I have Win XP, Athalon 2300+, and currently a S3 integrated chip(lousy with big files and subsurface models). I only want to spend around $100 and wanted to know from others if this video card was descent with opengl capabilities. Are the drivers for the Geoforce line good?
Thanks.
I would recommend getting an ATI card…but hey, I used to be a shareholder so I’m biased.
maybe you want someday to have a look at linux … then you will wish having bought an gf 
Anybodyhere using a geforce product?
Wow, just checked the prices for the 5200’s and am impressed at how low they are. I have been doing lots of research lately and have overlooked the 5200’s because of benchmark comparisons to the radeon 9500/9600 series. BUT, for the 60.00 price I’m eyeing at pricegrabber, I think it is a deal compared to the 9600 which still sell for ~150.00. DX9 compatible, 128 MB DDR VRAM, AGP8X all for 60, sounds like a deal to me. Check out extremetech or just type in “geforce fx 5200 reviews” in yahoo. I’m sure several video card dedicated websites will pop up with more information than us blenderheads could possibly give.
I’m using a geforce 2 MX 400 (PCI no less) and blender works just fine, even on more complex models and with textures.
there is a HUGE difference between little (I.E. none) acceleration and an accelerated video card, but blender doesn’t demand much from a video card beyond what I have. A 5200 would be plenty, as would even an earlier radeon from ati.
as mentioned above, if you want to use linux ati should be avoided (though I wouldn’t call getting the NVIDIA drivers to work the easiest thing in the world).
So, since blender doesn’t demand much, I would suggest you look at what else you may do with your computer. There isn’t much of a reason to get a card that isn’t nvidia or ati (for blender), but if you want to play games we (well, most of us) aren’t exactly the people to ask.
I recently got an MSI 5200 TD128, and I have to say that for the price, £69 from a local PC vendor, is a Fantastic card.
It has a really nice and quiet fan on it, dual monitor output, one of which can be digital & an SVHS output for the TV/Video.
In dual Monitor mode there is no real slowdown of openGL games or software, and what is great is I can have the blender tutorial or manual on one screen, and blender on the other, also take into account that this is a DirectX 9 compatible card.
Propbably more of a practicle use is that Blender renders animations quite a bit faster too.
So go for it I say 
Ken
The nVidia cards generally have good OpenGL performance in Linux and Windows (although ATI have finally released some XFree drivers…)
To paraphrase John Carmack:
“When an Nvidia card doesn’t render correctly, I check my code, when an ATI doesn’t render correctly I send them a bug report.”
Anyway, I’m using a Geforce FX 5200 here - it’s not the best performance wise, but for features & price it can’t be beat. It’s still the fastest card I’ve been able to get my grubby little hands on. 
This is the card:
http://www.ascent.co.nz/mn-product-spec.asp?pid=115426
Hmm. Looks like there are ATI cards for a similar price.
Anyway, to sum up, I think it’s a good card for between 1/4 and 1/5 the price of a high end card.
The GF Ti 4200 is sold for less than 100 as well, and is faster than the fx5200.
I recently got an Albatron 5200 and I wish I wouldn’t have wasted my money. True, it’s cheap if it would live up to the performance it promises, however, that’s got to be rubbish because it’s the most sluggish card I’ve ever had. My 2-year old gf 2 gts for my desktop is waaay faster (though more expensive at the time). Given that this is 3 genereations later, I think Nvidia is to busy coming up with fancy names and nonesene than quality these days… just my few cents.
Ps. My fan is really quiet too, because there is none!! True power ;-(
:-? Strange my MSI 5200 td128 is a lot faster than my geforce 2 maybe it depends on whos card you buy, also I have a reasonably cheep, 8X AGP mainboard, renderings are much faster in Blender and in games, like Medal of honour etc and even the latest gunmetal demo I can have all the effects on, my geforce 2 would not have even been able to run it. I can even have Aunti-lising over and antsinthetropics phil t ring
Ken
I have a GForce 4 card and it works very good in Blender. I’ve been playing with reasonably big/complex scenes lately and it renders fast and cleanly- even with texture colors and shading turned on. I don’t know how it compares to the other cards since it’s all I’ve used (other than the now defunct 3DFX series), but I definitely reccommend it.
I’m somewhat biased too because I run Blender in Linux and nVidia provides very good support for Linux.
rgs3 if I was you I would go with the ti 4200, you get way more processing power from it than you would from the fx5200.
Bad idea. Ati cards are notoriusly flakey when it comes to OpenGL.
Nvidia however has been vey good about opengl, as well as linux supprt, and great drivers.
Well mine works great…no problems at all. I’ve keep my drivers up to date, and they do update them pretty frequently. Oh well.
I’m also a gamer and from a gamers point of view, ATi is the best thing you could buy. NVidia is slow and is manipulating performance by crippling the drivers (I.E. faster but more ugly, see http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030918/index.html). Yet I’m very satified with my GF2 Pro when it comes to OpenGL and Linux.
But, I was considering an ATi for an upgrade someday, but if they have terrible OpenGL in Linux, I’d reconsider. I know that ATi’s OpenGL is slower, but is it also buggy? Is it for example like the voodoo3, which misses al kinds of 2D OpenGL instructions making it unusable for Blender?
I’ve been using a Voodoo 3 under Linux and it isn’t that bad. The only problems I have been seeing are that it doesn’t draw lines correctly and doesn’t alpha the 2d bits correctly. Neither of these are serious though. Anyway, that computer recently died. 
Funny. My voodoo3 was so bad I couldn’t see certain objects, although I can’t remember what exactly I couldn’t see.
I have a radeon 9800np
I love it, its a great card, and blows NVidia out of the water (And I like NVidia cards, or did until the FX series)
OpenGL support is great, I really love it, no problems here at all!
This is picky but could the author of this thread please correct the title so it reads “GeForce” and not “GeoForce”. Thanks.