I recently upgraded to a 22″ widescreen monitor. To drive this monitor in a Digital fashion, I jumped from a Geforce 3 series to a Geforce 7 Series with a Dual Link DVI connector. It turns out the monitor wasn’t dual link, but this review is on the card, not the monitor. The old 3D card was some major brand, I can’t remember which, and since I was upgrading an existing AGP card, I had to choose a replacement AGP card as well. The new one is one of the last AGP models available in the shops for an “entry level” card. It’s a Leadtek 7300 GT TDH.

The visuals of this card are a vast leap in terms of what the old one offered. I can also drive my 22″ screen at 1650 x 1050 resolution, practically full HD (though the computer struggles decoding 1080i). One of my other strong factors in buying a new card was for the World of Warcraft (WoW). I play it casually, to unwind from the real world . I have seen the in game visuals jump from slow and nice to fast and brilliant with the 7300 GT TDH. Below is a set of in game screenshots, showing what the game looked like before and after the upgrade. The lack of motion does the pictures no justice at all.

Before	After	After Battle

In the both after shots, a good deal of the quality comes from the fact that this card is fast enough to allow AntiAliasing to be always turned on, even at high resolutions.

The only problem I have had with the card is that it requires a dedicated Molex power connector attached to it, and even though I exceed the mandatory minimum 400Watt PSU, I still get the occasional error saying “Your card is not receiving enough power”. In fact it drew so much power initially, I had to take one of my HDDs out and put it in a USB enclosure.

If you have an AGP slot, a decent computer and a powerful enough PSU, $130AU for this card is worth the upgrade to tide your system over until you are ready to enter the realm of PCI-Express motherboards and 3D cards.

Life.. that’s why. Family and a full time job too…

Looks like I have to live with that. At this rate I will probably be a lvl 70 some time in 2008.

Now back to listening to every podcast talk about life after lvl 70.

Update: Jean-François has suggested that it is easier to use MPQFS. I haven’t test this however.

Lets hope Nintendo will replace these.

Those were the days when games like this used your imagination, and parents where worried about kids taking up real swords! I remember my mother taking me out of a D&D game, and that was the last time I ever played it. Now where is my 1d20?

(Via Workbench Blog.)