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Is this card good enough to play GTA4?

I need to upgrade my current video card.

They should be giving away Roller Coaster Tycoon 1, much better suited to the performance of this card.

#1: no.

@1, LOL.

I think this might be able to handle world of warcraft, at best. Even then, barely. Decent for a HTPC.

for $5 more, get a 9500GT

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814145162

4X the memory bandwidth and twice the pixels per clock.

handy chip comparisons :

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Best-Graphics-Card,2033-7.html

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/printpage/132/1

the gpureview link down below is awesome, thanks!

#1, Cpu is the primary bottleneck on most systems for GTA4. If you have a quad core with atleast 3 gb ddr2 667 or faster you should be fine on that department. Quad cores are good enough to play at decent framerates but the Core i7 offers a lot more fps especially at higher viewable distances.
For Gta4, Rockstar's "Recommended system requirements" means "plays just ok"
You need atleast 1 gb of ram on your graphics card to be able to play with high texture quality. Medium = console quality.
On my Hd4850 with 512 mb ram, I can either use medium quality textures with max 50% viewale distance or high with 1% viewable distance. Either of these combinations work very smooth though. 1% view sucks, but then so does medium quality textures. Does'nt allow me to set more than that.

512 MB b4bit DDR2, this is a office card, don't ever think about playing games on this.

#4 I don't think that is a good comparison... passive vs active cooling. Sure the 9500 is a way better card... but passive cooling is for different environments.

You all are giving great comments!
Get this for the same price. It will actually permit some gaming...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131066

Ben only lists the deals Nebegg and Nvidia push... but not me

#4 -- That hardwaresecrets.com link is something I've never come across, but it unfortunately it's static interface. GPUreview has the ability to compare cards and show the higher spec's in bold.
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=520&card2=574

When comparing cards don't be to worried on the Pixel & Texture fills as those are usually stronger with Nvidia, as the differences in each individual architecture (ATI/Nvidia) report those in different ways. What is important is memory bandwith as that is a function of the memory type, bit rate (speed) and clock. Finally FLOPS is sometimes overrated (IMO) it depends if the game is written to break the small packets and utilize those indivual bit's, then those floating calculations numbers do help. That's why it's important if you do like play specific titles to research B-M to see if it a help in your game.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/peakstream-supercomputer,3482.html

You could look at this 3850 for $20 +shipping... Basically the same performance card, but ATI has the better HTPC features of the two and half-height with the bracket is a big plus.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121259
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=555&card2=531

This is not a good buy. There are better video cards for more bang for the buck.

what's the best deal on a 9300 GS for VDPAU VC-1?

Get a 7600GS off Ebay for ~$20, much better card and passively cooled too.

#13: well, while that card does have better gaming performance, it doesn't have HD video acceleration. So, it wouldn't work out too well as a HTPC card.

I have seen passively cooled video cards with full HD acceleration(ATI 2400, I think) on sale for around $20. This is really not a deal. I paid less than this for each of my two nVidia 9600GSO's.

ouch. =)

Would this or the others mentioned be decent just so I can stream HD shows off of my PC to my TV? Currently I'm getting leg and skipping with my onboard card.

#16: any ATI 2xxx, 3xxx or 4xxx card can do that, as can any nVidia 8xxx, 9xxx, 1xx or 2xx card. If all you want to do is run video, you really shouldn't have to pay more than $20. Just watch for a deal.