I'm looking to rebuild my PC in the next month or so, and I'm assembling my parts list. I'm seriously overdue for a graphics card upgrade, and it looks like the Radeon 9600XT is universally popular, but I've also heard that Radeon doesn't play so nicely with NWN (my new favorite game since receiving NWN Platinum from Santa). My question: is this still the case, or have recent patches, updates, etc. made the Radeon 9600XT a viable solution for the NWN player?

It'll work fine with NwN. I've experienced no issues with my ATI card either. Having said that I'd recommend the 9700 because it supports DirectX 9 and has been out for ages now so it's pretty cheap. Worth the extra 10 or 20 bucks. I have the 128MB 9700 non-pro and my AthlonXP 2000+ with 256MB of RAM is playing the Half Life 2 demo fine - it's a very nice card for a very reasonable price.

[ 01-20-2005, 09:07 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

I got a cheap Radeon 9200 in my old P3 1.2 GHz system and it runs fine. So I am sure the 9600XT will do you just fine, but I do like Shamrock's suggestion.

The Radeon 9600XT runs NWN fine on my PC. The Radeon 9600 pro (slightly cheaper again) also runs it fine.

$55 for the 9200 would also do you fine, depends how forward looking you want to be.

Personally I'd grab a cheap one and buy a decent one with the next computer upgrade (PCI Express here I come).

The 9600 cards will fly in NWN, although my suggestion is to try and push for a 6600GT. The 9600 XT's are around £100 new, with the 6600GT's available for as little as £130-£140. The extra £40 will give you a card that will cream the 9600, and be significantly quicker than the equally priced 9800 pro. A much wiser investment, if you can afford that little bit extra that is [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 01-21-2005, 09:05 AM: Message edited by: Jim ]

Terrific; I really appreciate the reassurance and advice. I'm on a pretty strict budget, and I don't mind dialing-down some quality settings, so I think the 9600 is going to work for me. Many thanks!

Save some money. Buy a 9600pro and soft mod it to a 9600xt. Or if you can afford it, buy a 9800SE and soft mod it to a 9800XT.