Graphics Cards?

[Garasu]

Looking to get a graphics card for FFXI was looking at a GeForce 8400 but heard FFXI runs into problems alot if geforce cards. Anyone have any suggestions on a good card or could give some pc building help?

[Garasu]

Should I go with a GeForce or Radeon card and which card would be best for FFXI?

[rog]

Any ATI card made in the last 10 years will work fine with ffxi. The newer (8800 or later) nvidia cards don't play nice with ffxi but older ones work fine.

[Isiolia]

Do you have a budget that you're looking at, are you looking to run anything else, are you upgrading (which might mean power supply restrictions), etc?

A Radeon is probably a safer bet - nVidia may have fixed their drivers, but if your priority is FFXI, may as well go with the brand that hasn't had long stretches of driver problems with the game.

For FFXI itself, you don't really need much in terms of power - even the lowest end cards on the market will run it nicely enough. Probably better to look at other possible uses and buy based on that.

[Garasu]

Do you have a budget that you're looking at, are you looking to run anything else, are you upgrading (which might mean power supply restrictions), etc?

A Radeon is probably a safer bet - nVidia may have fixed their drivers, but if your priority is FFXI, may as well go with the brand that hasn't had long stretches of driver problems with the game.

For FFXI itself, you don't really need much in terms of power - even the lowest end cards on the market will run it nicely enough. Probably better to look at other possible uses and buy based on that.

Going to upgrade a crappy Dell FFXI is only game I really want to play on PC I'm mainly a Xbox360/PS3 person my self , I'd like to only spend around 300$ ish if possible but willing to go to 450$. Atm when I play XI on PC graphics look crappy compared to xbox360's and to screen shots i see others post and game seems laggy even though i dont lag on 360.

Not to sure what to really get though for upgrades.

[Isiolia]

What model Dell? The reason being that many of the simply do not have a robust enough power supply to allow for anything past relatively low end cards. Best you can get that doesn't require an extra cable from the PSU is a Radeon 5670, which is probably around an $80 card.

[rog]

Best you can get that doesn't require an extra cable from the PSU is a Radeon 5670, which is probably around an $80 card.

Bought a 5770 recently, which came with the 6pin connector for the card that plugged into the standard 4 pin connectors. No idea if there's anything lost there that would matter with a better card, but thought i'd mention it.

[Garasu]

What model Dell? The reason being that many of the simply do not have a robust enough power supply to allow for anything past relatively low end cards. Best you can get that doesn't require an extra cable from the PSU is a Radeon 5670, which is probably around an $80 card.

Its a 4600 series

[Isiolia]

A Dimension 4600? Pentium 4?

Okay, first thing is that you can't use nearly everything on the market as you have (according to Dell's specifications) an AGP slot to use, not a PCIe slot as new PCs now have.

The last series Radeons that had official AGP versions were the 3000-series. There were a few companies that made 4650s for AGP, but they aren't officially supported. The last/best AGP card would really be the Radeon 3850.

Alternatively, you could possibly try to find a Geforce 7900GS - the last "official" AGP nVidia card.

Again, a possible issue is the PSU - you have a 250W (according to Dell's specs), which was a bit on the modest side even then, and well under the recommended PSU for a 3850, or even a 3650.

Also look around for used cards...but again, anything past maybe a low-midrange card until quite a while ago could be touchy unless you also upgrade your PSU. Doing that can be slightly tricky with companies like Dell, since they can use slightly smaller than standard units.

Given the age of the system, and that you mentioned spending up to $450...I'd maybe consider just trying to upgrade the whole machine, unless you have no other use for a PC than FFXI.

[Garasu]

A Dimension 4600? Pentium 4?

Okay, first thing is that you can't use nearly everything on the market as you have (according to Dell's specifications) an AGP slot to use, not a PCIe slot as new PCs now have.

The last series Radeons that had official AGP versions were the 3000-series. There were a few companies that made 4650s for AGP, but they aren't officially supported. The last/best AGP card would really be the Radeon 3850.

Alternatively, you could possibly try to find a Geforce 7900GS - the last "official" AGP nVidia card.

Again, a possible issue is the PSU - you have a 250W (according to Dell's specs), which was a bit on the modest side even then, and well under the recommended PSU for a 3850, or even a 3650.

Also look around for used cards...but again, anything past maybe a low-midrange card until quite a while ago could be touchy unless you also upgrade your PSU. Doing that can be slightly tricky with companies like Dell, since they can use slightly smaller than standard units.

Given the age of the system, and that you mentioned spending up to $450...I'd maybe consider just trying to upgrade the whole machine, unless you have no other use for a PC than FFXI.

How much do you think it would cost me to just build a PC for it?

[rog]

How much do you think it would cost me to just build a PC for it?

$500 could get you something 10x better than you have now. Even a very low end pc now would be a huge jump over what you have.

[Isiolia]

How much do you think it would cost me to just build a PC for it?

Well, you can get a Dell for about $300 that'd be sufficient - but, in the long run, would probably see you hitting some of the same limitations you have now. They still don't put substantial PSUs on their machines.

Building, eh, on the low-low end you could do something like a cheap AMD board with an integrated Radeon HD 4200 for around $70-80, an Athlon or low end Phenom II for $60-90 depending, 4GB of RAM for probably around $60, HDD for around $50, optical drive for $20 or so, ~600W PSU for $60-70, a solid case for about the same - say maybe near $400 for that much. Less if you get some good deals and/or don't buy good brands or something. A Windows license would be around $100, unless you can get it for less through school/work or something (some would assume pirating it, but I don't). There's also the matter of a graphics card - the integrated Radeon is decent enough to play FFXI pretty well, but a discrete card would be nice. The 5770 that Rog mentioned would be about a $120 card after rebate, $130-140 without. So to second him, about $500 in hardware and you'd have a capable machine, not the best out there certainly, but you'd be able to play most anything on the shelf today, much less FFXI.
You'd also be able to more readily upgrade a machine like that, should you decide you want to.

[Akiyama]

I built my current PC, which is pretty mid-range.. for about 800ish, but that included EVERYTHING. We're talking monitor, case, PSU, Graphics card, et all. But for like.. 400-500$.. you could get by with a low end machine that'd be infinitely better than what you have at the moment.