My system is:
Duron 1600MHz
AsRock K7VT2
512MB DDR 266
Radeon R7000 PCI
The computer is Running Windows XP and it's main use is to go online (web browsing) and NEVER play 3D games.(only play emulated arcade games using FASTAME)..the another main use is to watch DVD/AVI(encoded using DIVX and XVID)/MPEG/ and Realvideo animations..
It's quite foolish to have a PCI display card installed while you can install a AGP card. Now i found two 2nd hand offers : Voodoo Banshee and Voodoo 3 (both 16MB), they only have HKD$10 difference in price (about 1USD), so i wanna ask if banshee and voodoo 3 be able to play those video files smoothly with those display cards (my out-of-order old Oxygen VX1 AGP will make the playback somewhat laggy and this get more serious when i installed my old S3 Trio 64V2)
Thanks for solving my doubts, really thanks~~
Voodoo 3 is younger than the Banshee, it supports newer technologies.
Voodoo 3 will do just fine.
Thanks, so i will bid that voodoo3~~
wish me good luck
but the question really becomes, why do you need an agp card? seems like for your described use the PCI R7k would do just fine.
Hi amp_man,
yes, that R7k is doing everything fine, but i noticed that when i use PCI card, the system performance is a bit slower (i think because extra PCI bandwidth is used by the display card) and this is quite noticable when ripping videos (AVI->RM, DVD->AVI, etc..). the card have some unknown problem too. the screen will become full of tiny red-lines and everything will be distorted once it happened, but it seldom happens...
these make me wanna change my display card from a PCI one to an AGP one
I love Voodoo cards but if you never play games, why would you want to get a Voodoo3 card? Since you're running WinXP you might be better off buying a more current ATI or nVidia card for easier driver compatibility.
i want a voodoo one bacause the 2D quality of a voodoo card is better than nVidia cards (can be seen when compared my uncle's v3 and GF2MX)
maybe i should think carefully what i should get, thanks all~~
Yes, every 3dfx made voodoo card that I have ever owned has had superior 2D clarity than any other card I have ever used (same monitor, same system). a voodoo 3 PCI makes an excelent 2nd video card for XP or 98se as well since there are now drivers to support it!
If you're looking for good 2D then a Voodoo card is a good choice but so is a Matrox card. Matrox always had great 2D. I used a Matrox Millennium with my first Voodoo2 card.
Yes, Matrox' Millennium cards also have superior 2D but they are expensive. The last Millennium, the G550, costs around 100 euro's. You can get a more recent and powerfull card for that kind of money from ATi which also has very good 2D.
When only looking for 2D, the V3 is simply the best valued card.