Radeon9600 on AGP v. 1.0?

[win2kuser]

Hi, a customer of mine wants to play the new Tomb Raider game, but his Diamond Viper 770 wont let him as its not DX9 compatible and there are no drivers over DX7 available.

I have had a look at his system specs and he has a Dell XPS T_ system with AGP version 1.0 2xAGP.

He is quite interested in the Radeon 9600PRO video card, but I am not sure if it will work with 2xAGP version 1.0

Does it? or failing that, does anyone know of a video card that will work at a realistic price say less than £200 (pounds sterling).

His cpu is a P3 600 running windows 98. He can't afford to upgrade his system ATM, but wants to get the video card first.

Any help will be very gratefully received.

Thanks in advance...



Mark.

[Peter M]

Nope. As one can easily see from the card connector notch, the 9600 is a 1.5V-only card, requiring a 4x/8x AGP slot. On 1x/2x mainboards, this neither fits nor works.

A 9600 would be pretty bored waiting for the input from a PIII-600 to trickle in. Get a 9200, these are still 1x/2x compatible, and have lower power requirements too.

[win2kuser]

Thanks for the reply Peter M, just as I thought really although I wasn't 100% sure as I don't really know specs on ATI cards as I don't use them.

I tried to persuade him that he wouldn't be able to run a high end card with the crap that he's got and recommended a MX440 but he wouldn't have a bar of it

9200 you say. hmm.....

[Darthgary]

The 9000 Pro was called the Geforce 4 MX killer for a reason.

I think the 9000 Pro is the fastest out of the 3, but any of them would be fine.

[win2kuser]

Okey Dokey, I was looking at a 9000 pro as well. All the 9200's I have seen are AGPx4/x8, and I am not 100% sure that they will scale down to a 1x/2x AGP.

I take it the 9000 pro is DX9 compatible. The game he is trying to play - Tomb Raider (The new one) says it requires a 100% DX9 compatible video card. If that is right though, it rules out all GeForce4 cards as they are not DX9 - Is that right?

Thanks for the help guys...

[Peter M]

The 9200 chip is the 9000 with added 8x capability. It didn't lose 2x mode in that process. As witnessed by the cards having the "universal" notch code (two notches to fit both the 3.3V and 1.5V keyed AGP slots).

[Peter M]

Note that the 9000/9200 are DX8 hardware - their drivers do run under DX9 anyhow, but they don't support all the technically possible DX9 features.

[win2kuser]

Ah ha, thats the key - DX9 compatible Drivers and NOT Hardware.
I thought it was stange that the game was asking for DX9 compatible hardware only - That would cut a lot of players out of the game.

Must have been a printing error on the case.

I understand the differences in AGP 2x and 4/8x with the notches etc, I just had a brain fart and having not seen the AGP port on the piece of crap he's got, I couldn't visualise what type it was.

That clears that up then...


Thanks guys - esp. Peter M