cheap AGP video card for Vista?

[Chris Cowles]

I have a Dell 4600 2.66 GHz P4 with an nVidia GeForce MX 44 AGP card. I
suspect nVidia's not going to write a Vista driver to support that card,
and I know I'm not buying a new computer. Can anyone suggest a very basic
video card that will support Aero? I don't care whether it's AGP or PCI32.
I only want to optimize the performance bang for the few bucks I'm willing
to spend.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Chad Harris]

I'm not familiar with what you can get out of MX 44 AGP. I leave it to you
to find out if it could support Aero Glass.

You can get a Ge Force 7600 512 MB for a modest price if you look around.
If you use look for PCI cards, you can go up but there are plenty of cards
if you search this group under video card View>find for modest amounts
discussed.

CH

 

[Jon]

I have a Dell 4600 2.66 GHz P4 with an nVidia GeForce MX 44 AGP card. I
suspect nVidia's not going to write a Vista driver to support that card,
and I know I'm not buying a new computer. Can anyone suggest a very basic
video card that will support Aero? I don't care whether it's AGP or PCI32.
I only want to optimize the performance bang for the few bucks I'm willing
to spend.

Thanks in advance.

Before spending any money, I'd try the one you've got with the available
drivers. It may work.

 

[GreenWing]

I'm not familiar with what you can get out of MX 44 AGP. I leave it to
you to find out if it could support Aero Glass.

You can get a Ge Force 7600 512 MB for a modest price if you look around.

Newegg has GeForce AGP 7600GS 512 MB boards for $140...PCI for $130...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...=&Description=pny+7600&Submit=ENE&N=0&Ntk=all

 

[Richard Urban]

Your card will not support Aero Glass. I have an old one and tried it. Of
the current crop of Nvidia cards, models starting at 6600 and up will have
current drivers. Anything lesser is being made obsolete by Nvidia, as far as
Vista is concerned.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Chris Cowles]

Before spending any money, I'd try the one you've got with the available
drivers. It may work.

I have. It 'works' but has an experience level of 1.0. Based on reading
elsewhere I downloaded 77.72_win2kxp_international_whql.exe which didn't
improve anything. Later versions make no mention of GeForce MX.

 

[Chris Cowles]

I'm not familiar with what you can get out of MX 44 AGP. I leave it to
you to find out if it could support Aero Glass.

It does not.

 

[BSchnur]

At about $50 or so, you should be able to get either an nVidia or ATI
AGP card -- for the ATI's -- start with the 9600 (the 9200/9250 won't
be fully supported in Vista).

How much memory on that Dell do you have?

 

[Jon K]

I have a Dell 4600 2.66 GHz P4 with an nVidia GeForce MX 44 AGP card. I
suspect nVidia's not going to write a Vista driver to support that card,
and I know I'm not buying a new computer. Can anyone suggest a very basic
video card that will support Aero? I don't care whether it's AGP or PCI32.
I only want to optimize the performance bang for the few bucks I'm willing
to spend.

Thanks in advance.

Hi Chris, I just upgraded my video card to a Radeon 9600XT, and handles
vista without a hitch so far that I noticed. I paid $60 before shipping on
eBay, brand new. I think the guy I bought it from has more, if you're
interested I can send you a URL to his page.

Hope you find what you're looking for,


- Jon K.

 

[Tony]

Do you need areo glass, or full game support? if yes, then try a minimum of
a geforce 5200, and you will get both.
but while your at it, it may be more cost efective in the long run to just
get a newer card geforce, 6xxx and up.
but if you don't, your card is good enough, i use a geforce 4 ti with vista,
and it works fine, without glass, and without support for a few key newer
games (doom 3/quake 4 will not run under vista with the card) but older
games work perfectly fine. (i set up a dual boot system, with win2k to play
those 2 games in question, until i get a newer card)
It's all a question of what you need rather then what nvidia says you need.

 

[pvdg42]

Do you need areo glass, or full game support? if yes, then try a minimum
of a geforce 5200, and you will get both.
but while your at it, it may be more cost efective in the long run to just
get a newer card geforce, 6xxx and up.
but if you don't, your card is good enough, i use a geforce 4 ti with
vista, and it works fine, without glass, and without support for a few key
newer games (doom 3/quake 4 will not run under vista with the card) but
older games work perfectly fine. (i set up a dual boot system, with win2k
to play those 2 games in question, until i get a newer card)
It's all a question of what you need rather then what nvidia says you
need.

Note that, while NVIDIA supplied drivers for Vista on the RTM DVD that
support 5000 series cards, Vista drivers released by NVIDIA since RTM *do
not* support the 5000 series.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_100.59_supported.html

NVIDIA has, effectively, disenfranchised 5000 series card owners from Vista
driver updates and somebody looking at NVIDIA for Vista should look at 6000
series cards and up.

 

[pvdg42]

Do you need areo glass, or full game support? if yes, then try a minimum
of a geforce 5200, and you will get both.
but while your at it, it may be more cost efective in the long run to just
get a newer card geforce, 6xxx and up.
but if you don't, your card is good enough, i use a geforce 4 ti with
vista, and it works fine, without glass, and without support for a few key
newer games (doom 3/quake 4 will not run under vista with the card) but
older games work perfectly fine. (i set up a dual boot system, with win2k
to play those 2 games in question, until i get a newer card)
It's all a question of what you need rather then what nvidia says you
need.

Note that, while NVIDIA supplied drivers for Vista on the RTM DVD that
support 5000 series cards, Vista drivers released by NVIDIA since RTM *do
not* support the 5000 series.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_100.59_supported.html

NVIDIA has, effectively, disenfranchised 5000 series card owners from Vista
driver updates and somebody looking at NVIDIA for Vista should look at 6000
series cards and up.

 

[Kirk Wiebe]

I use an older Radeon 9800 Pro on one machine and it works fine with Vista.
I also recently purchased an NVIDIA 6200 card with 256 onboard memory for
another of my computers that the Windows Vista readiness assessment utility
gave a passing grade. Paid about $80.00 for it online.

 

[Tony]

actually they have released one driver,
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_96.85.html, which has glass and
opengl support, all i got is a microsoft direct3d filter, preventing me from
playing Doom3 and Quake 4, argh could care less about glass though...

 

[Eric Roberts]

I picked up an ATI Radeon X1650 for about 150 at tigerdirect.com...it works
great. Also make sure you have plenty of memory. I had the minimum of 512
and didn't get anyof the Aero effects. I replaced that 512 with 2 gig...and
WOW...what a difference that made.

Eric

 

[Chris Cowles]

Can anyone suggest a very basic video card that will support Aero? I
don't care whether it's AGP or PCI32. I only want to optimize the
performance bang for the few bucks I'm willing to spend.

Thanks to all for your replies. They're helpful. I'm looking more for Aero
than at games. Comments about the effect of adequate RAM are useful, as
well.

 

[BSchnur]

Chris, given that you have an AGP slot and are looking for Aero support
-- then something like an ATI 9500 or 9600 would be a decent choice.

 

[Dave Mokeler]

I just upgraded my Pavilion a1730n from the onboard graphics to a nvidia
GeForce 7600 gs and boy what a difference. I got it at compusa for $129
(after some rebates).

Dave