darren, Lycia and other ATI fans please respond

I'm doing an upgrade for a customer and need to keep it on the cheap. had a p100 and is a casual user going with a duron with 40gig and 128mb of ram. The guy is a very casual gamer. wants to play deer hunter 4 and probably south park games. Anyway, to the point. Right now my usual vendor is low on video cards under $50. My options are a tnt2 32MB, Savage2000 64MB, and a radeon VE 32MB. I know that the radeon ve doesn't have the t&L engine, but do you guys think it'd be enough for a really casual gamer.

Currently I use a Radeon VE 32Mb vid card and am very pleased with it. I do play some 3D games such as Diablo II and Quake III and so far I am very pleased with it. Previously I was using a TNT2 M64 32Mb and I have enjoyed improved gaming with the new card.

Just my $0.02 for what its worth.

Mike

While I wouldn't "recommend" any of these cards as gaming cards, I would lean more towards the Radeon VE. It's more geared towards business, but it has enough power to get the job done. The TNT2 would be good enough, but not as good as the Radeon. I would recommend staying away from the Savage 2000, however. Those cards were buggy. :) :cool:

Ditto on the Savage being "buggy".

The Radeon VE would definitely get the job done.

But if you're comparing pricetags, see how much nVidia you can get for a similar amount - just out of curiosity.

3rd vote for staying away from the Savage. i would go with the ATI first. the TNT is a good card, i have one in my 2nd system and it plays Quake III, Diablo II and Halflife fairly decent

TNT2 is fine for the casual gamer and even for the more advanced gamers, they run just about everything on the market, it may not be at 1600X1200 at 32bit color and all effects turned on with 4X AA, but it will look pretty decent. Hell my sister plays deer hunter on an 8mb intel onboard

In my experience you can't go wrong with ATI.

Savage 2000 was pretty buggy core logic wise, and the drivers were even worse. So bad even it's advertised Texture and Lighting engine were broken. Time sure hasn't fixed anything, expecially since the company's out of business. The Radeon VE is a decent card, and as I recall it even has T&L support for OpenGL.

I use a Radeon as well and it does it all .. im a heavy graphics user and things however not so much for games .. i recommend it .. ive never had a problem with it nor its drivers ..as people have claimed and thats going from win2k to xp

no exp. with the radeon ve 32MB, but I have installed and used other ATI cards, and would say for a "casual" gamer, it should be fine. I currently use a tnt2 32MB, and it works fine for my "casual" gaming needs.

how about an ATI rage fury, i have one and it handles anyting i can throw at it, i know it's no the most modern card

I'd go with the ATI but the Radeon VE needs the latest driver work well.

I've seen a few that were just as bad as s3 - a driver update solved all the probs ..