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Old 16th December 2005, 01:04 PM   #21
Spinner
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Hawk,
Hi mate. Sorry for your troubles.
I looked at that Volari card and its definately not SLI. Its an AGP card.
SLI is basicly a card that can be paired with another of the same to improve performance. The PCIexpress type, unsuitable for your mobo, include some SLI cards and years ago the old V5 cards did this first but no AGP type. So your rep is blinding you with tech terms.
I suspect he's resorted to this rather than admit that theres problems with their 'less than the cost of a sandwich' batch of volaris. On the face of it the volari should work but why a desktop vid card should toute its battery saving feature as its' specs is suspect too.
As you say, AC3D doesnt need more oomph than you've got in your box. You've just been stopped by a bad card. Any good quality AGP card should work for you. A XF5500 should work too but dont fall into the same trap you need quality more than spec. $24 is too cheap.
Which card are you getting?
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Old 16th December 2005, 02:10 PM   #22
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The situation is this, now I must wait until they receive the Volari card back, before they can apply a credit to my account, this credit will be applied to the purchase of a new board.

The only reason I bought the Volari was to check to see why AC3D would not work with the onboard video on the new motherboard, meaning just to get it working. Bad move, many days fooling around, wasted time, bad video card, but this is what was suggested to do to get to the bottom of things.

I will try a GeForce FX 5500, I have 30 days to return it if it doesn't work.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...c.asp?CatId=28
The one at the top of the page, there is a rebate on it so I guess it will do. The only thing I am now concerned about is if it is card approved by Microsoft, Windows is getting fussier with each release, and Windows 2000 is the best (IMO) but very fussy. And every time you add something to a computer things get complicated. Thanks for the suggests
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Old 16th December 2005, 09:51 PM   #23
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That looks better. Its still bargain basement but the buyer reviews rate it as working consistantly.
Unlike that volari thing -
'Works better without any drivers, not worth it,tried it with 3 different Pcs never worked, I got a great and rich black screen everytime.'
Reviews from buyers like that and consistant one star ratings should've warned you. Buying online, read everything and think about it. If theres anything you dont understand look it up at Tom's Hardware or similar.
The advice was good, hope it all pans out correctly.
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Old 16th December 2005, 10:50 PM   #24
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Not to be disagreeable but please recheck the reviews for the Volari board, it received 4 and 1/2 stars out of 5 out of 70 reviews.. (I didn't check them however before I made the purchase) http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...ab=11&NoMapp=0
For sure some users had problems others however did not, and praise the card.
I have no idea what is the truth, I purchaced on a recommendation, to solve the current onboard video problems, I did mention this in an earlier post, and you are correct I did not read any of the reviews at all as reviews work both ways for most cards.

We shall see what happens when I get the new video card, which won't be for a couple of weeks, due to the return and shipping time. I have another computer which is my internet machine, a laptop for when I wish to get away, and this particular machine (The new build) will never be on the internet, and only used as a dedicated work machine, until I decide I need something better. I can use gmax but its clunky and awkward compared to AC3D, that is, in my opinion. Thanks for your input.
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Old 17th December 2005, 12:18 AM   #25
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Checked the rating system. It defaults to 5 stars and must be reduced. Many of those 5 star ratings accompany a post about his probs mainly with the drivers and power needs.
Your 300w PU may struggle with an AGP card. Thats included in the volari's buyer reports. Read them, theres quite a bit about the drivers that could assist you and relates directly to your probs with the chainsaw mobo and its drivers too.
Good luck, anyway.
I'm out.
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Old 17th December 2005, 08:33 AM   #26
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Question on your power supply suggestion, the XFX 5500 only requires a 250 watt power supply according to the manufactures specs, or am I missing something? See below. I have everything they have specified and I know that is the minimum but I have more.
I am not running a DVD drive or any other accessories on this machine, no sound cards, no Internet, no printer, and only run one program at a time, so why would I need a new and higher watt power supply?

System Requirements: (For the XFX 5500)

# Pentium III/4/Celeron or AMD Athlon/Duron
# AGP 2.0 or later AGP slot
# 128MB of system memory
# Installation software requires CD-ROM drive
# minimum 250W system power supply
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Old 21st December 2005, 11:00 AM   #27
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hawk
Here is what I was going by, is this...that is not a demanding requirement.
* preferable, but not necessary - 3D accelerated video card with OpenGL drivers
The video card I ordered (And am now replacing) did have 3d accelerated video and OpenGL 1.3 the problem was, according to the tech rep, is not suitable for this kind of program. Why? I haven't a clue.
Please don't pay too much attention to what "tech reps" say, in general they know nothing other than enough buzzwords to confuse the average punter.

Anyway, many gfx card manufacturers do not properly support OpenGL, even when they claim to. If you want good OpenGL performance, you can't go wrong with an nvidia card, and most of ATI's should probably be fine too. Always use the drivers provided by the _chipset_ manufacturer, NOT the card manufacturer, despite what the box will say; the drivers with the card will almost always be sub-standard in comparison to those from Nvidia or ATI.

I've had no problems running AC3D on any machine I've tried it on, including, amazingly enough, my Toughbook with a 266 Pentium-mmx processor and 64 megs of RAM. I've only ever run it under Linux though.

Being involved with the Flightgear (www.flightgear.org) project which relies heavily on decent OpenGL support, probably the biggest source of trouble we see is from shoddy graphics cards. The best OpenGL support from ordinary, affordable cards is from Nvidia; make sure you use the latest drivers available from their website, not just the ones that come with the card.

Hope this helps,

AJ
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Old 21st December 2005, 04:32 PM   #28
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I order a Nvidia card yesterday and it is on its way, so we shall see. Thanks all
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