Planning on XP Pro adaptor, but need advice on video card

[magic0200]

Hey guys, I tried a while back with a ATI, Component dongle from ATI and power strip, and Samsusng A734 (whatever the most rec TV was at the time). I finished my final body but this is my only hold back on the computer parts.

As the thread says, I plan on having a heavy pc (2.5 amd, 768 ram for more recent games...), but I don't know what kind of card that would work well with not only the XP pro, but just graphics. My budget for card is around 70 to 150. Also, if anyone can offer a good motherboard, since I wasn't a fan of my last ASUS .


Thank you guys so much for your time!

[arcadefan2005]

I'm curious about it as well.

Last night I hooked up the XP Pro to a Dell Optiplex 600 MHz (with integrated video) and ran it to my Toshiba 27A34 via component cables.

In Windows mode, it looks kinda crappy (hard to read text, not so crisp). Of course, that's comparing it to the 17" flat panel sitting right next to it. Is that pretty much how all TVs look running Windows, regardless of the video card/type of output? But in MAME, I tried Galaga, and I think it looks okay.

I'm NOT planning on using this computer as my MAME machine, just doing some testing. But I'm curious as well.....

Will a nicer video card (anything's better than this integrated video, I'm sure) make much of a difference? The video looks great on the computer monitor though.

Also, to get Galaga to fill up the TV, I had to set the resolution to 800x600. But, when I hear everyone talk about the ATI/dongle combo, I keep reading 640x480 or 640x432, so I'm confused.

[Dire Radiant]

For strictly 2D apps like MAME I'd look at Matrox cards. They have crappy 3D acceleration but their 2D image quality is superb. On the other hand if you're running anything 3D like Zinc or PC games then I'd go with ATI or nVidia.

As for the motherboard for a 32 bit AMD chip you can't do better than an Abit A7N series nforce 2 board. Great stability and reliability. If the price makes you light headed, look at the Gigabyte nforce 2 boards. I've had very good experiences with those.