TROUBLE-FREE Basic AGP Card For A7M266?

  • Thread starter Thread starter bongolation
  • Start date Start date
bongolation

bongolation

New member
OK, so I listened to the people here and got an ASUS A7M266 and a boxed 1.2G/266 Athlon, at a cost of at least $100 more than other options.

It looks like I have to get a video card for this, but am a bit wary as there are so many hideous, insoluble gremlins that come from AGP cards that can interfere with every other function of a system.

JUST what you don't want when dealing with an already troublesome business like multitrack audio recording.

I've been told that PCI video will slow down my recording hardware, so that's out.

I had somehow thought that the A7M266 had an onboard AGP (for the price it certainly should have!) which presumably would be conflict/gremlin-free...but nooooooo.

In that I am ONLY going to be using this box for recording, I don't imagine I need anything fancy like some gamer card, but I need something that won't get in the way in terms of resource use, conflicts or stunted performance.

I'm looking for cheap and generic here, if possible.

What do I look for and what do I avoid? How many megs, beyond which point more are useless for looking at my recording software screens?

As always, thanks for any help!
 
I would go for an NVidia Geforce2 MX-based card. I currently use an ATI Radeon 32MB DDR in my main box, but to be honest, for pure and simple stability I would go with an NVidia card. Geforce2 MX200's with 32MB are down to $46 on www.pricewatch.com and these cards are a very good value for that price.
 
Dolemite said:
I would go with an NVidia card. Geforce2 MX200's with 32MB are down to $46 on www.pricewatch.com and these cards are a very good value for that price.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a good deal, except for the extortionate shipping you probably have to pay to get a three-ounce soundcard delivered.

NVidia is the ticket, huh? Well, I'll check at Fry's and see what I can come up with there. Big thing is that I want no trouble from the card.

Just out of curiosity, isn't 32m a bit excessive just to watch your mix screens? Is there an advantage to having this much memory for that or is it unused?

Thanks!
 
Another question: Does the kind of memory in the AGP card make any difference?

I see that there are pretty pricey DDR AGP cards and the A7M266 is a DDR board. Does that mean that I _must_ get a DDR video card? Boy, I sure hope not!
 
32MB is pretty much the standard minimum at the moment. No, you probably don't need it just for tracking programs but you'll just be glad its there in case you ever do and you won't save money in either the long run or the short run by cheaping out on the memory.

$47 + $6 shipping from www.mixpc.com sounds extremely reasonable to me. Unless you wanna take it up the ass from Fry's.... ;)

A DDR-capable motherboard refers to its ability to use DDR system memory, which is definitely not necessary. It will use any AGP card independent of memory type.
 
123

Make sure you order/ordered pc2100 DDR ram, too, not pc1600. If not, send it back.
www.crucial.com is good, and free shipping, but I heard they were stopping it.
 
But if you don't need or ever plan on dual output....you'd really be better off with a card that's not based on 2+ year old technology. Yes, even for running Cubase or whatever, you might as well have something good, especially for only $47. Best of all, you don't have to order from a place called [anal] Invado!
 
# Geforce2 MX200's with 32MB are down to $46

Unfortunately, I have been explicitly warned about the MX200 only. Other Geforce MXs were said to be OK, buth there were unspecified problems with the MX200, specifically, for at least some sound/DAW applications.

CompUSA has Radeon VE Duals for $79.99 and I'm in a hurry, so in the absence of any horror stories about that one, I guess I'll get it today. I have to go get the HD and card now and be back to receive the Crucial shipment which should be here this PM.

BTW, I went to a two-bit local computer show at the fairgrounds Sunday and beat the lowest PriceWatch price on a A7M266 and came within $5 on everything else. Even Micron memory was only $4 more than from Crucial, who seem to be utter idiots in the shipping department.

Sigh!
 
Well Bong I guess you have your card already, but for what its worth I think you picked a good one. In my main music system I'm using a Voodo III 3000, in my 2nd system I am using same Radeon 32 DDR card. They both work fine. Voodo cards are cheap since they are out of business, I would avoid them. You can still find ATI Rage-based cards (their chip before Radeon) with 8 meg for about $28. And most of the NVidia cards are just fine too.
 
Dole,
I use Pulsar cards with Emagic and Samplitude. I need separate screens for Pulsars' Big Mixer and DSP processors and my recording software. If you go to the Sekd or the Pulsar or Planet Z sites, you'll see most systems using Matrox 450@32bit. Their drivers work well with top quality systems.
Chuck
 
# in my 2nd system I am using same Radeon 32 DDR card. They
# both work fine.

The installation is pretty messy so far. This dual monitor business seems to complicate things if you're using only one monitor; it keeps installing yours twice or something.

Also, it's not clear how much of their bundled crap is needed, useful, or just obstructive. I really need to strip this thing down so it does only its straight AGP function and doesn't sabotage me by doing me any unwanted favors.

Documentation is all but nonexistent.

Hmm. Confusing.:confused:
 
Oops, I take it back, my Radeon 32 DDR is single, not double. Sorry. And I never read manuals :)

I did have one problem with it, so obscure that I wouldn't normally mention it, but it touches on part of your last item. All ATI products come with their own Media Center software, which includes extras like the DVD viewing program. When I replaced my Voodo3 with the Radeon, I also had a seperate ATI TV Tuner card. Lets you watch TV in a box, plus record and edit video. Similar to the All-In-Wonder but without video output of its own.

Well with the Voodo card all the TV tuner features worked, but certain games would crash and I tracked it down to a compatibility issue between the Voodo and the TV card. So I figure, I'll buy a new ATI card, ATI & ATI they gotta work together right? BIG SORRY. Turns out the Radeon chip version of media center is incompatible with my old TV card. They are "working on a fix". Sure. And the real frustrating thing is that my computer DVD drive, which was never able to play movies with the Voodo card, played movies great with the Radeon Media center software.

So I have a choice, I (a) use the new software, watch DVDs, and stop using my TV card, or (2) use the OLD media center software, watch TV, forget the DVD, and then install DRIVER ONLY for the Radeon card. Well I wound up doing #2. If you ignore the CD that comes with the card you can download the video driver only from ATI and have a pretty clean install. Bonus is that now all my games stopped crashing and the 3D displays look great.
 
Yes, but see - all I want to do is clean out ALL that stuff, as this is on a dedicated DAW that is using one monitor and nothing else. No DVD, no games no anything but sound recording.

I'm figuring simplicity is a virtue here. 8-)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top