Mr. Ksoft

For Christmas, I got a new video card, an ATI Radeon 9250 256MB PCI, to replace my onboard peice of junk (Radeon Xpress 200 128MB). I only recently got it installed, only to find that it wasn't working right with my games. I updated to the latest Catalyst driver and the games worked, but I was surprised at how poor the games were running. They are skipping a lot, I can't get anything to go smoothly, even on the lowest quality. Sometimes 2D games that came out in 1998 that I play even skip a lot. Heck, even the Windows GUI is running a bit slow (as in, the desktop wallpaper actually takes a second or so to render) I don't see why this would be, since it's a 256MB card compared to my old 128, and once I stopped using the onboard card, I regained 128MB of my 1GB RAM. Not to mention I have a 2.2 Ghz AMD Athlon 64 processor. What the hell is going on with this thing?

ZDarryl

Did you disable the onboard video?

dai

http://www.tweakguides.com/ATICAT_1.html

Noipsaj

The 256MB don't say nothing related to performance... I have a long time ago a FX5600 256MB abd that are the best video card of the world (in real was a piece of junk) i have actually a 9800 Pro with 128MB and this are FAR better!!!!!!

Take a look at some sites of benchmarks for graphics cards like:

www.xbitlabs.com
www.tomshardware.com

and other around the internet... and you will see that the 9250 is a low profile card and the 256MB doesn't say nothing to performace...

If you want a good video card for a medium cost and good for actual games take a look in a 6600GT from nvidia or even a 9600XT (they are older but much better than 9250)

I hope you solve your problem....


C ya

R3zagron

actually, if anything, the video card you bought isnt an upgrade at all from your onboard...

if your onboard video was a Xpress 200, i'd say you have a PCI-e x16 slot..?

mgoldb2

I hate to say but that might even be consider a downgrade. The Radeon Xpress 200 is DirectX 9 while a Radeon 9250 is a DirectX 8 video card. Meaning the Radeon Xpress 200 supports more advanced features.

ebackhus

They may actually be the same in processing speed. I'd stick with the X200 if I were you.

Mr. Ksoft

Wonderful. Just wonderful. Now what the fork do i say to my parents over getting me this? they already traded the thing in once because they got the AGP version. They'll be really ticked now. I'll just keep the 9250 in there to say I 'use' it, but, well, there's a little problem: HOW do I re-enable the Xpress card? It's not displayed in the device manager and the only drivers for the computer are on the Restore disc (reinstalling Windows). Will the plain old Catalyst drivers work for it and successfully detect the device or do I need to do a driver hunt?

"if your onboard video was a Xpress 200, i'd say you have a PCI-e x16 slot..?"

I know I have some kinda PCI-E slot, since we mistakened it for an AGP :P, but I dunno, is there a difference between a PCI-E and a PCI-E x16? All I know is that the PCI-E cards cost a lot more money, which I currently don't have.

alwrmc

Go to the ATI web site www.ati.com and download the drivers. You will need to remove/delete/disable the 9250 card and probably may need to go into BIOS to enable the onboard video again. Too bad I didn't catch this thread yesterday, I gave my Radeon 9600 XT 256mb to a coworker after I upgraded my video card.

Mr. Ksoft

Doesn't matter anyways; you couldn't have sent it to me.

I got the thing disabled and my onboard working, so everything's fine now. Now I can only hope that Best Buy will take it back if I used it.

alwrmc

If Best Buy will not accept the card for a refund, perhaps they would accept it if you traded it for an upgraded card and paid the difference. The Nvidia 6600 or the ATI 9600 are both very good middle of the road cards. Capable of playing at respectable visual quality. Before I upgraded to the card I have now (see my signature) I ran Far Cry, F.E.A.R. etc with most everything cranked up to near highest settings with very good FPS.