Which graphics card can you recommend?

[jester]

My problem is that when working with large (60 MB and more) files either with Photoshop or with Painter my system crashes regularly. I have a PIII 500 MHz (Intel), 512 MB RAM and plenty of disk-space for swapping. Anyway, I "just" have a Matrox G400 with 32 MB RAM and I think that this is the main reason for my instable system when working on graphics.

Most articles I have read on graphics card deal with their performance when gaming (especially 3d). Since I'm no gamer, I do not need this. Is anybody here who can tell me which benchmarks are important for my type of usage?

Thanks!

ester

[Jason Manley]

get at least a gforce 3....I use a gforce 4 and it works well too.


nvidia is the company that makes em.

good stuff maynard.


j

[Ryaken]

Aye.. The two big boys on the block when it comes to graphics cards(consumer not professional) are Nvidia, who make the GeForce cards, and ATI who are famous for the Radeons. Matrox has pretty good cards, but are have been few steps behind the big boys on performance since the late 90's.:funny:
Anyway, for 2D purposes such as photoshop either the GeForce 4 or the Radeon 8500 will work just fine and give you some killer performance.. I personally would recommend the Nvidia like Jason has suggested because they are very good about keeping things simple, clean, and effiecient. Plus, I sometimes find little funny quarks with the Radeons. On the other side, though the GeForce cards are a tade bit faster they are also a tade more expensive.:smirk:

Good luck my brotha

[chris]

dont buy one yet... give the market a little while longer. i cant remember when its coming out, but ati is supposed to be coming out with a new card that will kill the current nvidia cards.

chris

[espaki]

I think it might be out already. The card that is going to beat nvidia is the ATI Radeon 9700. go to http://www.ati.com to get the latest info and then go to http://www.pricewatch.com to buy it.

-Nate

[jester]

Thanks for your input! To think that my system is already a bit dated makes me sick. I'm working with PCs since 1988 and it's every 5 years I have to buy a new system - absolutely annoying. The current system was bought in the summer of 99 - so it has to last some two more years!

Jester

:flamig:

[Fozzybar]

jester, it's definitively not the less performance of your graphic-card. My system is slower than yours (P2 400 MHZ, 512 MB RAM) and I've got a Riva TNT with only 16 MB.

But it never crashed in PS or Painter...and i am working with files with more than 200 MB...

As far as I know, the performance of all current graphic-cards in the 2D-sector is the same, just differing in 3D-speed, except a few cards made specially for 2D...

[nil]

if your system has become unstable, try downloading the latest drivers your video card before you try anything else, its easy, and it costs a whole lot less than buying a new video card :p

[jester]

Seems that it WAS a driver problem - have just downloaded the latest from Matrox and installed them. Up to know, even PS seems to run nicely.

I should have tried that myself... am only using PCs for round about 14 years now... :|

Thanks to all of you for your help!

:)

Jester

[gekitsu]

yep, fozzy and nil are right.
all these new and fance gfx cards like geforces and such are mainly here for taking weight off the cpu#s shoulders in certain applications that support it.
a geforce gpu for example can compute all the architecture of 3d stuff itself. the cpu doesn't need to have additional work and can be used for something else.
this, however, is mainly here for games.
like: the gfx card can compute architecture plus texturize it, so there's more cpu power for things like movement, artificial intelligence, sound and so on...

for 2d, you basically just need something that puts the data your cpu spits out to your monitor. nothing more.
everything that is used for painter or photoshop isn't of that type that can be computed in a special supporting gpu like geforces, radeons, parhelias and so on.
it's just cpu speed, amount of ram, speed of harddrive and a stable & well-working OS with drivers that don't have trouble with each other.

just to clean things up :)

[jester]

You all saved me from spending much money on unnecessary equipment. Still considering changing my OS although the new driver helped a lot.

Jester

[jmascho]

geForce 4 ti4200: cheap and fast