[Aggressor_Squad]

My Specs(E-Machine):

Celeron 1.7 GHZ
384 DDR RAM
Intel 82845 64mb Intergrated 3d Card

I've finally been fed up with my 3d card, due to the fact that I only get <20 FPS on Warcraft 3.  I'm looking for a reasonable performance-price video card. With $400 avaliable(Canadian) to spend, there are a lot of options. However, i'm worried about my Celeron processor not being able to handle some of the 'higher level' cards.  I know anything is better then my current Intel crap, but with the current knowledge of Computer Hardware that my 16yr brain has, i'm pretty clueless.
   So...what should I do? Thanks in advance for any feedback or advice...

[vyper]

Faster processors can help increase game speeds but with newer cards it actually less of an issue, as the cards have faster dedicated GPU's for processing graphics instructions.

Your best bet would be to look at a low price net distributor (sorry don't know any for ur side of the Atlantic) and find either GeForce FX based cards (high performance), or GeForce Titaniums, Radeon 9700 upwards, or you could look at the older cards (MX, GeForce 3, 9500 etc).

Of course for professional use there is always the Matrox Parhellia, but she's a bit expensive and not dedicated to games.

[Stunaep]

You can get a decent Geforce FX 5200 for about $90 these days. Nothing special, but beats the crap out of what you've got tenfold. Also supports DX9, that's always good. It's nearly on-par (well, not REALLY) with the Geforce 4 Ti4200

[Aggressor_Squad]

I've narrowed it down to two choices: Either the Geforce Ti4200, or the Geforce FX5200.  The FX is considerably cheaper, and supports DirectX9, but I'm leaning towards the Ti4200, which seems to have better specs in almost every area. The FX is blabbering about it's DX9 Support...Should I take DX into consideration?

[vyper]

If you want future compatibility with games like HL2, then FX is the answer. If you want performance "THIS VERY FREAKING SECOND MAN!" then Ti wins it.

[Thorn]

Except for the fact that the FX is 1) Loud and 2) Huge, the heatsink/fan takes up the adjacent PCI slot.....
The newer Radeons are just as good. Smaller (normal heatsink/fan) and quieter.  The only difference is the picture isnt quite as sharp with the Radeons, but unless youre one of those nitpicky freaks that looks for stuff like that, you really wouldnt notice it.... I'm not sure on the prices though...

[Solatar]

www.newegg.com
I'm not sure if they ship outside the US, and their prices are in US dollars, but they have the best prices I've been able to find.

[JC Denton]

...or, you could go for something with a SiS 315 chipset.  They don't need a fan, they're much less expensive than the equivalent Radeon or Geforce (typically under $200 USD), and have comparable performance to a Geforce4 Ti4200.

EDIT:  Okays, I found stats on the Pine 3d Phantom XP-3800 Pro.  Sells for around $50 USD.

Specs:
GPU: SiS 315
Memory:  128MB
Clock Speeds:  166Mhz memory; 366Mhz RAMDAC
AGP 2x/4x
Supports all Windows versions
VGA-Out
Max Resolution:  2048x1536 @ 85Hz

[Admiral LSD]

Originally posted by Aggressor_Squad
I've narrowed it down to two choices: Either the Geforce Ti4200, or the Geforce FX5200.  The FX is considerably cheaper, and supports DirectX9, but I'm leaning towards the Ti4200, which seems to have better specs in almost every area. The FX is blabbering about it's DX9 Support...Should I take DX into consideration?

If you're choosing between those two then a Ti4200 will eat an FX5200 for breakfast. Any GeForceFX that has a number less than 5900 in its name sucks donkey nuts and is best avoided. Radeon 9500 Pro's are getting a bit thin on the ground right now but if you can find one they're still the best mainstream card out there.

[Aggressor_Squad]

Oh, do I have to do any tweaking of any sorts, or do I just simply  Reformat, take out the old Intel card and slide in the brand spanking new one?  The word "intergrated" sorta scares me...

And also, something else that I haven't thought about yet. Since my rig is a EMachine, it comes with it's own "EMachine" package of WinXP, plus other useless crap that has been put in there. Once I re-Format my hard drive and slide my new vid card in there, is it safe to use that disk? Since the original version of my comp of course has the Intel Vid card...

[Admiral LSD]

I have no experience with the integrated graphics in the Intel chipset but it should just be a simple matter of putting the new card in, the changeover should be automatic. At worst, you'll have to adjust a couple of jumpers to tell it to disable the onboard graphics. Check your motherboard manual (electronic or otherwise).

As for your copy of XP, if it's a bog standard install CD that Emachines have modified for OEM use you should be fine since you've only changed one component and it isn't the motherboard (it's most likely locked to your particular motherboard baking it impossible to install on another system). On the other hand though, if it's one of those "Recovery Disk" thingies which basically contain an image of the hard disk with everything installed, drivers included, you may be in a little trouble. You might be able to get by with simply reformatting and installing with the CD (with the Intel still activated), putting in the new card, booting up into safe mode and installing hte drivers.

[Aggressor_Squad]

"Restore CD"-EMachines T1742"

lol uh oh

The thing is though, all the drivers are contained in a seperate disk, which is supossly installed manually later...And just out of curiosity I pumped CD#1 in and restarted... 2 options popped up: #1 was 'Restore Windows XP', and the second one was 'command prompt(forgot the rest)' Are these the messages that would pop up in a normal WinXP cd?

Jumpers? I've heard about them once before, just never dealt with them before. What exacly are they?

Oh btw, thnx for all the help given so far, I really appreciate it

EDIT: Nvm, just found out that the setup program will ask for CD#2 automatically...Damn!

[Thor]

Jumpers are simply a little covering that joins a set of two little pins, and leave the surrounding pins unconnected.  How the jumper is placed in a particular set of pins determins what features are activated.  You may need to change a jumper to deactivate your internal video.  First, check to see if you can disable it through the bios.  as for installing the card, you shouldn't have to reformat, just uninstall your current drivers through ADD/Remove Programs, then install your new ones.

oh yeah, go with something that has DX9 support.  I'd say the fast you could find in your price range.

[IceFire]

Originally posted by Thorn
Except for the fact that the FX is 1) Loud and 2) Huge, the heatsink/fan takes up the adjacent PCI slot.....
The newer Radeons are just as good. Smaller (normal heatsink/fan) and quieter.  The only difference is the picture isnt quite as sharp with the Radeons, but unless youre one of those nitpicky freaks that looks for stuff like that, you really wouldnt notice it.... I'm not sure on the prices though...

My image is bloody sharp and its on a Radeon 9700.  The image quality is much higher than I was expecting from any 3D card.  So the differences have got to be miniscule.

[Aggressor_Squad]

EDIT:Haha, chats with EMachine staff are always so much fun. This time I actually got the answer I needed. I'm still wondering if that was a Tech Bot or something though...