Thread: USB Video Cards? (for gaming)

Quiet down fanboy

Originally Posted by 0l33l

I have to disagree I have two ATI cards right now: a ATI Xpert in my laptop (933mhz duron) and an ATI 9200 SE 64 meg in my 2.5ghz P4 system. Before I had an nVidia geforce4 ti4200 (128 meg). This card died when I was doing my science project with water cooling - DOH. So I bought my friend's card ($20) when he upgraded to a geforce fx 5900. I have to say this is the worst company to buy stuff from. The graphics looks awful, and its noticeable slower in all aspects, even though it was released AFTER my previous card (also a low end video card). And don't get me started with my laptop's vid: it has huge chunks of textures missing.... only 3 words can describe ATI: PEICE OF ****.

[Edit]: before you start telling me how my old card had more memory, it ran at a slower clock, so it was in effect slower than the 64 meg version.

The 9200 SE 64mb you got IS slower than your Ti4200, it's crippled. The 9200SE has 64 bit memory, which will not help it at all.

nVidia have released the FX5200 AFTER the 4200...and it's still worse than the 4200. You need to get a FX5500 or higher to beat the Ti4200 (which was (and still is) a GREAT card.

You're basing your trolling on two cards that you owned...one of which is an almost top-of-the-line from one generation of cards, the other a nearly-bottom-of-the-line card from the same generation. Oh, i wonder which is going to be better!!

Compare the 4200 to a 9500 or above, and you'll see differences, because the 9500 and above are the next generation of cards, and ATI completely trounced nVidia in performance in that generation. The current generation (ATI X800/nVidia 6800 etc) the results are so close it could depend on the direction of the wind in Timbucktoo as to which comes out on top.

So, you're ruling out from buying something from an entire company because of one product which IS slower than your old card.

The Ti4200 isn't a low-end card, the MX series is low-end (in the GF2/4 stages) for nVidia, and you really should avoid ANYTHING that says "SE" or "MX" in the name.


Edited 9600 to 9500 in 4th paragraph, i had a brain fart

^^ Couldnt of said it better...

I 'm currently running Radeon 64 DDR VIVO...lol.. first generation of the Radeon series and it still kicks *** (within reason) no problem playing NFS Underground on my 1Ghz machine w/ 448Mb pc133 ram

My systems a little bit outdated but i'd never call ATI piece of ****.. although they have had issues with drivers, they eventually come around or you can always use http://www.omegadrivers.net/ they've served me well in the past

as far as a decent upgrade now, as long as you jump into the current generation w/ 9550 and up you'll be fine running most games at decent resolutions.

Originally Posted by 0l33l

My experience with ATI sucks monkey balls. Go with nVidia

Say that to my x800xt.

And yeah, the problem with USB video cards would be bandwidth. USB2 has a max bandwidth of around 400 mbps. I'm not sure, it's in that area I think. And AGP 8x has over 14 gbps bandwidth.

Originally Posted by frodobaggins

Quiet down fanboy

At first I didn't really care that I would go to ATI, and I was willing to say that my laptop's video card is not the standard but the exception, but this peice of **** has proved me right all along.

Originally Posted by Confused

The 9200 SE 64mb you got IS slower than your Ti4200, it's crippled. The 9200SE has 64 bit memory, which will not help it at all.

Hmmm.... my car was crippled with memory also.... benchmarks proved that ran about the same speeds as the 64, so don't give me that not enough memory BS and that I'm comparing apples to oranges.

You need to get a FX5500 or higher to beat the Ti4200 (which was (and still is) a GREAT card.

You're basing your trolling on two cards that you owned...one of which is an almost top-of-the-line from one generation of cards, the other a nearly-bottom-of-the-line card from the same generation. Oh, i wonder which is going to be better!!

The Ti4200 was not almost top of the line. That would have been the Ti4400. If you notice, I'm not complaining about FPS, I'm compaling about how the video looks like ****, has missing textures, etc even with new drivers.

