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Hey all... If you read my Oblivion post then you know whats going on. Basically I had 128 intel integrated video card and thats lame so I went to walmart and bought the nVidia GeForce FX 5500 256MB card.

Thing of it is, once i install the new video card (which has twice the memory) it makes everything run SLOWER than the integrated gpu. I'm running Vista and it says all over the box that it works on Vista, but the CD doesnt seem to have any Vista drivers with it. (seems to only have 98-xp)

I tried installing the in-the-box drivers anyway and it gives me some error about "you must uninstall all other video drivers before installing this new one" I've tried that about 4 times to no avail.

I've scoured the nVidia website and google for the last 3 or so hours looking for drivers, fixes and updates and downloaded what seems to be the best and newest of everything.


Heres the kicker: I bought the card at the electronics department and so walked out the door and even though the security device had been removed it set off the alarm for some reason.

The guy wasnt happy with the receipt and instead of rubbing the barcode over the magnet to disable the internal security thing he like rubbed the entire freaking box all over it like all the edges and ends and everything.




I guess the question come down to this. How likely is it that he damaged the card when he was rubbing it? The card still like WORKS as in displays and stuff, but just really really crappy. as in I cant draw a box on the windows desktop without it lagging.

O yeah also I tried the card in my win XP computer and it seemed to run pretty crappy in that machine too.

I'm trying to decide if I should ask for a replacement or a refund


Thanks all so very much!

I'd suggest taking it back (claim it keeps making your computer reboot, they generally don't argue that) and getting a 6200 or something.

No one really knows whem NVIDIA will, if ever update the Vista drivers for the GeForce 5/FX-Series cards. So getting a 6-Series will probably be better in the long run.. apart from anything else they perform much better anyway.

I know that the boxes say "Vista Essentials" on them now, but realistically, they're quite poor cards in all. With the budget-end cards for both NVIDIA and ATI for their HD-gen cards being around $50-60 it's really worth picking one of them up if you have a PCI-E board. Otherwise, for about $110 you can get a 7600GS/X1600XT AGP which performs fairly well on most current generation games. In-fact better than the new Dx10 line cards, plus both cards are actively supported still even for Vista.

I have a HD 2600 XT on here (£60 ~$105ish) which performs very nicely on all games even the Dx10 ones. Not getting record breaking FPS, but it's more than enough even in the more demanding titles. Should last for the next year or two as well.

This is something I'd like to note when getting a new card, don't bother with top-end; as they're superceeded too quickly; and low-end generally remains just as piss poor between generations (last time there was a performance increase of more than 5% was between GeForce 5-6) .. budget cards generally can last you a good 18-24months before starting to get sluggish.

In-fact it's not until recently that those from the previous generations started to show performance drops. You can still play most games with resonable hardware.

Crysis, Tabula Rasa and Colin McRae Dirt however seem to be big exceptions to this; as you need serious hardware to get any reasonable performance from them. Dirt for example makes this seem fairly odd given, my PC pretty much can push more than what a 360 can even with the added crap from Windows constantly there; yet my 360 runs it at 60fps constant and smooth, my PC barely pushes 25fps on a good day with everything turned off. Think their code for the PC is probably quite squiffy.

Still for most games you'll be alright with a mid-range for a while.

Card I'd recommend:
GeForce: 6600, 7600, 8600 or above
Radeon: X800, X1600, HD 2600 or above

Budget cards are nice for desktop useage, but gaming; not worth touching unless your budget really is so small it can't extended to an extra $20-30. In which case I'd recommend skipping getting that new game you want in order to have the extra. Trust me you won't be sorry.

Go get a refund, an fx5500 is absolute rubbish. It's probably running slower because with your integrated graphics your processor is doing the work. With an fx5500 the card is far slower than your cpu.

This is the same series of card you bought, just so you know how much walmart just ripped you off.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131014

Don't buy anything below a geforce 7 series.

