PC graphics question

someone

New member
I am planning on buying a Compaq 8000Z, and if you go here: http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping...tomize_start.do you'll see the product features. If you scroll down to "Graphics" in the features section, you'll see it says "8X AGP Graphics Card Slot."

Does that mean that the 8000Z model can give me any graphics card they feel like (ex. a 64 mb or any other "old" graphics card) or will they even give me the computer without a graphics card? If you click on the "Compare all series" link, you'll see that the 8000Z got 3/3 stars for gaming, so do think the will give me a graphics card (that is powerful like a 256 mb graphics card)?

Thanks very much,
Someone
 

Spekkio

Banned
Originally posted by someone@Feb 10 2004, 11:50 PM
I am planning on buying a Compaq 8000Z, and if you go here: http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping...tomize_start.do you'll see the product features. If you scroll down to "Graphics" in the features section, you'll see it says "8X AGP Graphics Card Slot."

Does that mean that the 8000Z model can give me any graphics card they feel like (ex. a 64 mb or any other "old" graphics card) or will they even give me the computer without a graphics card? If you click on the "Compare all series" link, you'll see that the 8000Z got 3/3 stars for gaming, so do think the will give me a graphics card (that is powerful like a 256 mb graphics card)?

Thanks very much,
Someone
256 MB is only marginally faster (often on par or even slower) than the 128 MB versions.
None of the games today even use all of it, so instead of getting a slower 256 mb card, invest in a faster 128 mb card, the difference will be much more noticeable.
 
J

Jet Set Willy

Guest
He's right, that much texture memory is overkill for the foreseeable future.
 

Zach

New member
I was under the impression more ram could improve AA performance, especially at higher resolutions
 

Spekkio

Banned
Originally posted by Neco@Mar 9 2004, 12:04 AM
I was under the impression more ram could improve AA performance, especially at higher resolutions
It can, but none of the textures will fill the texture memory.
If you have a voodoo 1 with umpteenhundred megabytes of texture memory it will still suck arse and probably just crash with FSAA on.

A faster GPU with a better fillrate, more pipelines and all that technical mumbo jumbo will benefit your performance a lot more because it will calculate all of it very much faster.

If texture memory was the answer, we'd be using a geforce 2 with 1024 mb now.
 
J

Jet Set Willy

Guest
More texture memory can be used for other optimisations and yeah, you'll get some extra speed, but the money is better spent on a faster architecture.
 

El Fugitivo

New member
Or if you're not comfortable with building your own, at least buy a Dell or something. Compaqs are terrible, almost as bad as eMachines.
 

Nick

New member
Yes, please no Dell. You pay them, and they no longer care after that. I've seen one too many horrid things in reference to Dell, including terrible shipping/billing problems. eMachines used to be rather poor, but I believe since a year ago or two, they are under new management, and it isn't as bad as it used to be.
 

onewecallgod

New member
even with all those promotions, i think i could still build an equivilent box for much cheaper and possibly much better
 

suckthismeat

New member
HP (now including compaq) sucks, they have horrible tech support, the machines are built with the worst parts, and they consume about 10 gig of your hard drive with non-sense software most of which is Trial software lasting for about 30 days(or in some cases less) they make a cumbersome machine and thier great software allows you to make 1 backup of your harddrive.... only one.

I hate to say it, E-machine or Sony at this point, if you must buy a premade computer, or hell go to tiger direct, even those have to be better than HP or Dell(I refuse to comment on Dell, as everyone else already has).

As to the video cards, no matter how you look at it, the more memmory, and the faster the clock the better the capabilities. A GF 4 256M will likely outperform a GF FX 128M when you crank the resolution up and break out 4x FSAA, Anisotropic(or however its spelled) Filtering, and Tripple Buffering.... its a sad fact of life, but doing that at say 1280x1024 res will take tons of video memmory....
 

suckthismeat

New member
now start adding the textures, and 4x FSAA, and please note that the textures start requiring more memmory as they get bigger as well

--correction--

More complex textures will require more memory
 
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