New Graphics Card

[RandomPixie]

Well, I have an AGP rig (about 4 years old) at the moment, and am currently looking to build a new PC. However, it's going to take me a while (probably a few months) before my new PC will be ready because of my finances/budget (not only that but because I'm not savvy when it comes to things like this I have to educate myself about current hardware). So at the moment I'm thinking I will buy a new AGP graphics card for my current PC so that I can play Vanguard while I build my new PC.

My question is, will one of these be good enough to play Vanguard with?
Sapphire Technology Radeon X1950Pro 512MB GDDR3 AGP8x Dual DVI 580/700
HIS ATI Radeon X1950 Pro ICEQ3 Turbo 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (AGP) - Retail

I don't need to play on high quality settings, just want to be able to play the game. Currently I have an ATi Radeon 9700 Pro, which is crap now. My CPU is an AMD Athlon XP 2700+ with 1GB of DDR (PC3200) RAM. I do have another 1GB of the same RAM waiting to be installed, just haven't gotten around to it yet. I'd be happy to be able to play the game in a group inside a dungeon without being treated to a slide-show. So therefore I am happy to play on a performance setting if it means I can accomplish the above if I have a new graphics card (just until I get my new PC built).

[Solution0]

Yes those card should be correct and about the best you can get with an AGP slot nowadays. Will most probably solve your slideshow problem and the quality you'll get is unknown as this is still beta and pretty much no one know how it will be with bug fixed and released version.

Let's hope for the best.

Sorry Nil to steal one of your replies

[tehgeek]

You have better specs then me all around, and I can still play VG. Unless you really can't stand your results, even after tweaking, then I would get one of those cards. If you can wait I would, and put the money toward the new system.

[Ra Hag Ghen]

I`ve not beta(ed) and I`m very concerned about the performance issues I`ve read here and there.I`m looking forward to upgrade my system in a few months but right now I have an Athlon XP 3000 +,1gig ram(PC 3200),Geforce 6600 gpu.

I`m still wandering if I `ll be able to enjoy VG with these specs

[Kethra]

Well, I have your same processor Ra Hag Ghen and my video card is a little older than yours, and I'm able to run the game pretty well with all the tweaks I've seen and on lower settings. I still enjoy the game, and it doesn't look really bad even on lowest settings.

I just inherited a newer card, GeForce 6800 GT and though I haven't played much, I did test it and I'm able to run very easily at High Performance ( ie the game looks darn good)

[RandomPixie]

I've decided to go for this card but I think I will need a new power supply and not sure which one to get.

[Kiril]

Nice card, you should be able to play very well with the new card and some tweaks (as no matter what card you have it seems you have to tweak at the moment) on balanced settings with the extra ram maybe even push some other things around, for example I don't care for shadows so I leave them off, it gives me a few extra fps to spend on details and specular. I have 7600 and on balanced and very very pretty

On the power supply issue this one should do you well.

[Ra Hag Ghen]

Originally Posted by Kethra

Well, I have your same processor Ra Hag Ghen and my video card is a little older than yours, and I'm able to run the game pretty well with all the tweaks I've seen and on lower settings. I still enjoy the game, and it doesn't look really bad even on lowest settings.

I just inherited a newer card, GeForce 6800 GT and though I haven't played much, I did test it and I'm able to run very easily at High Performance ( ie the game looks darn good)

That`s good news Kethra which means I can play until I do my upgrade.May be at that time the game will be more polished and stable.

[Solution0]

Aside from the time the game drops dramatically (once in a while for no apparent reason so i guess it's a coding bug or something) the games run ok even on weaker system and we can hope for a bit better at release and after.

[RandomPixie]

Well, I'm going to order that card when I get paid, see how it runs with my current power supply then if I need a new power supply I will order a new one. So thanks for the replies. My only concern now is my HD... it's on the slow side so... I have to get an external one anyway for back up purposes so I will buy an external HD and then reformat my old HD. Hopefully that should fix the slowness a bit. Or if not, do you think it's possible to run VG from an external HD...?