I am not familiar with your video card or motherboard so I can not give 
you specific recommendations, but here are generic options for XP Home.
Right click on a blank area of your desktop and select "properties", 
select "settings"/"advanced"/"troubleshoot". Set hardware acceleration 
to maximum and enable write combining. Select OK/apply/OK to exit the 
display properties.
Go to "System" in Control Panel and go to "advanced" and under 
"performance" select "settings" and then select "adjust for best 
performance". While there go to "advanced" and set the processor and 
memory to "programs". Click OK/OK to exit system. If you do not like 
some appearance on the desktop, go to the location where you selected 
"adjust for best performance" and you can select "custom" and enable 
"smoothing edges of screen font" plus other options to enhance the 
appearance.
I would also review the motherboard manual to see if there are any BIOS 
settings that might enhance video performance. Just a thought that the 
default setting could be to use SLI to use two video cards and you may 
need to set it as using only one video card. Also see if one video slot 
on the motherboard is preferred with only one video card installed.

Hope this helps.

Tom

g.Computer9f wrote:
>  Thank you, Tom.  I wonder if you could tell me a little more about the settings, specifically?
>
> Thanks,
> AnnaSummers
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: Thomas Mayer 
> To: [log in to unmask] 
> Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 2:12 PM
> Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Video Cards
>
>
> The competitor to Nvidia is Radeon. However, you may not have a choice 
> since SLI is a Nvidia feature whereas Crossfire is a Radeon feature. So 
> your motherboard may limit you to only Nvidia PCI Express x16 video cards.
>
>  From reading the consumer reviews on your video card, it is highly 
> rated for even high end graphic demands. From that I would suspect the 
> OS settings for utilizing the card might actually be causing your angst. 
> I would review the card manual recommended settings against the current 
> settings to see if that could be the problem.
>
> Your card is more than one day old so there are probably newer/better 
> Nvidia cards now available if you want to go that route.
>
> Good luck.
>
> Tom
>
> g.Computer9f wrote:
>   
>> I'm pretty sick of using Nvidia Graphics - my motherboard has an Nvidia chipset and I regret that too.
>>
>> I have delayed graphics, extremely long shutdown time (attributed to nvidia drivers on mobo AND video card).
>>
>> I have EpOX mobo EP-9NPA+SLI - how can I tell what Video Card will be accepted?  One should be enough - I don't do gaming, but I would like something snappier than what I have now:  VGA PNY 6600 256M with Nvidia chipset/drivers.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Anna Summers
>>
>>         
>>
>>   
>>     
>
>   

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