View Single Post
  #5  
Old February 3rd 04, 10:49 PM
J. Clarke
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Fidcal wrote:

Short version: Is FX5200 better than gforce 4?

Longer version:
The game I'm looking forward to playing when released (Thief 3)
requires at least gforce 3, NOT MX, DirectX 9, with vertex pixel
shading. In my case it must also work under Win98 1st edition. I
got a card off the net which didn't state the platform and which
I eventually found would only work in Win98 SE and later so I
gave that someone else and went to a local shop instead.

I asked for geforce 4 in the shop and was so pre-occupied with
making sure it worked in Win98 1E that I didn't notice until I
got home it was not geforce 4 but FX5200. I asked on the net and
was told this was inferior even to geforce3. Back to the shop
where the manager insisted that was nonsense and the FX5200 was
better than gforce 4. He was so certain he literally signed my
receipt, "better than geforce 4 - (next level up)"

Questions:

1. Is he right?
2. Is there anywhere on the net I can get an overview of the
evolution of graphics cards in general, the jargon, etc. so I
have some idea what all these letters, numbers, and so on mean?


The letters, numbers, etc don't mean anything except that some marketing guy
decided that if he used those letters and numbers he'd sell more boards
than if he used some other letters or numbers.

The 5200 is better than the Geforce 4 Ti for certain values of "better".
Unfortunately the values of "better" that apply are not the ones that most
people find useful.

It has hardware acceleration for DirectX 9, where the Geforce 4 has
acceleration only up to the 8.1 level, but the 5200's baseline performance
is in the Geforce 4 MX range, which is to say pretty poor--generally poor
enough that the DirectX 9 acceleration is irrelevant.

Historically the nvidia produced a built to a low price series of boards
called the "MX" boards, which typically been based on technology a
generation or more older than nvidia's high performance line. When the
Geforce FX series shipped there was no new "MX" board introduced. Instead
the 5200, which is based on the curent-generation FX technology but is
crippled in various ways to reduce manufacturing cost, was introduced.

The Geforce 4 line was in its day the 3-D performance leader--that is no
longer the case with newer technology on the market, but it is still a very
capable board, with performance on the same general level as the current
generation of midrange boards such as the Geforce FX5700 and the Radeon
9600, and way above any of the built-to-a-low-price boards such as the MXes
and the 5200.

Your dealer clearly doesn't understand that "new cheap board" does not
always beat "old very high performance board".

Whether you'll get an actual Geforce 4 out of him is doubtful--they're in
increasingly short supply and he probably doesn't have one to sell you.

There are a number of sites that publish performance information about video
boards--whether you can find a direct comparison of an FX5200 with a
Geforce 4 Ti I don't know offhand, but you should if you google "FX5200"
and "Ti4200" find enough test results to be able to make a case that will
convince anyone who actually has working brain cells (which lets out most
computer store managers) that the 5200 does not outperform the Geforce 4 Ti
boards.

You may have to just eat the 5200 and take your custom elsewhere, sad to
say. Having worked in computer retail, I don't hold out much hope of
changing the guy's mind--the people who manage computer stores are
generally dumber than rocks and more stubborn as well--but you may luck
out.



--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)