Upgrading a video card

[ronthepon]

I'll make a confession here. Although I totally love PC games, I have no idea about the hardware that makes them run. I'm still using an Nvidia geforce4 MX 4000, that I randomly bought a couple of years ago.

 

By now, I'm beginning to realise that it's pathetically outdated. Sick of blaming the OS for malfunctioning games, I'm ready to face the truth: I need an upgrade.

 

But I also realise that I was happy as the frog in the well. There are a million cards out there, and apart from the costs, I can't figure out which is better than which.

 

Somebody help me! Which card do you posess, and how much do you game? How does your card do?

[Boerseun]

How's the rest of your hardware?

 

A video card can only process graphics as fast as it gets it from the motherboard, so there are plenty of potential bottlenecks when it comes to graphics, not only the graphics card.

[ronthepon]

About the motherboard, I'll find out sometime later, let me be told what be the specific things to look for.

 

Apart from the vid. card, I've got about 512MB of RAM, a Pentium 4 Processor offering 3.06GHz clock speed.

 

(Once upon a time I thought this was enought for everything.)

[Buffy]

One of the main things on your motherboard is what kind of SLOT you have for the video. It could be PCI or AGP or PCI Express (and "x" variations thereof: x4, x8, x16), and they're all completely incompatible. You have a good enough machine speedwise, but you need to know what kind of card you can put in it.

 

There are really only two vendors, nVidia and ATi and the differences between the two have always struck me as more religious than anything else: they're constantly leapfrogging eachother. Both provide basically 3 classes of video boards, dirt-cheap-and-useless, slightly-more-expensive-and-good-for-moderate-gaming, and unbelievably-expensive-and-necessary-only-for-game-geeks. The price ranges (US) are basically under $100,$100-$150, > $300 respectively.

 

All three classes are usually obtainable in most of the card types mentioned above, you just need to get the right one for your system.

 

Note, even if you're running XP, I tell everyone to get 1-2GB of ram if they want everything to be "snappy"....

 

Good luck!

 

Good enough for photoshop and video editing,

Buffy

[ronthepon]

Interesting. Apparently, all I've got is one AGP slot, and while the documentation reports a speed of 8x, I have seen it run at 2x with my card... What do I believe?

 

BTW, it's a D865GSA from intel...

[Tormod]

The specs for that card say:

 

Universal 0.8V/1.5V AGP 3.0 connector supporting 1x, 4x, and 8x AGP card

 

So you should be fine with any recent AGP card running at 8x.

[Buffy]

Interesting. Apparently, all I've got is one AGP slot, and while the documentation reports a speed of 8x, I have seen it run at 2x with my card... What do I believe?

 

BTW, it's a D865GSA from intel...

That means it can run an AGP 8x card, but you've only got a 2x card in it. Intel has its own graphics chipset--which often gets built into motherboards--which is pretty sucky compared to the other two.

 

You'll be doing yourself a big favor by running out and getting a new one!

 

Underclocked,

Buffy

[ronthepon]

Thanks for the help on this bit. I'll assume that I don't need to upgrade my motherboard for now. (Why can't we just have auto evolving hardware?)

 

I've been looking at the Nvidia 7600 GS, and GT. Actually, I'll not be willing to spend over 200$ (equivalent). I've recently won around 31,000 Rupees in a national science olympiad (around 600$ equivalent) and don't quite wanna finish it in one go.

 

What I need is some recommendations. I've not looked at the ATI side, but if anyone knows of something good that I can get below 200$, I'd love to know about it as well.

[Buffy]

$200 is getting you into the "high-end" cards, and that I know from nothing: I'm definitely not what you'd call a "gamer"....

 

Fast enough polygons for Country Music,

Buffy

[Boerseun]

That actually depends. Being in the East, I've got a sneaky suspicion that Ron will pick up a kick-*** top-of-the-line card for much, much less than we can get it, being close to the manufacturers.

 

Ron, go to a vendor and get a catalogue. Let us know what you can get for it Dollarwise. You'll probably pay less than half what the rest of the world has to.

 

Just a suspicion, but I think you'll be able to undercut the rest of us by far.

[freeztar]

Get a card that has on-board memory. If sound is not a problem, then get a card with a fan and vent on it as well. Otherwise, there are plenty of nice cards with passive heatsinks. But for video games, you mainly want memory on the graphics card AND compatibility. Even if you get the slot and timing right, your m-board might not like it. Trial and error....

[ronthepon]

I suppose so. The cards are cheaper, but that's because they're mostly the used and disposed items that flood the country. Lets see what I get though.

 

(Catalouge? What catalouge? Imagine buying computer parts at 100 Rs (~2$) per Kg from the shops around. :phones: Do I need to emphasise on how they get their stuff?)

[ronthepon]

Get a card that has on-board memory. If sound is not a problem, then get a card with a fan and vent on it as well. Otherwise, there are plenty of nice cards with passive heatsinks. But for video games, you mainly want memory on the graphics card AND compatibility. Even if you get the slot and timing right, your m-board might not like it. Trial and error....

Without doubt, that's what I'll aim for. (Once I learn more about it though.)

[Turtle]

I suppose so. The cards are cheaper, but that's because they're mostly the used and disposed items that flood the country. Lets see what I get though.

 

(Catalouge? What catalouge? Imagine buying computer parts at 100 Rs (~2$) per Kg from the shops around. Do I need to emphasise on how they get their stuff?)

 

 

Only last week, I would not have understood this reference; however, I saw a program on the businesses springing up in India that recycle old computer equipment. They come in from other countries, is that correct?

 

I would like to here what you have to say about the shops and where they get their stuff etcetera, as the program indicated it was giving people jobs that otherwise wouldn't have them. :phones: :hyper:

[ronthepon]

Only last week, I would not have understood this reference; however, I saw a program on the businesses springing up in India that recycle old computer equipment. They come in from other countries, is that correct?

 

I would like to here what you have to say about the shops and where they get their stuff etcetera, as the program indicated it was giving people jobs that otherwise wouldn't have them. :phones:

Nah, I was just briefly referencing at the 'chor bazars' (thief markets) from one of which I bought a memory card reader sometime ago, for 100Rs a Kg.

 

But about the 'recycle stuff, it does not quite involve much. Here's the deal which I've seen. Old and outdated stuff comes from outside sources, and is poured into rural areas, etc, where it's sold for a lower than usual price.

 

The buyers don't give a damn about how out dater their purchase is, they get it for a low prices, while the sellers get to extract money from junk. If you're sharp, and you know what to get, and where to get from, buying can be heavenly. But getting the new and good stuff like this is a difficulty matter. For that, you've got te 'expensive shops', located in the posh and fast paced areas of the cities.

 

In any case, I'm still trying to find the underground computer shop in this city... I just need a 'contact'.

[GAHD]

for the new card, make shure to check the motherboard's website for "known conflicts" and also the prospective card's site for conflicts

make shure all your cards arn't known to be bad bed-buddies, as I've seen a LOT of macheines BSOD after a card upgrade incompatible with their mo-bo, CPU, Fax/modem, soundcrd, etc...

[pgrmdave]

Also, if you want faster games cheaply - upgrade your ram. It's cheap, and noticably better if you get up to a gig or more.