Best Video card at this point of Vista developement

joymac wrote:

> I am presently running vista ultimate on a amd Athlon 64 x2 with
> aNvidia Geforce 7300 gs microsoft drivers as I had some troubles with
> Nvidia driver installing and am going to wait till driver is out of
> bata before trying again. Performance index is only 3.2 on business
> and gaming graphics same machine using RC2 and Nvidia driver result
> was 3.4. I have the task of upgrading serveral machines to Vista
> shortly and am tring to get a idea of the best cards to use on
> slighly less powerful machines but must have dual monitor support
> vga/dvi vga/vga or dvi/dvi. Not lookng for company loyalty responces.
> Thanks

To be honest any mid range card will do the trick - I think ones that
_don't_ offer dual monitor support of some kind are the exception these days
once you step out of budget territory.

I'd say that ATI have got slightly more mature drivers at the moment and for
a business type machine I'd look at the radeon x1300 and x1600 type cards,
to support dual monitors very nicely indeed and not use and abuse system
resources too much to support the video.

If you want gaming then the sky is the limit of course, but you probably
won't be entirely happy with a new purchase in this area at the moment.
ATI's more mature drivers suggest the x1900 series, but this isn't a DirectX
10 ready part. Only Nvidia are shipping those (8800 series) at the moment
and as you've discovered their drivers are not very good at all (I'm not
convinced that ATI's vista drivers are actually all they could possibly be
at the moment, but they're much more stable and mature than the Nvidia
ones).

Just my opinion of course and I hope it is of some use. I await what will no
doubt be large flame posts questioning my eyesight, parentage, ability to
operate a computer, etc. from fanboyz of both camps.
rob

Thanks for the information it gets expensive trying to purchace different
cards for testing as these will be in a business envirorment stability is
most inportant but much easier to recomend if it also has high scores.
--
Trying to make sense of it all


"Robert Moir" wrote:

> joymac wrote:

> > I am presently running vista ultimate on a amd Athlon 64 x2 with
> > aNvidia Geforce 7300 gs microsoft drivers as I had some troubles with
> > Nvidia driver installing and am going to wait till driver is out of
> > bata before trying again. Performance index is only 3.2 on business
> > and gaming graphics same machine using RC2 and Nvidia driver result
> > was 3.4. I have the task of upgrading serveral machines to Vista
> > shortly and am tring to get a idea of the best cards to use on
> > slighly less powerful machines but must have dual monitor support
> > vga/dvi vga/vga or dvi/dvi. Not lookng for company loyalty responces.
> > Thanks

>
> To be honest any mid range card will do the trick - I think ones that
> _don't_ offer dual monitor support of some kind are the exception these days
> once you step out of budget territory.
>
> I'd say that ATI have got slightly more mature drivers at the moment and for
> a business type machine I'd look at the radeon x1300 and x1600 type cards,
> to support dual monitors very nicely indeed and not use and abuse system
> resources too much to support the video.
>
> If you want gaming then the sky is the limit of course, but you probably
> won't be entirely happy with a new purchase in this area at the moment.
> ATI's more mature drivers suggest the x1900 series, but this isn't a DirectX
> 10 ready part. Only Nvidia are shipping those (8800 series) at the moment
> and as you've discovered their drivers are not very good at all (I'm not
> convinced that ATI's vista drivers are actually all they could possibly be
> at the moment, but they're much more stable and mature than the Nvidia
> ones).
>
> Just my opinion of course and I hope it is of some use. I await what will no
> doubt be large flame posts questioning my eyesight, parentage, ability to
> operate a computer, etc. from fanboyz of both camps.
> rob
>
>
>

The brand of the card has more to do with stability than the actual chipset.
I have had very good luck with Gigabyte cards using either ATI or NVidia
chipsets. The ATI seem to have a crisper display. With ATI you can buy ATI
branded cards direct from ATI which have support from the chipset
manufacturer. As far as I know there are no NVidia branded cards.

As far as ATI vs. NVidia, currently the drivers that are built into the RTM
release are the most stable for both. I'd give a slight nod to ATI but some
people have had problems with the sleep function on some motherboards.
Changing to an NVidia card often fixes this. By the time Vista is publicly
available this will probably change. In the past I have have found that
overall ATI drivers (without installing the Catalyst Control Center) are the
most stable but this changes as new drivers are released. I usually install
the drivers that came with the card and never change them unless there are
problems. Note - this is for business use. For gaming it's a whole different
story.

--
Kerry Brown
Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
http://www.vistahelp.ca


"joymac" <joymac@community.nospam> wrote in message
news:80AB43C2-4B5C-41DE-A8CE-E44131ADFB35@microsoft.com...

