I just installed a new video card: MSI G4Ti4200-VTD64 on the basis of
a great review in PC Magazine. I have a Dell Dimension 8100 system
with a P4 at 1 GHz, and 256M ram. My question is: please suggest 3 or
4 games which will utilize the capabilities of the video card, and a
good online source at which to purchase them. At least one should be a
first person shooter. I have limited gaming experience, mostly with
Blood II. I prefer mouse-keyboard control to joystick.

Hi Boomering - what a fantastic question. I'm a keen games player
myself, so I hope I can provide you with some ideas on what to play.

Congratulations on a good choice of video card. The GeForce series is
very strong, and I know I've had nothing but good experiences with
mine.

Firstly, make sure you're running the latest drivers from nVidia -
installing the latest ones really does make a massive difference in
performance. You can get hold of the latest ones at the link below
(you'll need to decide whether you want Microsoft certified drivers
(if so, look in the archive) or whether you want to use the very
latest - in which case, just click the download):

http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

Once that's done, on to the games!

Quake III Arena is considered by many to be the ultimate first person
shooter game. It's extremely fast paced, and is mostly about action -
there are no puzzles to solve. You can play it in Single Player mode,
against some very tough computer enemies, or you can play it online,
where it really shines.

Half Life is also a popular first person shooter. It's different from
Quake III Arena, in that it relies on a strong plot as well as fast
paced action. It's pretty addictive, and can be fairly scary at times
- this is not one to play in the dark, late at night. In addition, you
can get a free add-on pack called Counter Strike, which is quite
possibly the most popular online game of the moment.

Max Payne is a "third person" shooter, if you like. Rather than being
"in" your character, you see him presented in front of you (rather
like Tombraider or MDK, if you ever played these games). This game
will strain your video card unlike any other - it is one of the most
graphically intense games available at the moment. It was four years
in the making, and it shows. It features more puzzles, as well as
distinctive action throughout the heavily plotted game. Little
features like Matrix-style "bullet time" give this game a character
that not much else comes close to.

Finally, another game which has achieved popularity recently is Grand
Theft Auto III. This game is part first person shooter, and part
driving/racing game. It has offended some with its vivid depictions of
violence coupled with the glorification of criminal activity, so you
might want to read some reviews before deciding on whether to purchase
this game. The object of the game is to steal cars, assassinate other
criminals, earn money, and so on. Its non-linear gameplay style has
earned many fans, and it's certainly different from many other games
available right now. Its complex graphics and higly detailed 3D cities
make it another good candidate to push your video card to the limits.

Amazon seems to offer reasonable prices on all these games, so I've
included links to them.

Quake III Arena:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005RHQZ/

Half Life: 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00001KUII?vi=glance

CounterStrike (free to download, but you need Half Life): 
http://www.counter-strike.net/

Max Payne:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00002SUOV/73407921

Grand Theft Auto III:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005YTYJ?vi=glance

I hope this is the kind of thing you're looking for. Obviously,
opinions vary a little, but these are generally regarded as top class
games, and I'm fairly confident that you'll have fun with all of them.
If any part of my answer is unclear, you'd like further details, or a
link does not work, please don't hesitate to request clarification
before rating this answer.

Good luck, and enjoy your fantastic new video card.

--seizer-ga

Search strategy was simply to search Amazon for games I already had
knowledge of.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by boomering-ga on 07 Dec 2002 14:59 PST

Hey Seizer,

Thanks for the quick response. A quick question about your reference
to updating drivers: The driver I have is listed as nVidia 06/06/2002
(in properties from Device Manager). Are there newer revs out there?
What is your opinion on Microsoft certified vs noncertified drivers?
Also, I'd like to post a bonus for the answer to a question I'm
curious about: -- how noticeable is the difference with the more
powerful cards, say the 4400 or 4600 series with 128 Meg? Will the
same games you cited for my card be the ones to use with a more
powerful card, or are there games that my card couldn't handle but
that the 4600 series could? And what other system features will
enhance the graphics experience  -- more ram, faster CPU, special
monitors, etc?

---

Clarification of Answer by seizer-ga on 07 Dec 2002 15:22 PST

The latest nVidia drivers were released four days ago. The latest
Microsoft certified ones were released on November 8th. So whichever
way you go, you'll be getting newer drivers - check out the link I
posted originally.

Without going into too much detail, I tend to use the latest drivers,
regardless of whether Microsoft's signature has been obtained. After
all, it's in nVidia's best interest to release functional software -
they'll lose market share if they gain a reputation for unreliable
software. Microsoft's certification is a gimmick - or, for really
paranoid users, a secondary guarantee of stability. Just my opinion,
of course - others differ.

