RCT 3D/NoLimits Graphics Card Help Needed

I'm about to buy a new computer, but I'm am hung up on the graphics card. I know, the more the better. But, probably the most graphicly demanding games I'll play on it will be NoLimits and soon to be RCT 3D. I was wondering if I could get some opinions.

Right now, I'm looking at a Dell Dimension 4600
-Pentium 4 2.8 GHz with 533 MHz front side bus
-80 GB Hard Drive
-512 MB Ram (will upgrade to 1024 MB)
-Dual 16x DVD burner drive with 48x CD burner drive
-Windows XP (well, duh)

The upgrades for a graphics card in question are:
• 128MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Graphics Card with TV-Out and DVI (add $60)
• 128MB DDR ATI RADEON 9800 PRO Graphics Card with TV-Out and DVI (add $200)

Would the GeForce already be more than I need? Or should I bite the bullet and get the ATI card? Would I even notice much difference between the two playing games like RCT 3D and NoLimits? Would games like UnReal Tournament or DVD videos appear choppy and slow with the GeForce card?

Thanks a bunch all you computer gurus!

Well right now I have a cheap geForce 4 64mb card and it runs perfectly for No Limits. Other games are pretty good and DVDs play fine. It works for what I have, but the geForce should be fine. If you really want the ATI go for it.

If you don't really need the card now, hold off. Video cards generally operate on a six-month product cycle, so whatever you wait to buy when the next RCT comes out will cost less. By then, the $200 cards will likely be $150 or less. Stephanie just got the second tier nVidia card for about $150, and she's playing shooters at 1280x1024 at high frame rates.

The ATI and nVidia cards are actually pretty close in terms of performance, though geeks will try to make the case that you can actually see the difference between 100 and 90 frames per second.

DVD video matters not what the video card is. The crappy video in my laptop with a 2 GHz Celeron CPU displays DVD just fine.

The GeForce should suit you just fine. I have a Dell laptop with a 32MB card and NL runs pretty good, so if you get the 128MB card that should run pretty much any game you throw at it. With the combination of processor, RAM, and video card you've configured, that'l be a pretty sweet system.

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geeks will try to make the case that you can actually see the difference between 100 and 90 frames per second.

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Then geeks don't know much about human factors. The difference between 10 and 11 ms is waaay below the perceptual threshhold.

Right on, Brian. Humans only see 26 FPS if I remember correctly...

The amount of memory on a video card does not dictate how well it performs, as the game's architecture has a lot to do with how or if that memory is used. Memory is used to store textures and cache vertex data. In the case of something like NoLimits, which has relatively few textures, a heap of memory isn't going to make that much of a difference.

You can detect differences in lower rates, but you can't really tell why. For example, screens with refresh rates lower than 60Hz tend to flicker out of the corner of your eye---some people call it a vibration. This is mainly only with cheap CRTs though, since the repaint doesn't happen quickly enough to counteract the half-life of the last pass. You'll never notice it on an LCD.

Jeff made a very good point regarding No Limits. Due to it's lower texture count a card with alot of memory is not necessary. However, when you start getting into more texturized games (like UnReal Tournament), the extra memory will most certainly help the graphics card processor. It seems to me that the games coming out now are getting more and more detailed as far as textures, so getting a card with a larger amount of RAM will make sure that the newer games will run smoothy.