Here's a nice budget card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121007

If you want something directx 10 capable:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125065

And if you want the best budget card on the market, go for an 8600gt for about a few bucks more (or a lot of bucks more, if you go for a higher end 8600):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125070

For something high end, an 8600gts:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121077

It may be easier if you tell us what you want to spend and if you want dx9 or 10.

If you got more to spend, I'd recommend a dx10 card, as they are more capable in vista, and they can give nicer effects.

I don't know how true raven's statement is regarding speed of a dx9 vs dx10 card, but if you can afford an 8600gt or gts, go for it.

wow thanks a lot for all the link jerico... i'll definatly look into that!

Do you guys know if they will give me cash back or if it will be a gift card? I asked specifically if I could get a refund if it didnt work and the guy said yes but i found out as he was checking me out that he was like hard core new on the job or something

lol

I'm loving the specs on the GeForce 8500GT 512MB! I think ill go with that one. Thanks all very much!

If possible, go with a higher clock speed over ram. I've found with my games 256mb is plenty. Go with a 256mb 8600gt over a 512mb 8500.

Only after you find the highest clock and series number do you want to start mulling over 256vs512 or more of ram.

And yes, walmart should give a full refund, tell them it doesn't work and you'll be fine.

Well I'd strongly recommend, if you want to actually be able to use your DirectX10 card with actual DirectX10 game... DO NOT buy the budget end card.

GeForce 8200-8500
Radeon HD 2400 PRO/XT

Lost Planet for example, barely reaches over 20fps even with a top-end 8500. In DirectX 9 it does perform at a reasonable performance, but when you consider that you can get a 7600 for the same price that will run the game at over 3x the framerate; it's not difficult to see that the 8-Series is really taking the piss with their budget range.

You will be able to get similar (albiet a little slower) with the 8600, as you would with the 7600; but again it is a bit more, and DirectX 10 performance isn't that greatly increase (but is atleast playable)

Mid-Range or High-End DirectX10 cards are then ONLY real option if you must buy one.

I'd still highly recommend to everyone thinking of a new card to stick with good old DirectX9.0c cards like X1600 XT and 7600 GT as they perform very very well without costing you your life saving.

This said, the Radeon HD 2600 XT is a little more than the X1600 and gives you about the same performance in both Dx9 & Dx10.

Also if you ever think high-end, the Radeon HD 2900 XT is roughly $300 and out-performs the GeForce 8800 GTX which is closer to $400 mark. Reason for this is because it has less on-board memory, which while almost a third of the 8800 GTX; it's much quicker.

I could go into the ins and outs to why more isn't better, but quite simply put... why spend more cash, when it makes little sense unless you're heartset on NVIDIA?

From my experience with the GeForce cards, particularly the high-end ones. Unless you have the absolute top-notch memory (DDR3) and high-end processor (Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad Extreme) then frankly you're going to get a jittery experience as the system catches up to the gpu.

It's like this really. Why buy a Ferrari, just to drive around town; when you can have a Porsche for a fraction of the money that is a damn sight more comfortable and still has the horsepower there if it needs it.

a card from the geforce 7 series, like the 7600GT will be much better than a geforece 5500 FX card. The 5500 is probably slower than the integrated graphics. It is also fairly old. You don't have to get a very high-end card and your processor would not be able to keep up anyway. Geforce 7 will be great for your situation.

I asume your on an old AGP/PCI slot if your trying to run a fx5500????

The 5500 is a bit of a con, it's just a 5200 with and upped memory address bus from 64bit to 128bit. It's also very old shader 2.0 technology, you were scammed by the shop assistant me thinx

How many watts are in your power supply.

The 7600GS/GT is a pretty good AGP card for price/watts and it's shader 3.0. There's loads of bargins on ebay too.

If your running Vista though you realy need a Direct X10 shader 4 card such as the 8600GT but they only run on PCI-E

Holy Carp <. >< I think I know what happened you asked the shop assistant for a PCI-E card and he gave you a PCI card