OR: How the video card conquered all
The one thing I get asked a lot as a techie and a gamer is: What video card should I get.
The choices, back in the day of old school computer electronics was simple. You picked up, pretty much, the highest quality video card you could get, because the technology was still running up the scale. When the videocard started to self-multiple in the same year, things got sticky.
My favorite videocard is still the Voodoo 5. I got it from a auction on Ebay after the product line got dumped when Nvidia took over. Then started the onslaught.
Now, in this hallowed year of 2004, we basically have two companies. Canadian's own ATI, and Nividia. After Nvidia bought out 3dfx, the competition started to peeter out. ATI was realitively new at the time, and the quality of their cards were, in my humble opinion, not too good.
They thrashed it out. The ATI 9xxxx line got brought out, and the Nvidia corp. brought out the 5xxx line. ATI had just won the Nintendo Gamecube VPU (Video Processor Unit) contract, and the Nvidia corp was making video chips for the MS Xbox. Neck and neck the companies ran. Until, ATI started to leave Nvidia behind.
Now, keep in mind, there were a lot of games that carried the Nvidia seal, which meant that their games are geared towards that brand of vidoecard. Back in the day, Ultima IX: The Accension did that too. It was a Voodoo only game, but really didn't run good with other cards. You could patch it, but that didn't help too much. It was a flag of loyalty, so to speak.
My own favorite game, FFXI, runs great on my 9200 SE, then I popped in a GeForce 5600 and the proformance was not as good or balanced.
The new line of cards are coming out, and the issue is that the hottest of the new games that are coming out, will not run on 'under scaled' cards. In other words, you will get no where the quality out of Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 without the top of the line card. Your 9600/9800 and 56/57/5900 cards will not give you a good play.
So, that brings us to the newer set of cards. The tables were turned at this point. ATI won not only the contract ot supply the VPUs for the Xbox 2, but for the Nintendo Gamboy DS. Nvidia breaks first with the 6800, and then ATI with the x800.
Benchmarks (check any gaming site) show that the preformance rating for the ATI started to dip. The new Nvidia line doesn't win by much, but it is enough. Now, I am not saying that you need to go out and get these cards. Both companies realize that not everyone can go out and buy 600+ dollar cards. They are offering the 'price match' cards that will be able to play the good cards, but not for a couple of months after the the games themselves are released. So, there is still that window for buying the expensive cards, cards that cost almost as much as new computers.
For people that already own the 9800 /5900, the games work with them, but you will not get the clean, smooth performance of the new cards. But, you can still paly at 15/23 frames per second. * I haven't tested this, but I got the info from a ID source about Doom 
So, whne it comes to buying videocards, my adivce : Get what you can afford. The prices will come down, and you never need something beefy to play the Sims.
Until next time.