>I am presently running vista ultimate on a amd Athlon 64 x2 with aNvidia
> Geforce 7300 gs microsoft drivers as I had some troubles with Nvidia
> driver
> installing and am going to wait till driver is out of bata before trying
> again. Performance index is only 3.2 on business and gaming graphics same
> machine using RC2 and Nvidia driver result was 3.4. I have the task of
> upgrading serveral machines to Vista shortly and am tring to get a idea of
> the best cards to use on slighly less powerful machines but must have dual
> monitor support vga/dvi vga/vga or dvi/dvi. Not lookng for company loyalty
> responces. Thanks
> --
> Trying to make sense of it all

Hey, Ive built six or seven PC's for friends and family, and every time I've
had to deal with ATI cards I could not get the dual monitors selection to
work! ATI would only let me choose one or the other, TV or monitor. I
recently built this PC that I'm writing with now an ECS RS-482m with built in
ATI graphics with a seperate connecter to the motherboard for TV out, and I
still couldn't get it to work, I did the support thing back and forth to ATI
and AMD with e-mails, and finally just went out and bought an nVidia PCI
express card and viola, dual monitors. The folks at ATI act as if they've
never heard of this before, or am I the only person that hooks his PC up to
the TV so I can watch internet movies on the TV? Hmm. Anyways, thats my
2cents worth.
--
Rockland2 Sherman Oaks, California


"Kerry Brown" wrote:

> The brand of the card has more to do with stability than the actual chipset.
> I have had very good luck with Gigabyte cards using either ATI or NVidia
> chipsets. The ATI seem to have a crisper display. With ATI you can buy ATI
> branded cards direct from ATI which have support from the chipset
> manufacturer. As far as I know there are no NVidia branded cards.
>
> As far as ATI vs. NVidia, currently the drivers that are built into the RTM
> release are the most stable for both. I'd give a slight nod to ATI but some
> people have had problems with the sleep function on some motherboards.
> Changing to an NVidia card often fixes this. By the time Vista is publicly
> available this will probably change. In the past I have have found that
> overall ATI drivers (without installing the Catalyst Control Center) are the
> most stable but this changes as new drivers are released. I usually install
> the drivers that came with the card and never change them unless there are
> problems. Note - this is for business use. For gaming it's a whole different
> story.
>
> --
> Kerry Brown
> Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
> http://www.vistahelp.ca
>
>
> "joymac" <joymac@community.nospam> wrote in message
> news:80AB43C2-4B5C-41DE-A8CE-E44131ADFB35@microsoft.com...

> >I am presently running vista ultimate on a amd Athlon 64 x2 with aNvidia
> > Geforce 7300 gs microsoft drivers as I had some troubles with Nvidia
> > driver
> > installing and am going to wait till driver is out of bata before trying
> > again. Performance index is only 3.2 on business and gaming graphics same
> > machine using RC2 and Nvidia driver result was 3.4. I have the task of
> > upgrading serveral machines to Vista shortly and am tring to get a idea of
> > the best cards to use on slighly less powerful machines but must have dual
> > monitor support vga/dvi vga/vga or dvi/dvi. Not lookng for company loyalty
> > responces. Thanks
> > --
> > Trying to make sense of it all

>
>

Rockland2 wrote:

> Hey, Ive built six or seven PC's for friends and family, and every time I've
> had to deal with ATI cards I could not get the dual monitors selection to
> work! ATI would only let me choose one or the other, TV or monitor. I
> recently built this PC that I'm writing with now an ECS RS-482m with built in
> ATI graphics with a seperate connecter to the motherboard for TV out, and I
> still couldn't get it to work, I did the support thing back and forth to ATI
> and AMD with e-mails, and finally just went out and bought an nVidia PCI
> express card and viola, dual monitors. The folks at ATI act as if they've
> never heard of this before, or am I the only person that hooks his PC up to
> the TV so I can watch internet movies on the TV? Hmm. Anyways, thats my
> 2cents worth.

I have only one Vista computer, but there is certainly NO TROUBLE with
the dual display on my Radeon X1950 Pro -- none. I've never hooked a TV
to a computer.

Ron

There is no issues with ATI. The drivers for Vista are more stable than
Nvidia, whom I think were asleep at the wheel when Vista released. ATI was
more on top of things. Personally, I would use the Digital-OUT Ports on the
Video card and NOT the TV Out. They work much better and don't cause as much
color issues or flickering as with a standard 15-pin connection. You can get
a DVI to HDMI connector and plug in the later sets directly for the best
picture. I have no problems with that setup using ATI x1900 series and the
latest ATI Drivers, connecting to a monitor or HDTV. I am running
1920x1080@60...thus 1080P resolution. It is very nice. Speed is great. WoW
looked never better and as stable as can be.

No issues here. Running Windows Vista Ultimate.

