro 32 meg AGP with TV Out/Video Capture/hardware DVD + 1 year warranty for $265. The lowdown on my situation is this:

I am going to buy a DVDrom but i dont want to have to fork out on a Decoder Card.

I play games (Half-Life,UT,Tribes,Q3A) and i hope to play the likes of Halo and Tribes2

My current system is a PIII 450, Voodoo Banshee PCI, 128meg pc133ram, Asus p3bf mb.

I am not interested in the latest and greatest of video performance, because i have put up with my banshee and 20fps in H-L for ages, but i would like good DVD and support for my current games and future ones.

Can someone please help me decide whethere this card suits me for its price??
thanks buds
-JG

[Szech]

Oh my that's a pretty penny. Anyway, if you're that opposed to not getting a decoder card, you might also want to check out the Viper II. There's a review right here at Sysopt that you can check out, and it doesn't look like you're going to be using the video capture anyway. Otherwise, I would really urge you to go for a Geforce DDR and decoder card. That's a bit less, and it'll be a gaming demon.

[Dputiger]

I'm going to second that. I've seen Creative's DVD players with decoder cards for around 120 bucks on Pricewatch. You could get a GeForce SDR for the same price--and for 240 bucks get a much better video card and come in under your price range.

Personally, I'd pay a little more for the DDR version, but its up to you. Even the SDR will smoke that Banshee.

[Jivin Gerbil]

oh sorry, i neglected to mention that i am an aussie http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

so i meant 265 aussie dollars which is about 150 in the us atm?

so does the ViperII have onboard DVD Decoding like the rage fury pro?

[drn]

if you are looking for good dvd play back the ati card will work but with that cpu you will not need the hardware as most of them run without it on a good cpu i have been running dvd for more than a year now and used all kinds of cards with it as well as cpu as long as you have 400 mhz or faster get power dvd and it will run great for you i am sure of it even with your voodoo i used voodoo banshee for 8 months without a problam

[wtp]

if you game, but not hardcore, then that ATi should do you. But, if you decide to game hardcore, then you can go for a Geforce, and just get a seperate decoder.

wtp

[This message has been edited by wtp (edited 07-19-2000).]

[lost1]

The Viper 2 does have hardware accelerated DVD playback, as well as TV-out.
http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif