Paying too much on eBay for graphics cards... what's the deal?

[ButeLegz]

Man, I've been going crazy looking for an old graphics card (2, 4, 8MB) with s-video for aaaages now, I'm really starting to lose heart! I'm based in Australia so I've been madly searching eBay.com.au for something around the $10 mark.... forget it. There are none & the TNTII type ones all end up at around $30. $30 + $15 postage! Ha! $45 for a TNTII? Please, who's paying this? Another $5 can get you a 64MB Radeon 9200 at the local bricks & mortar.

Do a search on eBay.com however... boom! A three page listing of ATI cards many older 8MB. I found an ATI Rage XPERT@PLAY 8MG AGP Video Card TV Out PAL, which ended at $5.20! Around $6.57 AUD. Perfect right? The problem here is the seller would not post it using Global Priority mail ($5 USD to Australia) but instead insisted on USPS air for $15.00 USD due to the chance of damage with the Global Priority option... at three times the price you'd want that envelope to have air bags.

Anyway just my rant. I'm going to have to spend $50 on an a newish Radeon, upgrade my workstation PC & use it's old card in my cab. Annoying when I know I could scoop up a superseded 8MB for $6. Any mamers, Australian or otherwise have any old cards they'd like to sell a desperate comrade?

[SirPeale]

I'm with the eBay guy, as I, too, do the same thing.

[DarkKobold]

Graphics cards that zing, joystick thing,
button for pushing, new-old-stock for bling...
that's on eBay!

[ButeLegz]

I'm with the eBay guy too... makes total sense to pad & pack fragile goods. It's the $10 extra for 2 cents of bubble wrap I find hard to swallow, the generally costly international postal & people on my local eBay overbidding which has got me dark, not the seller.

[SirPeale]

Well, if you want I can get a card for you and send it off.  If you're just looking for something that outputs a 15KHz signal, plenty of cards do that.  More than I thought, actually.

[ButeLegz]

Wow, really? I just want a card with s-video that will boot to my tv (PAL), agp, pci... I'm not fussed. I did find & buy a nice & cheap card (S3 Virge) but extrodinarily you have to run a seperate app once the computer has booted through your monitor in order to set it to your tv! Useless. An ATI would be nice but I'm getting desperate at this stage so I'm not so fussed. Unless your cool with padding the card & using the $5 bag, the $15 postage still kills me. I've also got to ask some questions at my bank about the costs involved in transfering funds to an overseas account. Thanks bunch for the offer, how would you go about finding one? Anything here in Australia you've had you eye on?!

[SirPeale]

Why one of those cards?  Why not use an arcade monitor?  I've got two, and let me tell you, the games never looked better (except on a dedicated machine, of course)

I misunderstood.  I thought you were looking for just a card that outputed 15KHz and were having no luck.  I wish I could find some cards that had TV out cheaply too.  In this instance you might just want to get it new from the store.

[ButeLegz]

Nah, part of my whole reason for making this cab was so I could watch news, music video clips & skate videos on it. It's a cocktail cab so it'll be my everyday coffee table - with a twist. If you in the US, there's plenty of cheap cards with TV out around. Hell, $5.20 is about as good as it gets. Thanks for trying, though.

[Blakey]

My old Asus (V3100?) TNT1 VIVO card would display to tv out (s-vid or comp) from bootup, so one of those would probably suffice.

My advice would be to sign up for the forums at www.overclockers.com.au (Holla hoopstar) and after your initial 90 day period is up head on over to the trading forums. Probably one of the cheapest places in Oz to pick up secondhand parts.

Failing that, how about the sunday computer markets which run in most capital cities?

[ButeLegz]

Good idea on the overclockers forum. I signed up back in 2002 to post a pc case I was modding. Now just to remember my password...

I've been checking out the swap meets but a lot of the older cards don't have s-vid & the one I did pick up was useless for a mame cab.

Now, was my handle Kustom Kut or KustumCut? Hmmm....

[lokki]

Well, if you want I can get a card for you and send it off.  If you're just looking for something that outputs a 15KHz signal, plenty of cards do that.  More than I thought, actually.

Do you have a list of cards that can do this?
Are these viable alternatives to ArcadeVGA?

The only list I have found so far is at
http://www.mameworld.net/pc2jamma/mamemon5.html

[DarkKobold]

Here is another listing

http://easymamecab.mameworld.net/html/hardware.htm

[SirPeale]

Do you have a list of cards that can do this?
Are these viable alternatives to ArcadeVGA?

The only list I have found so far is at
http://www.mameworld.net/pc2jamma/mamemon5.html

I just pop them in my machine and if they work, good, and if not, they go in the "Don't Work" pile.

So far, all the ATI cards have worked, and Trident cards too.  They don't have to be fancy.  S3 cards don't work, haven't found one yet.

[fredster]

There are more places to buy these cards than Ebay.  Look around the net for comupter outlets that sell video cards.

In the US, you can get some deals at Walmart.  

But for $10, you can't expect much.  

[JoyMonkey]

I found this place to be an excellent source for cheap ATI cards that will output easily to an arcade monitor:
http://www.enetshoponline.com/ra12xp20sd16.html

That 16mb model is only $18 with free shipping and the ones they sent me also have TV-out (supposed to be $3.50 extra!). They also have an 8mb card for $16 and a weak little 2mb card for $12.

Sweet!

[ButeLegz]

That's what I'm talkin' bout! Now if that were only based in the land of oz... most if not all of the online computer stores based here only sell new current model stuff, the market's not nearly as big as in the US. If there were stores like the previous post, I'd be laughing... I've posted on Overclockers so let's see how that goes.

[lokki]

I just pop them in my machine and if they work, good, and if not, they go in the "Don't Work" pile.

So far, all the ATI cards have worked, and Trident cards too.  They don't have to be fancy.  S3 cards don't work, haven't found one yet.

Now you have me interested..... Do you need to you advancemame?
Will they work under windows? xp?
or only under DOS?

[SirPeale]

Actually I've been using VAntAGE.  Along with a VGA monitor that also does 15KHz (a Princeton Graphics 1400).