7 replies to this topic

[hacnslash]

I just build myself a cheap duron box, it's gonna be my permanent nix box, and I was wondering what is better, for me to use an old tnt2 on AGP or to use the integrated graphics. Usually I know its better to use a separate AGP card, but in this case the card is very old and the motherboard is brand new, so I have no idea which would offer better performance. thanks in advance

btw I have no idea how much ram the tnt2 has, prolly 16 or 32 megs
the system memory is 256 and the proccessor is a 1.2 gig duron
I have a 40 gig hdd and a cdrom and floppy drive from an old computer.

[JHVH-1]

If you aren't playing games then you aren't gonna get much out of a new card. If you have the money to blow and want a new card then go all out and buy somethin sweet (like a some flavor of GeForce card)

Most motherboards have ok 2D performance because that technology has not really had any leaps like 3D tech has. Though with the transparencies in modern GUIs and stuff like that you might see a slight improvement.

[hacnslash]

im not gonna play any games, so I should be ok there, but I want the best performance I can squeeze without a new card, so should I just leave the AGP card in there?? The thing I was confused about was the fact that I could give more ram to the integrated graphics than the card has, thus improving my performance....

[JHVH-1]

im not gonna play any games, so I should be ok there, but I want the best performance I can squeeze without a new card, so should I just leave the AGP card in there?? The thing I was confused about was the fact that I could give more ram to the integrated graphics than the card has, thus improving my performance....

It can't hurt leaving the AGP card in there so you might as well. It sounds like your motherboard uses shared ram so allocating more video ram just gives you less regular ram, which I don't think would really increase much of anything.

If you have a second monitor though you can hook one up to the integrated video and them one up to the agp card for some dual monitor action

[hacnslash]

I actually have two monitors but I have one hooked up to another pc right now, actually the one Im using to write this....Im just gonna use the agp card, from what ive researched my integrated graphics support a maximum of 32 megs, prolly what the card has, so I wouldn't be gaining anything using the integrated graphics.

[hacnslash]

Well, I put the whole thing together and Im using the tnt2 card, it has 32 megs of ram. Now the thing is my slackware cd wont boot, I think my cd drive is messed up being that it's old and it's a 4x drive, Im using it as a filler till I get a writer or at least a dvd drive. The molex connector looks a bit shabby, it's very flexible, like one or more of the connections are broke, guess I have to open it up now to see what's wrong.

[StankDawg]

about the video card:

Definately use the TNT2 card. The on board card will use part of the system RAM (as you heard) *AND* it will probably not support any video acceleration techniques. Again, as JHVH-1 pointed out, that is mostly only noticed in games, but you never know what you many need/want for graphics programs. Most importantly to you, it frees up that normal RAM for system stuff instead of slicing off 32 for graphics.

[hacnslash]

yeah, I am having great results with the tnt2 so far kde looks great and its fast and snappy, I havent switched any transparencies on, so I might see some slight hesitation there.....