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"Battlefield 2 doesn't start."

I've got the demo but it simply doesn't start. I've since installed the supplied drivers (77.30) but that didn't fix the problem either. The desktop resolution is 1024x768 at 32bit colours by the way. Direct X 9c is installed, graphics card a 6600GT, onboard sound with the A8N-SLI board and an Athlon 64 3800+ processor.

In some games the 6600GT has a 30% performance advantage over the 9800 Pro, by the way. The 9800 Pro's performance will start to suffer a lot sooner, so the extra £20 might be worth it.

I'd be wary of the AGP X700, because it's not a Pro or an XT. There's a chance it might be slower than a 9800 Pro which is around the same price.

6600GTs are about £110

Well the 9800Pro is a very good card for under £100, but if you shop around you might be able to get sub£100 for a GeForce 6600GT, which is better, but not by a lot (generally 2-3FPS higher on most games):
here's a comparison: [URL]http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2277&p=3[/URL]


so your choice is between the x700 Pro AGP, the 9800 Pro and the 6600GT. The choice is yours, and they're all pretty much the same, with the 6600GT perhaps being slightly better than the other 2, and the x700 perhaps being slightly better than the 9800 Pro. I'd say if you can get the 6600GT then go ahead, but if you see the x700 for much cheaper then get it.

Yeah might get that, it was always a toss-up between that and the x700. It's a kick in the teeth, someone I know with a 9100 and 9200 has got it to play on both. :S

I'd recommend the 9800pro
[URL]http://specialreserve.co.uk/Sapphire-ATI-Radeon-_1560_r.html[/URL]
Less than £100 and works a charm.
You might be a techhead who can talk about pipes and pixels per square whatever. But, if like me, your knowledge/interest goes as far as "Will it play high level detail?" then I'd point at that one.

Right. So which card do I get and how much do I pay for it?

I'm running a 9800pro card with zero problems at all.
Runs all my other games on high settings (Far Cry included on v high) with little or no slowdown.
Don't bother with a hyper expensive one, it'll only be outdated in a couple of weeks after purchasing

Don't buy your graphics cards based purely on the memory! Like I said oftentimes manufacturers just double the memory on an older model to fool you into thinking that it's better. A 128MB PCI-E X700 will perform better than a 256MB AGP 9700, for instance.

Some of the new 512MB cards perform worse or just as well as their 256MB counterparts, and the same goes for 128/256 cards.

I mean there are people playing BF2 with 64MB cards when the minimum is 128, which shows that memory isn't everything.
If your GFX card only has 4 pipelines it doesn't matter how much extra memory it has it won't match an 8 pipeline model. I also doubt that many new games will be quite as demanding as BF2 - it's quite a system hog. Most games out at the moment still seem to only require a 64Mb card minimum.

Chippxero wrote:
> Yeah Dabs stock a AGP version
>
> Radeon X700 256MB AGP DVI-I VO for £88.98

Might go for one of them, seeing as I havent got a PCI-E slot...

Just a little note: BF2 recommends a 256mb video card. So I wouldn't bother with 128mb..personally 128mb cards are getting on a bit now. If I was buying now then 256mb is a must with 512mb cards round the corner.