"Rockland2" wrote:

> Hey, Ive built six or seven PC's for friends and family, and every time I've
> had to deal with ATI cards I could not get the dual monitors selection to
> work! ATI would only let me choose one or the other, TV or monitor. I
> recently built this PC that I'm writing with now an ECS RS-482m with built in
> ATI graphics with a seperate connecter to the motherboard for TV out, and I
> still couldn't get it to work, I did the support thing back and forth to ATI
> and AMD with e-mails, and finally just went out and bought an nVidia PCI
> express card and viola, dual monitors. The folks at ATI act as if they've
> never heard of this before, or am I the only person that hooks his PC up to
> the TV so I can watch internet movies on the TV? Hmm. Anyways, thats my
> 2cents worth.
> --
> Rockland2 Sherman Oaks, California
>
>
> "Kerry Brown" wrote:
>

> > The brand of the card has more to do with stability than the actual chipset.
> > I have had very good luck with Gigabyte cards using either ATI or NVidia
> > chipsets. The ATI seem to have a crisper display. With ATI you can buy ATI
> > branded cards direct from ATI which have support from the chipset
> > manufacturer. As far as I know there are no NVidia branded cards.
> >
> > As far as ATI vs. NVidia, currently the drivers that are built into the RTM
> > release are the most stable for both. I'd give a slight nod to ATI but some
> > people have had problems with the sleep function on some motherboards.
> > Changing to an NVidia card often fixes this. By the time Vista is publicly
> > available this will probably change. In the past I have have found that
> > overall ATI drivers (without installing the Catalyst Control Center) are the
> > most stable but this changes as new drivers are released. I usually install
> > the drivers that came with the card and never change them unless there are
> > problems. Note - this is for business use. For gaming it's a whole different
> > story.
> >
> > --
> > Kerry Brown
> > Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
> > http://www.vistahelp.ca
> >
> >
> > "joymac" <joymac@community.nospam> wrote in message
> > news:80AB43C2-4B5C-41DE-A8CE-E44131ADFB35@microsoft.com...

> > >I am presently running vista ultimate on a amd Athlon 64 x2 with aNvidia
> > > Geforce 7300 gs microsoft drivers as I had some troubles with Nvidia
> > > driver
> > > installing and am going to wait till driver is out of bata before trying
> > > again. Performance index is only 3.2 on business and gaming graphics same
> > > machine using RC2 and Nvidia driver result was 3.4. I have the task of
> > > upgrading serveral machines to Vista shortly and am tring to get a idea of
> > > the best cards to use on slighly less powerful machines but must have dual
> > > monitor support vga/dvi vga/vga or dvi/dvi. Not lookng for company loyalty
> > > responces. Thanks
> > > --
> > > Trying to make sense of it all

> >
> >

/joymac/ said:

> I am presently running vista ultimate on a amd Athlon 64 x2 with aNvidia
> Geforce 7300 gs microsoft drivers as I had some troubles with Nvidia driver
> installing and am going to wait till driver is out of beta before trying
> again. Performance index is only 3.2 on business and gaming graphics same
> machine using RC2 and Nvidia driver result was 3.4. I have the task of
> upgrading serveral machines to Vista shortly and am tring to get a idea of
> the best cards to use on slighly less powerful machines but must have dual
> monitor support vga/dvi vga/vga or dvi/dvi. Not looking for company loyalty
> responses.

With PCI-E video adapters overtaking AGP, it makes sense to spend the
minimum necessary on outdated technology.

I can only say that here an MSI NVidia 5200 128Mb card does just fine -
using a 22" widescreen LCD fed via VGA. Aero is fully functional, and
video seems as peppy with Vista Ultimate RC2 as it did under XP for
typical word processing, accounting and Net surfing. No games tested.

I have the GeForce 5200, however i can not get the video card software to
install. I did get a driver from their site that works but as far as getting
aero to work i am at a loss. I welcome any help. thanks!

"dev" wrote:

> /joymac/ said:
>

> > I am presently running vista ultimate on a amd Athlon 64 x2 with aNvidia
> > Geforce 7300 gs microsoft drivers as I had some troubles with Nvidia driver
> > installing and am going to wait till driver is out of beta before trying
> > again. Performance index is only 3.2 on business and gaming graphics same
> > machine using RC2 and Nvidia driver result was 3.4. I have the task of
> > upgrading serveral machines to Vista shortly and am tring to get a idea of
> > the best cards to use on slighly less powerful machines but must have dual
> > monitor support vga/dvi vga/vga or dvi/dvi. Not looking for company loyalty
> > responses.

>
> With PCI-E video adapters overtaking AGP, it makes sense to spend the
> minimum necessary on outdated technology.
>
> I can only say that here an MSI NVidia 5200 128Mb card does just fine -
> using a 22" widescreen LCD fed via VGA. Aero is fully functional, and
> video seems as peppy with Vista Ultimate RC2 as it did under XP for
> typical word processing, accounting and Net surfing. No games tested.
>
>
>