rec.autos.simulators

Sorry if this sort of question is asked a lot.

With all these nice new games arriving (Rally Championship 2000, Mid-town
Madness, F1-2000... and of course GP3 this month!), I recently took my PC up
from a P-200MMX to a Celeron 500Mhz.

I think the weak link in the system is probably now the graphics card set
up.  I have my original PCI bus 2Mb ATI Mach64 (I think that's what it is
anyway), plus a PCI bus Voodoo-2 3DFX card (8Mb).

Without spending a fortune (maybe up to 100 - 150), is there anything I
can buy which will speed things up significantly graphically, or am I just
as well keeping what I've got?  Is an all-in-one Voodoo 3 card (ie. to
replace my 2D and 3D cards with a single AGP card) going to be significantly
quicker?

With my old system, I was of course used to running GP2 with half the pretty
options turned off, and I guess I won't mind too much doing the same with
GP3... In fact it's almost ironic that with the release of GP3 a few weeks
away, I can now for the first time run GP2 in SVGA mode with all the graphic
options switched on :-)

Incidentally, for those in the UK, Gamestreet (www.gamestreet.co.uk) are
taking pre-orders for GP3 for just 20.99 (including postage).  Quite a
bargain I think.  They provide a pretty good service, pre-orders I've placed
in the past have always turned up in the mail on the day of release.

Ta in advance,

Steve.

But both of these cards are veeery expensive, around 300-350 pound, I should
know as I bought a Asus V7700 GeForce 2 GTS last week :)

If you are looking for something in the 100-150 pound, (where is that stupid
pound sign on my keyboard?) the Voodoo3 3500 or the TNT2 card which are
pretty equal to eachother might be your best choise... The Matrox G400 also
is a nice card also near the performance of the Voodoo3 and the TNT2.
Another good card is the GeForce 1 or the GeForce 256 though I believe these
are more in the 200-250 pound range.

That's about all good cards out there... Make sure you go for a 3Dfx
(Voodoo) or a NVIDIA (TNT and GeForce) card, don't settle for anything else
except for maybe the Matrox G400....

-- Sjon

As for a cheaper option, the V3 3000 is well priced now (from 80 to 109
depending on where you look) and is a solid card, plus you might find a TNT2
for this sort of price.  Basically avoid the big chain stores if you want
good prices.  Also a GeForce 1 (without DDR memory) will be around the 150
area.

If you're going to spend 150, it makes sense to spend 220 instead and get
either a GeForce 2 GTS or a V5 and have a card that won't need replacing for
a long time.  :)

To be exactly I paid 270 pund for my Asus V7700 which is one of the fastest
GeForce 2 GTS cards, faster as the Annihalator 2 from Greative.... And it
sure was worth every penny...

The 64 mb GeForce 2 from Guillemot is wel over 330 pound.

Depends on your cpu offcourse... GeForce2 and V5's only get their full
potential on processors over 550 mzh....