Vid Card Question

[Dollan]

Briefly... I *may* be getting a hand me down video card for my primary computer. It is a Gforce-1 with 32MB of vid memory. Does Gforce work well with Celestia?

I know 32MB is still low, but it is a heck of a lot better than the current 8MB Nvidia that this system is currently running on!

Oh, and please, I KNOW video cards are relatively cheap. But, believe me. If I could pick up a top o' the line new one, I *would*. So none of the almost inevitable comments to the effect of "Why don't you just buy one?"

Thanks for any information!

...John...

[TERRIER]

"Why don't you just buy one?"

OK, I won't ask the obvious then.

It seems that Celestia is geared more towards Nvidia cards, so there's no problem with a Gforce card, although I don't know much about Gforce 1's.

If your current 8MB Nvidia card works OK then this should do too.

One thing to check, is whether the new card is AGP or PCI.
If it is an AGP, make sure your motherboard has an AGP slot.

[selden]

John,

It ought to work, but I dunno what hardware OpenGL features it has. The list at delphi3d.net starts with the GF2.

My guess is that it may be as much as twice as fast as your current card and can work with larger textures, but still won't draw bumpmaps or specular reflections. But I could be wrong!
(The GF2 supports vertex programs, and some people claim that the GF2 is just a faster GF1.)

[Dollan]

Thanks for the response, guys...

On my other computer, Selden, my Nvidia 32mb card doesn't support bumps or speculars, and is limited to 2k textures. I'd expect the same from this Gforce. Which is fine! Anything is an improvement over this card!

...John...

[selden]

Not all 32MB cards are the same. Remember that MX cards, for example, leave out functions that Ti cards have, even when their names are otherwise the same.

Have fun!

[Dollan]

Hmm, that's true. Well, we'll see what happens when I get the card. The first hurtle is actually getting it from my friend... he tends to be a tad bit forgetful! **chuckles**

...John...

[t00fri]

John, I still have a 32MB GF2 card working on my wife's machine, using the very latest NVIDIA 1.0-7167 driver.

With this card, I made many large and high-quality textures that were very popular during the first two years of the forum's operation. Actually /all/ textures on my TextureFoundry site ( with > 154000 visits/downloads) were made with my good-old GF2. Also all images in the album referred to from within the TextureFoundry.

The card still works very respectably with the latest Celestia CVS. Except Saturn's ring shadows are not displayed.


Bye Fridger

[Don. Edwards]

Dollan,
If you actualy get the card it will work just fine. The major differnce between the GeForce and the GeForce 2 was speed. They both have the same engine. The GF2 is just a more refind card. You should see a big difference from your TNT card. You will be able to use some of the more advanced Celestia features that you were locked out of before. You should get to see spec lighting on Earths oceans and basicly better graphics period. You might even be able to use anti-alliasing with that card. Not to sure but I had a GeForce2 MX 32mb and it could do AA pretty good. I don't have that card anymore. I sold it with my old system. But I do have a NVidia Quadro2 Pro 64mb basicly a GeForce2 GTS with aditional OpenGL features activated in hardware by Nvidia and in drivers. It works with Celeatia quite well also.
Hope you get the card soon.

Don. Edwards