The only reason you get the few sporadic new offerings for AGP today is that there is still a large installed user base. I don't think I've seen a major motherboard manufacturer offer a new AGP based mainboard for a very long time. I highly doubt the industry will see a DX10 AGP offering. Chances are, most systems using the antiquated AGP bus would likely be less than ideal candidates for Vista anyway.

Don't forget the next version of PCI Express is around the corner too.

so will everyone send me a £1 each when the 8550 is released on AGP?

I stand to make a fair bit of money here :lol:

ok guys break it down for me barney style please

replacing this
http://www.bizrate.com/graphicscards...-pid432696467/
with this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130056

good deal, bad deal, your an idiot or wasting my money?
I really don't know anything about computer guts but ask me about ww2 and I do alright.

ATI Radeon 1950 PRO (256mb version). Rest of computer is monstrous. At 1024x768 with no AA, everything in SH3 runs monstrous except the harbours in GWX - they noticably take away from the silky feeling. Out in the ocean however, pumping up any AA etc seems to do nothing to budge the mega FPS.

Good card, good deal, it´s a thousand times better than you current card, but if you can afford it you should get this card, it´s quite a bit faster:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102067

What´s your CPU and RAM?

2 gb of ram and a p4 3ghz

You're in reasonably good shape here. Once you upgrade your video card, I think you may be quite pleased with the performance you'll be able to achive.

You guys seem pretty well versed in 3D cards. Gotta get me a good one of those one day... until then, well, I have a Radeon 9800 Pro with 256 ram.

If I were to give you some specs on my motherboard could you guys tell me the best performing card on my POS computer? What would you upgrade your card to WITH MY MOTHERBOARD or am I right and I have upgraded as far as I can go?

Here are my motherboard specs:

Board: Intel Corporation D845EBG2 AAA83975-205
Serial Number: CF2B22402624
Bus Clock: 133 megahertz
BIOS: Intel Corp. PT84520A.86A.0015.P08.0302261328

What's the motherboard model and brand. More importantly, is it AGP or PCI-E. Either way, there are plenty of cards out that are far better than your current one, in both formats. So there is room for improvement.
But SH4 will be processor and RAM reliant too, so they will also need to be up to speed.

Here's more of my stuff. Thanks for responding so fast. Like I said, I need at least your top two recommendations that will work in my POS.



Operating System System Model

Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 1 (build 2600) Intel Corporation Processor a Main Circuit Board b 2.80 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4
8 kilobyte primary memory cache
512 kilobyte secondary memory cache Board: Intel Corporation D845EBG2 AAA83975-205
Serial Number: CF2B22402624
Bus Clock: 133 megahertz
BIOS: Intel Corp. PT84520A.86A.0015.P08.0302261328 02/26/2003 Drives Memory Modules c,d 40.01 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
12.91 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

SONY CD-RW CRX175A1 [CD-ROM drive]
SONY DVD-ROM DDU1621 [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

ST340016A [Hard drive] (40.02 GB) -- drive 0, s/n 3HS4MLKX, rev 3.75, SMART Status: Healthy
WIBU - CodeMeter-Stick USB Device [Hard drive] (2 MB) -- drive 1 1024 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'J6G2' has 512 MB
Slot 'J6G1' has 512 MB Local Drive Volumes


c: (NTFS on drive 0) 40.01 GB 12.91 GB free g: (FAT on drive 1) 2 MB 2 MB free Network Drives None detected Users (mouse over user name for details) Printers local user accounts last logon [IMG]file:///E:/Belarc%20Advisor%20Current%20Profile_files/trans.gif[/IMG] The Sabins 2/17/2007 1:00:45 PM (admin) local system accounts [IMG]file:///E:/Belarc%20Advisor%20Current%20Profile_files/trans.gif[/IMG] Administrator never (admin) [IMG]file:///E:/Belarc%20Advisor%20Current%20Profile_files/trans.gif[/IMG] ASPNET never
[IMG]file:///E:/Belarc%20Advisor%20Current%20Profile_files/no.gif[/IMG] Guest never
[IMG]file:///E:/Belarc%20Advisor%20Current%20Profile_files/no.gif[/IMG] HelpAssistant never
[IMG]file:///E:/Belarc%20Advisor%20Current%20Profile_files/no.gif[/IMG] SUPPORT_388945a0 never

[IMG]file:///E:/Belarc%20Advisor%20Current%20Profile_files/no.gif[/IMG] Marks a disabled account; [IMG]file:///E:/Belarc%20Advisor%20Current%20Profile_files/lock.gif[/IMG] Marks a locked account Canon PIXMA iP1500 on USB001 HP DeskJet 340 on LPT1:

Your system doesn't look too bad. Any card will work, compatibility issues are rare, BUT, you need to know if you have an AGP slot or a PCI-Express slot. That is the only area that you really need to be concerned about in terms of compatibility. If you still have your motherboard or graphics card manual, it will tell you in one of those.

There ar still decent cards around for each slot type (AGP is older). I'm willing to bet yours is AGP. Just depends on what you're willing to spend.

What Boris said. :yep:

My 9800 Pro is using the AGP slot right now. :)

Recs?

@ Boris: Good guess. That Intel mainboard (D845EBG2), is an AGP based board.

@ Snakeeyes: I noticed you have a WIBU CodeMeter-Stick. Are you an SB Pro PE player perchance?

Of course. :)