new graphics card: which one?

Hello all,

After five years I am going to build myself another Windows XP
computer and I am wondering which graphics card works best for V10. 
My old computer has a Matrox G550 and almost no problems with
"disappearing" text. I am not a gamer, so I don't need the fastest
and
most expensive card there is..

A second question: what is the best format for  exporting/saving
vector drawings for use in the future? The printer gets his tiffs, but
what if somebody wants to use the drawings (archaeological stuff)
after for example ten years? 

Thanks in advance for your help and advice,
Hannie Steegstra
The Netherlands

On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:36:34 +0100, Hannie Steegstra
<j.steegstra@hccnet.nl> wrote:

Hannie,

> My old computer has a Matrox G550 and almost no problems with

I faced the same question a couple of weeks ago, was contemplating the
current Matrox (P690 PCIe) but it is not readily available and I
wasn't completely convinced of its advantages today. Everything we saw
as practically Matrox-only many years ago (two or more monitors
attached, correct gamma setting in the video card and similar) is now
completely common. I finally settled on a GeForce 8500 GT card.

This is the low end of the gaming range but still capable of doing
hardware acceleration across the board, even if slower than the high
end cards. And it's cheap enough to throw away later if I will need
anything better. No problems with Ventura or any other program
whatsoever.

Actually, if there is a slight chance of needing anything for a
computer game, the brand new GeForce 9600 (that doubles the speed of
the previous high end, yet it only costs the half) would be the best
pick I guess.

Bye,
  Gabor

DEAK JAHN, Gabor
Hungarian CVP Forum
http://www.tramontana.co.hu/index_en.php

On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:36:34 +0100, Hannie Steegstra
<j.steegstra@hccnet.nl> wrote:

Hannie,

> A second question: what is the best format for  exporting/saving
> vector drawings for use in the future? The printer gets his tiffs, but
> what if somebody wants to use the drawings (archaeological stuff)
> after for example ten years?

EPS, without any doubt. It will stay. And being an openly published
format with open source programs to handle it (GhostScript), there is
no risk at all.

Bye,
  Gabor

DEAK JAHN, Gabor
Hungarian CVP Forum
http://www.tramontana.co.hu/index_en.php

Hi Hannie,

Having built about 50 or 60 computers, I strongly recommend an ATI card. 
We've been happy with them for years since they got their drivers 
working well. And we run dual monitors with a pan and scan virtual 
desktop on both. ATI drivers are very, very stable in Windows XP.

I've got an ATI Radeon X1650 PCI-Express that's worked wonderfully. The 
new Radeon XL3850 with 256 or 512 MB RAM is supposed to be pretty good 
for all but the most demanding gamers. Check the reviews. (NVIDIA boards 
have had very kinky drivers for VISTA, which I realize you are prudently 
not installing, but if you ever go to VISTA, the NVIDIA drivers will do 
you wrong (so say the reviews). Who knows?

And I must say that the Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe Motherboard has been 
great. The AMD dual (especially the 6400+) and quad core CPUs give you a 
better value for the buck than the Intel CPUs. I recently built two 
computers with this board and AMD CPUs, one for myself and one for a 
client -- we've both been very happy with them.

After five years since your last PC, you will be blown away by the speed 
increase you are going to enjoy.

Hannie Steegstra wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> After five years I am going to build myself another Windows XP
> computer and I am wondering which graphics card works best for V10. 
> My old computer has a Matrox G550 and almost no problems with
> "disappearing" text. I am not a gamer, so I don't need the
fastest and
> most expensive card there is..
> 
> A second question: what is the best format for  exporting/saving
> vector drawings for use in the future? The printer gets his tiffs, but
> what if somebody wants to use the drawings (archaeological stuff)
> after for example ten years? 
> 
> Thanks in advance for your help and advice,
> Hannie Steegstra
> The Netherlands
> 

-- 
Daniel Lauber
Planning/Communications
River Forest, IL

dl@planningcommunications.com

Websites:
http://planningcommunications.com
http://jobfindersonline.com
http://dreamitdoit.net

DEAK JAHN, Gabor wrote:
> I faced the same question a couple of weeks ago, was contemplating the
> current Matrox (P690 PCIe) but it is not readily available and I
> wasn't completely convinced of its advantages today. Everything we saw
> as practically Matrox-only many years ago (two or more monitors
> attached, correct gamma setting in the video card and similar) is now
> completely common. I finally settled on a GeForce 8500 GT card.
>   
I had to get a new graphics card a couple of months ago. (Our tech guys 
built me a new computer.) We chose to stick with Matrox, so I got the 
P690 PCIe. We also upgraded my assistant's card to the P690 PCI. They 
both look good.

In this instance, we went directly to Matrox, so I wasn't in a position 
to compare cards from different vendors in my machine. The previous two 
times I bought video cards, they were part of a new rig.  In both cases, 
the computers came with nVidia cards. In both cases, I replaced the 
nVidias with Matrox P650s after a couple of weeks. (Fortunately, I was 
dealing with a vendor that was willing to get me the Matrox cards.)

The first time that happened, I was looking for improved text rendering. 
The nVidia wasn't bad, but the Matrox was better. However, I was 
astounded to find that the Matrox card gave speedier processing. I've 
never been equipped to test benchmarks, so this is strictly anecdotal 
and subjective. It felt like the machine sped up dramatically. I 
estimated that video processing was faster by at least a third even 
though the P650 had only half the RAM on board that the nVidia had had.

The second time, I was also looking for improved text rendering. More 
importantly I needed some technical info re resolution and refresh rates 
that wasn't showing. Neither I nor the vendor was able to obtain that 
info. Moreover, the vendor's contacts at nVidia were reportedly both 
unresponsive and discourteous. I figured I was better off with Matrox. 
That time also, there was an apparent improvement in speed when I 
replaced the nVidia, although it wasn't as dramatic.

Allison