As for your graphics card differentiation question - whew, there's
enough to write a book. To get a really in depth response, you might
consider a fresh question to the researchers. For now, I'd say that
there exist no games which WOULD run on a 4400/4600, which would NOT
run on a 4200. It's just too stupid on the part of the games developer
to rule out so much of their market.

And as for comparisons, a superb article exists at the link below,
which seems to verify that you picked the right card:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,543238,00.asp

I hope this helps.

Thanks,

--seizer-ga

---

Clarification of Answer by seizer-ga on 07 Dec 2002 15:24 PST

Oops - to quickly address your very last query - the best thing you
could add to your system next, would be RAM. Take it up to 512mb if
you can, and that should help. The CPU is probably not the bottleneck,
although if you did feel like upgrading, it wouldn't hurt. The monitor
never makes a difference to the speed of the game.

--seizer-ga

If you want to push your graphics card, the older games such as Quake
3 and Half Life won't do that nearly as well as recently released
games such as Unreal Tournament 2003.

Thanks athon, i'll check it out.

Hi Boomering!

bear with me when you read this, I noticed I went on and on after I
wrote it. It was then that I was too tired to edit it.

Counter-strike isn't a very graphic intense game but it possibly the
best first person shooter recently (the classics are always fun).
Right now it isn't a very graphic intense game and your system will
run great on it! I am an avid counter-strike player. I recently
upgraded my computer in anticipation for the new release of
counter-strike 1.6. Supposivly the graphics are much improved in the
new version. My old computer (celeron 433, 64 ram, 8mb ATI rage) ran
at 17 frames per second in the game. My friend with a p3, 256 ram, and
a 64 mb geforce3 ran just under the maximum frames per second for
counter-strike. My new computer (athlon 2400+, 256 ram, 128 ATI 9000
pro) ran exactly at the maximum frames per second in counter-strike.
Your computer should be able to run at the maximum frames per second
in counter-strike. Thats the deal with preformance.

As for the game itself, the numbers can speak for themselves. There is
an average of 35,000 servers running and over 250,000 people playing
at any given time. It is completly multiplayer, and is a strategy team
based game. The weapons are very realistic. All the physics and health
are very realistic also. The game has been around for almost 4 years
now and the fans are still growing. The company who is updating the
game and selling it, Valve, says they will continue to update it as
long as there are players. Becuase of this there are very few bugs
(besides hacks) and new maps every now and then. Counter-strike has a
lot of clans also. A clan is just like a sports team. Most clans you
either try out for or they invite you into the clan. Once you are in
the clan you wear the clan tag (example, [OF]Ramen Noodles,
[OF]CGmasta). All the clans have different tags and the style each
clan has is normally different then the other clans. If you haven't
guessed, I am in the clan [OF]. Our clan is one of the bigger clans.
We have over 20 members. Most clans have 10-15 members. Our clan is
different becuase we don't only accept experienced players. We have
accepted newer players as long as they have a good attitude and we see
a good chance for them to become a skilled player. Clans participate
in leagues. [OF] is involved in the CAL league. (Cyber Athlete League,
http://www.caleague.com) We have two teams in the league. Every
tuesday night we have matches against other teams. THe matches have
tons of strategy and team work. We practice one ot two times a week to
get ready for the matches. I think I will stop here with the whole
clan thing... I am rambling.

AS you can see Counter-strike is a very good game. (And cheap! 20bucks
if you buy half-life and download counter-strike) There are other good
games out there.

Other good first person shooters include Unreal Tournament 2003, Tom
Clancey's Ghost recon, and Day Of Defeat (another half-life
modification). Other good games include the entire Age Of Empires
series.

I hope I gave you a good impression of Counter-strike and I hope to
see you out there one day. If you ever do play counter-strike, a good
server to come to would be our clan server.

Pennsylvania [OF] Server
204.250.119.21:27015 

Thanks
-Childgamer
aka [OF]Ramen Noodles

go to the Nvidia website and download all the demos designed for your
video card- they are not games, but they will showcase what you card
is capable of!

If you need to check First Person Shooters, just go to

K1ck Clan Online Gaming Site
http://www.k1ck.com/k1ck2005/

 and enter the configs section. There you will find lots of scripts
for many games that you can use to twist the Frames Per Second and
compare your card capacities in full video stress and on lighter
situations.