XP Upgrade and Video Issues

[jbtaurus98]

Greetings all,
Here's the situation, I want to upgrade to XP (from 98SE). I'm happy with
my current hardware setup, : 1.3 Duron, 256 MB RAM, etc, just the basics. I
don't do heavy computing, just web, e-mail, and the occasional game. My
video card is currently a Diamond Monster Fusion 16 MB AGP(hey, it was top
of the line when I bought it in '98). Since there is no support for Diamond
anymore to get XP drivers, what video card would be worthwhile?
Or, my other thought was to just go to Dell, and get a new system
altogether, which would include XP, and onboard graphics.
I have always built my own systems, but looking at Dell's website, a
complete system for around $500 makes me want to take the plunge, and sell
what I have now.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

thanks,
john

 

[hawk]

Why? For the uses you describe, what you have should be OK.

Regards, hawk

 

[Frank Hagan]

My

video card is currently a Diamond Monster Fusion 16 MB AGP(hey, it was top
of the line when I bought it in '98). Since there is no support for Diamond
anymore to get XP drivers, what video card would be worthwhile?
Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

thanks,
john

XP will most likely recognize the card and assign it a generic set of
drivers. You probably won't notice any change at all. Try XP with your
current setup, you can always buy a video card later ;-)

FRH

 

[Cuzman]

" I want to upgrade to XP (from 98SE). I'm happy with my current hardware
setup, : 1.3 Duron, 256 MB RAM, etc, just the basics... ....but looking at
Dell's website, a complete system for around $500 makes me want to take the
plunge, and sell what I have now "


You may feel a small performance hit with your current games after upgrading
to XP, as it eats up more system resources than Win98SE does. Upgrade
potential is usually there with Duron motherboards, and if it supports the
266FSB Athlon you could upgrade to an Athlon XP 2400+ (Thoroughbred or
Thorton). It might also be an idea to upgrade the RAM to 512MB (hopefully
DDR if your motherboard supports it). Listing your entire system would be
useful, as receiving helpful upgrade advice is much cheaper than buying a
new system.

As for the AGP card, you'd need to say what *the occasional game* actually
means, and also decide what your budget is. If you did upgrade the system
with an Athlon CPU and more memory, then you could look towards the
middle-third of the charts in this article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/vga-charts-03.html . If you
kept the same spec, then the bottom-third would tend to suit the system
more, or even down to a Radeon 9200SE which was released after the article
was published.

Overall, you could upgrade your system to the level of those $500 Dells for
about $200, and then sell the old parts on eBay for between $50 and $100.

 

[jaster]

Greetings all,
Here's the situation, I want to upgrade to XP (from 98SE). I'm happy with
my current hardware setup, : 1.3 Duron, 256 MB RAM, etc, just the basics. I
don't do heavy computing, just web, e-mail, and the occasional game. My
video card is currently a Diamond Monster Fusion 16 MB AGP(hey, it was top
of the line when I bought it in '98). Since there is no support for Diamond
anymore to get XP drivers, what video card would be worthwhile?
Or, my other thought was to just go to Dell, and get a new system
altogether, which would include XP, and onboard graphics.
I have always built my own systems, but looking at Dell's website, a
complete system for around $500 makes me want to take the plunge, and sell
what I have now.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

thanks,
john

I've seen ECS m/b and XP 2600 cpu around for 60USD combine that with an
GF MX440 or ATI 7500/8500 for $50 and your occassional game should work a
lot better, surfing and email a lot quicker.