Video Card Problems

[Puremagix]

I just recently had a video card go belly up and had a friend with a computer shop order me a new video card with DVI. He ordered an Nvida GeForce 5200 W/256mb of RAM. I installed the card, loaded the drivers and installed the latest version of Direct X (Ver. 9c) and went to PC Pitstop to run a video test.

 

The 2D & 3D test failed miserably. Text, pictures & videos look great, but the graphics on 2 & 3D are horrible. I'm running Windows XP Home W/Service Pack 3 on an AMD 3800 Processor. The computer has 3Gb of Memory. I'm no gamer, but I figured you guys would be the best source for ironing this problem out since you need high end graphics.

 

The 2 & 3D graphics were slow and didn't perform very well. The old card I had worked great with these, but this one isn't. I realize the GeForce 5200 is the low end card of the lot, but it should perform better than it is right now. Any suggestions?

[Maxst2]

Could you link your results?

[KRAM]

Newer nVidia drivers for Windows XP are horrible on Pitstop test. The 2D test is like molasses on every card I have tested. As for the 3D test, it will not be that great either for a FX 5200. Link a test result like Maxst2 suggested.

[IntelGuy]

To improve the video performance of a low end card change to 16 bit color and turn off some of the eye candy.

 

Go to Start>Control Panel>System>Advanced>Performance>Settings and either set it for best performance and turn on only what you need to make it look acceptable, or set it to Custom and go through the list and turn off the features you can live without. "Smooth edges of screen fonts" seems to use a lot of power.

[Puremagix]

I went to Nvida's website and downloaded the latest drivers for the 5200, 175. something, installed them and for some reason it wouldn't let me choose 1024X768 resolution. For some odd reason, the card would revert back to 800X600 instead of the 1024X768. It would allow me to choose the next higher setting 1280X1024, but not the next lower. I have it hooked to an Acer 22 Inch DVI Wide Screen Flat Panel Monitor.

 

It was weird, so I went to the device manager and had it revert to the original drivers. What's odd was the fact that the previous video card was an older DVI card and actually a lower end card than the Nvida. I played with some of the settings on the new card last night, but the 2 & 3D still performs crappy.

 

I also noticed that this card only shows one refresh rate, 60 Hertz, the old card gave you the option to download several other refresh rates that went up above 200 hertz, not that I needed them. This one has hidden refresh rates that can be displayed by unchecking the tick box under advanced settings in the display options, but it warns you that you could damage the monitor by running them. It's really odd how this one performs, even with the latest drivers.

[Puremagix]

"To improve the video performance of a low end card change to 16 bit color and turn off some of the eye candy."

 

That's something I didn't try, I'll do that tonight when I get home and let you know what happens. Thanks for the help guys.