Compare the 4200 to a 9500 or above, and you'll see differences, because the 9500 and above are the next generation of cards, and ATI completely trounced nVidia in performance in that generation. The current generation (ATI X800/nVidia 6800 etc) the results are so close it could depend on the direction of the wind in Timbucktoo as to which comes out on top.

Depends which company decides to cheat in their drivers

So, you're ruling out from buying something from an entire company because of one product which IS slower than your old card.

Yes, ATI drivers still suck, their video quality is **** poor, and I'm not comparing FPS speeds because it would be an unfair comparison.

The Ti4200 isn't a low-end card, the MX series is low-end (in the GF2/4 stages) for nVidia, and you really should avoid ANYTHING that says "SE" or "MX" in the name.

My uncle has the MX series (on an Athlon 1.6 system), and it can play games perfectly well at 1024x768, a feat that my ATI can't even dream of doing (on a 2.5ghz P4).

Originally Posted by ApoloV

I 'm currently running Radeon 64 DDR VIVO...lol.. first generation of the Radeon series and it still kicks *** (within reason) no problem playing NFS Underground on my 1Ghz machine w/ 448Mb pc133 ram

My systems a little bit outdated but i'd never call ATI piece of ****.. although they have had issues with drivers, they eventually come around or you can always use http://www.omegadrivers.net/ they've served me well in the past.

My cards can only play NFSU at 640x480!!! And I'm on a 2.5ghz P4 with 1gig of PC2700 ram and a WD1200JB hd! And yes, I'm calling ATI a peice of ****. The omegadrivers don't help with this peice of ****.

Originally Posted by BiohazrD

Say that to my x800xt.

nVidia is better

stand tall leelo

well i'm sorry your card was a piece of ****.. like i said all the ATI's i've had never worked perfectly w/ ATIs inital driver, hence omegadrivers, but eventually ati would come out w/ one that wokred well..

if you can run higher than that w/ your system and that car, maybe it was just a defective card, they do exist, probabilities can prove that..

my card will run NFS Underground very smooth and med quality at 1024x768
and it'll even run smoth at my normal resolution of 1280x1024 but the quality drops so its not worth it... all this on a 1ghz mahine w/ and my old *** Radeon


but its all user preference here, almost like the AMD/Intel battles, if yuo enjoy Nvidia go ahead, they are great cards, i just prefer ATI

Originally Posted by ApoloV

well i'm sorry your card was a piece of ****.. like i said all the ATI's i've had never worked perfectly w/ ATIs inital driver, hence omegadrivers, but eventually ati would come out w/ one that wokred well..

if you can run higher than that w/ your system and that car, maybe it was just a defective card, they do exist, probabilities can prove that..

my card will run NFS Underground very smooth and med quality at 1024x768
and it'll even run smoth at my normal resolution of 1280x1024 but the quality drops so its not worth it... all this on a 1ghz mahine w/ and my old *** Radeon


but its all user preference here, almost like the AMD/Intel battles, if yuo enjoy Nvidia go ahead, they are great cards, i just prefer ATI

I don't even wanna think about the original ATI driver I don't think its defective, just ATI engeneering is to blame.

I like both Intel and AMD. For my uncle I build an AMD system, and for me and my grandpa two Intel systems. Now if I were to build one then I'd go with an Athlon 64 over the intels. This is because I don't have a problem with AMD, infact my laptop has a 933mhz duron. See, this is because I've tried both, I'm not just getting this info out of a vacuum. Now as I say, I've tried ATI and I stand by my statement that it is a peice of ****

Following the trend of argument here:
I had two nVidia cards that sucked. I put them in my computer and they both blew my computer up. Even when I tried shoving them both into my PCI slot they still sucked! I finally got one installed correctly and boy, I must say the drivers sucked! I had it set to 256 colors and it looked soooo bad. My nVidia cards sucked! I dumped one of my cards in a bucket of water and stuck it back into my computer and for some reason it never worked again. How's that for quality! POS. I don't know how anyone could like nVidia. Later I got a Radeon 9800 XT and everything ran great! I love ATI!!!! I will never get another nVidia.
There may have been some exageration here but you get the point