Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 64MB

[Sio]

This Sunday im going to the computer faire to get my Graphics Card for which I will be using for games such as Medal Of Honour and Unreal Tournament2003 and Asherons Call 2, as my geforce2 melted a few weeks ago, the Geforce4 was reccomended but still not been satisfied till I go over every other possibility I was wonderign what do you people make of the Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 64MB (AGP)?

http://www4.tomshardware.com/graphic...kyroII-17.html

Thats the page whichshows its benchmark test. Im not a computer buff so can you's tell me if this is any good, a friend of my dads who is a network admin (knows his stuff) reccomended this to my dad, im not sure if he did so knowing that its purpose was for the latest games out, at £45 it is very cheap but the phrase "you get what you pay for" springs to mind.......
Thankign You,
Sio

[Sazerac]

By all accounts, it's an excellent card. It's the one I'm using in my machine at home, actually. I can actually play high-end graphics games now! It uses nVidia technology, so the nVidia drivers work with it with no problem.

-Sazerac

[andrewas]

Tom knows what hes talking about, that used to be one of the sites I used for choosing my own hardware (Back when I still could afford to buy rather than beg)

Kyro II is a competitor to the geforce 2 chipset, so the geforce 4 will outperform it. But for £45? Not a bad deal.

On these figures, this card is very, very close to Geforce 2 performance. (Geforce 2 MX dont count as Geforce 2). That means itll run anything on the market today. No games as yet require geforce 3 power. NWN will run fine on this for example.

Building a high-end games macine Id say go for the G4, but for the average user the Kyro II will be more than adequate.

[andrewas]

Originally posted by Sazerac: By all accounts, it's an excellent card. It's the one I'm using in my machine at home, actually. I can actually play high-end graphics games now! It uses nVidia technology, so the nVidia drivers work with it with no problem. -Sazerac

Ah, kyro is the competitor to geforec, its from PowerVR. I havent kept up with whos bought who recently, so PowerVR could now be owned by Nvidia for all I know, but the technology isnt Nvidias.

I wouldn't touch a Kyro now they are very old technology now, go with a GF4 4200 or a Radeon 9000 perhaps the Radeon 8500 if your not looking to spend too much but want decent performance, even a GF3 TI200 although Id say even they were a bit slow now. If your looking for all out speed then the GF4 4600 and the Radeon 9700 are good choices ...although the gains over the previosuly mentioned cards are not really worth the extra money you pay in my personal opinion.

[Attalus]

I had a GeForce 2 card that wouldn't play NWN.. I now have a Geforce4 with 64 mb of RAM that works great. It is a Verto MX 420.

[Scholarcs]

Originally posted by andrewas: No games as yet require geforce 3 power. NWN will run fine on this for example.

I believe that to absolutely max out all of the NWN setting, you need a geforce 3. For shiny water especially I believe.

[Animal]

Originally posted by andrewas: quote: Originally posted by Sazerac: By all accounts, it's an excellent card. It's the one I'm using in my machine at home, actually. I can actually play high-end graphics games now! It uses nVidia technology, so the nVidia drivers work with it with no problem. -Sazerac

Ah, kyro is the competitor to geforec, its from PowerVR. I havent kept up with whos bought who recently, so PowerVR could now be owned by Nvidia for all I know, but the technology isnt Nvidias.[/QUOTE]PowerVR makes a decent card on paper, but the drivers are horrible! NVidia has proven itself with timely driver updates, which makes the difference although it will be interesting to see ATI's new DX9 card, the R300. It looks like 3D Labs is making a comeback too, so we should see the video card market heating up real soon, with a HUGE drop in prices for newer cards.

[True_Moose]

Don't know if this is kinda expensive, but I got a brand new PC in June, and I've got an MSI Ti4200. Absolutely awesome, and cheaper than most of the high end GF3s. I can easily get 10000s on 3DMark (which is very good.) Although my friend has a Hercules and it kicks total @$$ as well.

[Mouse]

My advice - avoid the Kyro card. I have one and it's sitting in a box. Apart from games compatibility problems, as has been said, the drivers are far from top quality. It may be cheap, but that does not make it a bargain.