Question for leadtek video card owners

[Ragnor]

Well I'm about to upgrade from a Gainward GF3 Ti200 to a Leadtek GF4 Ti4200 Vivo..

With my Gainward I've always just run the Nvidia detonator drivers and used RivaTuner for tweaking..

Is the Leadtek Winfox II tweaking utility any good?..

Would I be better off running the latest drivers from the leadtek site, Leadtek's Winfox and other utilities..? or will the Video In and Out work fine with the Nvidia reference drivers..

[Hans]

What ever you do, do NOT install WinFox I or II. It will happily eats around 20MB of your memory. It sometimes will crash the system or cause it to hang. Personally, I don't see any advantages over RivaTuner.

Their driver isn't that up to date so I would use the reference ones.

/edit

I am not sure about video in as I have no use for it. However, video out does work with reference driver. (It's a standard Phillips one)

[Binky Stunt Cat]

i never run anything but the nVidia drivers...

[Wobbler]

I had winfox installed when I had my leadtek in my last rig (ti4200 128 meg myvivo) Seemed to be quite simple to use, didnt have any crashes with my old rig, was just a little slow for my liking (1.2ghz celeron). But then again I havent used riva tuner at all, I still havent tried the vid out function on my card so I dont know if that works or not, im using the nvidia drivers at the mo, once I get back on a decent connection I ll update all my stuff and do some testing.

[cadmax]

well it must be the week for getting new vid cards :D

i'm looking at getting:

Leadtek WinFast GeForce4 Ti4400 MyVIVO Video in/out function, DVI Out, 128Mb DDR
$510.00

or

Gainward Geforce4 Ti4600 (300MHz) 256-bit , 128MB 2.8ns 128-bit DDR (325MHzx2), AGP 4X, G.S. 2xDVI-I w 2xDVI-VGA Adpt, VIVO w Cable, WinDVD, WinProducer, WinCoder Game-SeriousSAM, Bundled with 1394 Firewire Card.
$685.00

or

Gainward Geforce4 Ti4800SE 128M DDR, CRT+DVI+VIVO.

$447.00

so what would be the best ?
all of this is from www.dragonpc.co.nz

ps i getting some next thursday :D

[Ragnor]

If you're going to be spending $500-600 or more then you should probably be considering the Radeon 9700... They are around $600+

EDIT: Kain is correct about the Ti4800, I should goto sleep ;)

[Elle T]

Ragnor i'd wait untill the GF FX is out,
I mean your card isn't exactly lacking too much in power,
Little point buy a 4200 atm they over priced seeing their close to becoming a last season card.

[kain]

Originally posted by Ragnor
If you're going to be spending $500-600 or more then you should probably be considering the Radeon 9700... They are around $600+

PS: The Ti4800 is just an AGP 8x Ti4200, stupid misleading marketing

GF4 Ti 4800 are Ti4600 with 8X AGP while Ti4800 SE are Ti4400 with 8X AGP. 8X AGP of Ti4200 are shown as Ti4200-8X

[Ragnor]

I was going to stick with the GF3 Ti200 till doom III came out.. but a few factors are making me change my mind..

1) I need/want TV out and In..

2) The gainward GF3 Ti200 doesn't have very good image quality at high res..

3) Although going from a GF3 Ti200 oc'd 250/500 to a GF4 Ti4200 won't be a massive boost it will make UT2003 and Morrowind Tribunal (with full draw distance) alot more playabe with high quality settings..

4) Over time I have upgraded many parts and I only need a video card and HD to complete a 2nd system out of my old parts (duron, KT266a mobo etc).. the GF3 is moving into that machine.

5) The GF FX is taking ages.. it has slipped again, the new Radeon will be out before it.

[Wolfy]

I hate winfox especially the fluro colours and the annoying sound effects.

[Maverick]

5) The GF FX is taking ages.. it has slipped again, the new Radeon will be out before it. [/B]

Remind me again...was it nvidia who assimilated 3dfx or the other way around? ;)

[Ragnor]

hehe.. they spent too much R&D on nforce2 methinks..

Anyway just an update on getting Video In working..

You don't need to install any leadtek bloatware to get Video In working.. just first install the your chosen Nvidia detonators, reboot and install the Nvidia WDM Univeral driver... (availabe from the nvidia site).. most important that you reboot after installing the dets and before installing the wdm driver..

[extremerigman]

I have a leadtek ti4200 64mb VIVO, works great. If i were you, i'll wait for a while for FX.

Anyway Winfox sucks, the sound effects scared me once or twice when I first used it:D They even included some games in Winfox....?

[mattnz]

I have the 128mb version of this card.

Have never in my life used the TV out, the dual head feature is cool but you need a DVI -> 15 pin convertor (or a DVI screen) and this doesn't come with the card.

Agree with the others winfox == so awful I cannot discribe it.

The good news is that the standard nvidia software works great. some minor issues with video in which I only tried once then gave up.

Also agree with the bit about waiting a little while before upgrading. Radon 9700 prices should drop when (if?) the FX comes out. I'm not entirely happy with my cards performance on the latest batch of games - mafia in particlar so a new one may be in order soon.

Just for refrence the core clocks to 310 and the memory to 526 on my card (128mb of 4ns ram) Happy with the core, not with the ram. THe 64mb version has faster ram - I think - so should go a bit higher.

[reaver]

ive had one of those cards for about 5 mo, they are pretty good but a bit stingy on the ole thermal grease there was just some white compound there, and the back sink for the back side ram wasnt touching the chips properly, i dumped a bit of arctic silver on it, tho i had to snip the little plastic conectors to get at it tho.
and i have not managed to overclock it with any stability, lots of other people can so maybe its just me.
the in and out for vid seems pretty good i hooked up a video and used the tuner out of that to watch telly, thats when you realise how bad your reception really is when on a monitor.

all in all its a good card and works well, just cant overclock ( to any meaningful degree) the bastard without hangs.

i must say tho my next card will be a radeon......

nvidia get yo shiznit together.....
________
XL250 (http://www.honda-wiki.org/wiki/Honda_XL250)

[swiftynz]

another happy leadtek owner here, ti4200 64mb non vivo. winfox sucks, as do the leadtek drivers it seems. my mate has a ti4200-8x 128mb and games crash with the leadtek drivers, but i'm yet to determine the actual cause cos i haven't been able to install the dets for him yet.

[BloodDonor]

id suggest you ONLY use the det drivers, not the leadtek 1's ;)

[chum]

I own Leadtek TI4200 128M...I use Winfox...when I want to. Do not have it running until I need it...I like the hardware monitor on it...I can OC the card, bench it, then check its temps.