Frame rates and tweaking

[Roland]

I only didn't realize 5200 was SUCH a crap (the Ti series was OTOH very good for it's time). What I recall, FX series have awful pixel shader, but I didn't hear any complaints on vertex shader. I unfortunately don't know any benchmarks for this.

Most people didn't, at first. Hell, many people STILL don't because they don't keep up to date with all the hardware reviews. They figure if one card in the line is better than the previous generation, ALL cards will be. Not always the case, as we see here.

If that's the case, his FX5200 is crap of the craps and he could do well buying second-hand Ti4x00 for a few bucks. Of the above benchmarks you listed is one of the most representative UT2K4 which has scores:
FX5200 46.8
FX5200U 61.4
Ti4200 85.9
Ti4600 99.5
I'm not sure what the U there means (higher clock of core and memory, but no idea if it's really overclocked or not), but the 4600 could be budget savior. Of course with more cash at hand, 6600 or 6800 is much better (depending on resolution and AA/AF you want to have).
[quote]

First of all, yes, his card is the lowest of the low for that generation. It's lower than the previous generation. Secondly, the U stands for Ultra, which means it's a higher clocked (not "overclocked", just a higher clocked version, designed to support those clock speeds; world of difference) card in both core and memory speeds. Sometimes it has advanced features, but generally it's just a higher-clocked card, occassionally with a higher bus-width.

[quote]
RAM and bus speed are two different things. While I agree that instead of buying 256 MB 6600 it's better to buy 128 MB 6800 at the same price point, higher texture memory allows you to play games two years later with larger and more detailed textures without computer having to load it via AGP/PCIe. However, it's only worth it when the price difference is not too high (which it usually is as at the high end) and/or you think you'll stick with your card longer.

As I said earlier, the ONLY performance gains you'll receive will be at the VERY high end in terms of settings (i.e. 1600 x 1200, all settings maxed, maybe maxed AF / AA), and even then it will be marginal at best. It's just generally not worth it to get a card with installed memory being greater than the bus-width can handle. Yes, you will see SOME performance gains - at the very high-end in terms of settings, and generally only LOW-end cards ever have a bus width smaller than their installed memory (my 6800 has 128MB of memory, but a 256-bit bus width, for example).

Oh, and when I said I didn't think you understood, I meant specifically that his card is just absolute CRAP, which I don't think you understood until just now. ;) It really is mind-blowing how horrible that card is.