The Palit Radeon HD 3850 temps were always too high (idle at 63C-65-C and load at 69C-71C) and the card caused an annoying problem where after a reboot, I got nothing on the screen.It would take several reboots to get my screens back up. And this happened with NO OVERCLOCKING!!

Just got off the phone with Tigerdirect.com customer service. Sending the Palit card back to them for store credit minus the $10 rebate. Had never heard of Palit before I bought this card but I can tell you that I won't be getting another Palit Video card. I'm sticking with a company that has never done me wrong. Sapphire. I'm going after the Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 once the store credit is applied. At $89.99, it costs exactly what the Palit card cost . This Radeon HD 2600PRO will do fine until I get the 4670. It doesn't have the raw power or FPS of anything, but I can live with that for now. I've got smooth frame rates in all my games and Crysis is still playable. Stay away from Palit guys.:|Sapphire rules

Ok,

You are trying to run HL2 and TF2 on a PC with an integrated graphics processor (Geforce 6100)? This is why you get lag. In HL2 Lost coast, the best I could get with GeForce 6100 was 26.7FPS. I had to upgrade to Sapphire Radeon HD 2600PRO in order to get up to 79FPS with everything on Medium at 1024X768. I wanted more FPS, so I upgraded again to Palit Radeon HD 3850 and am getting 82.9 with everything on High @1024X768. If you want more FPS, you need to upgrade to a PCI-e graphics card. IGP won't give you more FPS no matter what settings you choose.

But which card is decent priced and can run new games for the next few years? Say at the price range of $200 at most.

THANKS!

Me_Ann

Radeon HD 4850 goes for under $200 (between $169 and $199) and kicks butt. Sapphire makes an awesome one with a fantastic cooler but there are others that are good as well. Go to www.tigerdirect.com and you will see for yourself.

Heard nVidia is kicking their asses for months now, but lately, I have problems with Vista + nVidia, there are many reporting this too in the nVidia forums. Obviously, not the majority, but a lot are still being hit with an error and all.

So just wondering, is ATI good these days? What are decent cards from them? Not the overly expensive new ones obviously.

THANKS! Me_Ann

"Is ATI good these days"? Yes in fact they are. Take your pick in low, mid, or high end segment. Choose what you want to spend and pick a card. ATI has something for everyone in every segment. I've never had any problem with any ATI card, but have had numerous problems with NVidia cards. The problems you and others are likely to be an outgrowth of the "NV Gate" scandal. NV claimed it only affected a small number of HP laptops, however it has been proven to affect HP, Dell and Apple laptops, and desktop chips appear to be having increased failures.

[QUOTE="jmnderson69"]

UT3 my fps dips to like 45 fps in some areas.

swehunt

And @ 1280x1024!

There must be some malfunktion, this does not sound rigth at all, my guess is that you should have the dubble framerate at this res...

There is definitely something wrong with your card, to be getting FPS like that. It should be owning. Hope you still have warrantee to exchange it.

A blue screen of death during a system repair indicates a software problem, I think. When a system repair doesn't work, it is best to do a fresh installation of Windows. Delete the partition, create a new one, and reformat the drive prior to installation of Windows. That will of course cause you to lose all of your files, but that will give you a fresh Windows install and eliminate any software that could have been the cause of the BSOD. You didn't happen to note what the BSOD text hinted at the problem being, did you? The BSOD gives clues as to what is causing the problem. A video or sound card driver could be the problem. Pay attention to the details and you'll get this problem fixed in no time.

How easy/hard is it to use Xbox 360 controllers on a PC? do you have to download drivers, or does it do plug-and-play? i know rumble doesnt work without fan-made drivers, but im not really concerned with that. any help?

dgwutka

I have been using an Xbox 360 controller on my PC since last December. It was plug and play. No driver to install. Of course, I am using it on a Windows Vista PC and that is why it works.

WHO is Mark??

Are you speaking of yourself in the third person?

Crysis will run but with AA turned off. Dont worry at resolutions above 1024 you'll not need it that much. You should be able to play it all other settings set to high at ~35 FPS (not too good but not too bad either). You wont face problem playing the game unless you play online.arijit_unreal

What happens if he plays it online? I've played it online but haven't benchmarked it. It runs smoother than the single player, but then I haven't had to deal with multiple alien flying monsters attacking me and everyone else, as in the single player.