Vista Graphics Card Advice

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seven7seven

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Hi all,

My friend is trying to install Vista onto his PC. It is a P4 2.4ghz, not sure how much RAM (i hope he has atleast 1gb!!).

The problem is that his silly motherboard has an AGI slot instead of an AGP slot. It's ASrock's special AGP slot that only supports a select few graphics card (I don't understand the logic...). Basically it seems that getting hold of those card's is very difficult so an AGP card is not an option for his mobo.

So, could he just get a PCI graphics card instead? I know they are quite rare but there are still a few for sale, for example this one: http://www.nivo.co.za/#product/737

I know Vista needs a dx 9 gfx card with atleast 128mb but what will the performance of a PCI gfx card be? He doesn't want to play games but does want to edit video.

My core question is: Is it worth getting a PCI gfx card, or should he ratherreplace his motherboard (socket 478, tricky to get hold of but do-able) with one that has an AGP slot and get a better AGP card?

Thanks a lot!

God bless & kind regards,
Richard
 
The only PCI card I can think of is a Geforce 5200 which can't handle Aero, but should run Vista at least.

SOcket 478 is almost impossible to get hold of unless you go second hand.
 
dablakmark8 said:
There Will Always Be Issues With Vista So Keep Xp At Hand
Click to expand...

Every OS has always got issues. :) The depth of the "issues" is what worries me. The "issues" are deep with Vista atm. It could and should change. I hope.
 
btw, have any of you guys tried the Vista stability and compatability pack yet? It's still in Beta, but..

Improved reliability and compatibility of Vista when used with newer graphics cards in several specific scenarios and configurations.
Improved reliability when working with external displays on a laptop.
Increased compatibility with many video drivers.
Improved visual appearance of games with high intensity graphics.
Improved quality of playback for HD-DVD and Blue-Ray disks on large monitors.
Improved reliability for Internet Explorer when some third party toolbars are installed on Vista.
Improved Vista reliability in networking configuration scenarios.
Improved the reliability of Windows Calendar in Vista.
Improved reliability of systems that were upgraded from XP to Vista.
Increased compatibility with many printer drivers.
Increased reliability and performance of Vista when entering sleep and resuming from sleep.
Resolves an issue where creating AVI files on Vista may get corrupted.

:DImproves the performance when copying or moving entire directories containing large amounts of data or files.
Improves the performance of Vista’s Memory Manager in specific customer scenarios and prevents some issues which may lead to memory corruption.
Improves the performance in calculating the ‘estimated time remaining’ when copying/moving large files. :D


http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1686
 
Richard7 said:
Hi all,

My friend is trying to install Vista onto his PC. It is a P4 2.4ghz, not sure how much RAM (i hope he has atleast 1gb!!).

The problem is that his silly motherboard has an AGI slot instead of an AGP slot. It's ASrock's special AGP slot that only supports a select few graphics card (I don't understand the logic...). Basically it seems that getting hold of those card's is very difficult so an AGP card is not an option for his mobo.

So, could he just get a PCI graphics card instead? I know they are quite rare but there are still a few for sale, for example this one: http://www.nivo.co.za/#product/737

I know Vista needs a dx 9 gfx card with atleast 128mb but what will the performance of a PCI gfx card be? He doesn't want to play games but does want to edit video.

My core question is: Is it worth getting a PCI gfx card, or should he ratherreplace his motherboard (socket 478, tricky to get hold of but do-able) with one that has an AGP slot and get a better AGP card?

Thanks a lot!

God bless & kind regards,
Richard
Click to expand...

I think it would just be better to get a new PC, like you said 478 is next to imposible these days with X2 & Core 2 Duo's going for sio cheap!
 
Rather get a new motherboard with pci-x and a pci-x grafics card.The agp slot difference might be the speed some old motherboards Agp speeds is 4x not 8x that means u won't be able to run a 8x agp card on it.I highly doubt that u would get a new agp 4x speed card somewhere maybe in the juckmail a second hand one.But i would not recommend running vista on it.
I had the same problem a few years back with mine.:/
 
Yea I would be very wary of installing Vista on that machine. While you probably can get the stuff to run vista, it isnt the latest technology, or even 1 generation back, which doesnt bode well for performance.
 
You Know What Iam Happy With Vista,as Long As I Have My Duel Os System.games On Xp And Everything Else On Vista.antwan I Can Relate ,deep Problems.i Had 3 Blue Screens Death Already
 
Thanks for all the advice so far, much appreciated! It's looking like PCI gfx isn't the way to go.

Regarding a new mobo, I got a quote from BuyComputer for a MSI PM8M-V (link) for R499 incl. vat.

What you guys think?

If he replaces the mobo, has atleast 1gb RAM and gets a decent AGP card (suggestions?? - not for games, just some video editing) will Vista run ok?

Thanks!
 
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