Ati 7500 is it really that bad?

Hi! As I posted i was planning to buy the Livestrong HP notebook (Turion 64, 512mb ram, ati 200xm) but then the $ that i going to get from christmas is not that much and calculating the customs and taxes the final cost of the computer will be around $1,300 usd (im not from the USA)

Then a father from a friend told me that he can sell me his computer aroun $850 USD it is an IBM T40 (PM 1.7, 512MB, CDRW/DVD, ATI 7500) so I think it is a very good deal, I can find here at local stores the compaq v2000 series (with athlon 2800+, 256mb, 40g, dvd only, ATI X200m) but now Im again in the dilema if the ati 7500 could run Final Fantasy XI.

I know is a very old card, and I know it wont run at high resolution mode, and I know it doesn't support DX9, but I just want to play that game, in fact, Im not a really pc gamer, I'm just adicted to that game hehe, I have it on PS2 but that Playstation is in the living room and my brothers and my family watch the tv there.

So im planning in buying an notebook (not very expensive around 900 - 1000 usd) because I will bring it to the university, so I will apreciate if you can say if the ati 7500 could rin final fantasy xi or is it a really bad graphic card? may be the Intel 900 is better?

Thank you!!

 

I think that the Radeon 7500 is pretty much on par with the GMA 900. The X200m may be a bit better than them.

In general, the minimum stated system requirements of FFXI are Radeon 9000 or some GeForce with 32MB of RAM. Now, the 9000 is the successor of the 7500, so, at least in theory, it's a bit stronger than it. The 7500, therefore might not cut it.

Just for the heck of it, I'm gonna download the FFXI benchmark and run it on my laptop, which has the 7500. This should tell us whether this card can in principle run the game.

 

Just be aware, that the Radeon 7500 has no pixel shaders. If a game requires those, you can't run it with the 7500. The X200M will be better.

 

OK, Update.

I got the benchmark from this site:
http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/multimedia/download/bench/

There's a download link and below it are the various scores explained.

I ran it on my laptop (Pentium 4-M 1.8GHz, 512MB RAM, Mobility Radeon 7500).

The benchmark has two modes: low res and high res.

On high res I got 1000-1100, i.e. "barely playable". There were noticeable frame drops during the benchmarking process and some lags.
On low res I got 1800-1900, i.e. "somewhat playable". The graphics were almost smooth during the benhcmarking process.

In comparison, on my other laptop (Pentium M 1.8GHz, 1024MB RAM, Radeon 9600) I got 3100+ ("Very playable") in high resolution mode and everything went very smooth during the benchmark.

I'll conclude that you'll probably be able to play the game on the Radeon 7500, but it won't be a very enjoyable experience. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that the 1.7 PM on the T40 is considerably stronger than the 1.8 P4 on my Evo, so it might be a more playable than the scores show, even though the video card is still going to bottleneck.

If anyone has GMA 900 or Xpress 200M and is willing to do benchmarking using the program from the link I provided, it might help.

 

oh boy.. this benchmark takes ages, i did it only once on low-res but i get about 5600 points on a x700 128mb (350/300 clock) with a bunch of applications and services running in the background. would also love to see results with the gma 900/ xp 200m.

 

Yes, it really is that bad. You pretty much answer your own concerns (old card, won't run high res, doesn't support DX9). IMO it's a HUGE waste of any money (anything more than $1) to buy reallllly old technology, even if just for one game, which is already playable SOMEWHERE in your house. Sooner or later you'll grow out of FFXI. If you're that committed to it now, spend more money on a better laptop.

 

Wow thank you for all your answers they are very helpful!
Thanks Dr St! I think the benchmark says almost everything and I think I cant play the game

I found this page is someone is interested (its in japanese) and compares the results with some other video cards

http://pcvision.fc2web.com/bench.html

its strange, the ati x200m get bad results and in some cases the GMA900 is better! (but no very impressive in comparison with the results of Dr- St, I think the ati 7500 with Pentium M will do better..)

Thanks for all your responses again, and if somebody runs the benchmark with his ati or intel let me know!

 

Got about 5050 on low-res with the 9600. Either you had A LOT of services in the background (I only had a few Firefox windows and Visual Studio .NET on idle) or the game is not very demanding (if it's that small a difference between a 9600 and an X700, which should be roughly twice as powerful).

Then again, anything that runs on a 7500 isn't demanding by today's standards.

 

yep.. the power of the x700 is unleashed if you play demanding games like NFS:MW or Doom3/Fear.. but anyway, i had a **** lot of apps and active services running.

 

I think you're missing the point (partially at least). CiD wants a laptop, I presume not just to play FFXI. And yet he's on a budget. Given the budget constraints, if the choice is between Radeon 7500, GMA 900 and Xpress 200M, the 7500 is really not a bad choice. Especially considering that it comes in a form of a Thinkpad T40. Yeah, it's got a Banias proc, but it is still a fairly fast one, it's got enough RAM, a combo drive - a very good package all around.

 

7500 has T&L engine, it's not that bad at all. I think it runs better than intel intergrated.
I use 7500 to play WC3/ Halflife2/ CS:S/ rise of nation etc

 

Hi again, only to let you know that I got to play the game in a HP DV1125 (with intel extreme graphics 2!!!!) I downloaded a program called 3D-Analyzer that enable TnL (or something like that) and now I can run the game!! not in high resolution but at least I can play it now in the lappy of my brother! Meanwhile I look for a notebook that can run the game (but if the Intel extreme 2 can run it I think the ati 7500 should run it perfectly!) thanks againf for your responses.

 

the DV1125 might have more memory for the graphics chip (32 min required for FFXI but 64 recomended perhaps for bigger textures). I play FFXI and it runs great on my V2000z (HP Livestrong twin)at 1280x768 widescreen. If you are able to install the FFXI benchmark (from Dr_st's post) on the IBM first to see if it is acceptable to you. the IBM T series are great solid notebooks.

the FFXI benchmark for my ATI m200 were
1300-1400 Hi-res and 2400-2450 Lo-res

but it was a bit smoother actually playing the game then the benchmark. But you do get a bit "choppy" in highly populated areas or when a lot of specialeffects are going on.