Hi, I am new to computer gaming and have recently bought the sims 2 for my daughter thinking that my new computer would be able to cope with the game as advised by the salesman!! It does, all bar the graphics card which is an intergrated via/S3G unichrome pro IGP . can any one offer any suggstions as to what i should be looking at to replace this with which wont break the bank as at present the game is running slow and the motion is uneven.I am using winxp home with 1024memory if this helps. Many thanks Mat58
lol, umm, on board graphics is never good... try the nvidia geforce 6600 @ 256 mb for about £120 roughly - that should be good enough. however, if you really want to use you computer for gaming with the latsest games such as oblivion or cod2 then you might want to try a graphics card such as the nvidia geforce 7600gt or higher @ 256mb or higher other than that, a geforce 6600 @ 256 is good enough - tis what i have atm and can hamdle any game (even the lastest) thrown at it so far, althouh really powerful games such as oblivion wont run on full, only medium lol
This isn't a laptop you're talking about are you? I only ask as that's a commom GPU for more budget based models. If so it's non upgradable unfortunatly as the gpu is soldered directly onto the motherboard in most cases. However if it's a desktop than yeah, a 6600 would be more than enough to run Sims 2 on high as well as other games. However from the sound of it you do not have a PCIe port, can you confirm is you have a free AGP port in your computer as that will help with your choosing. Thanks.
I cant beleive I forgot to ask those things... i am so ashamed of my self but yeah, if it is a laptop you may be stuck but i'm gonna take a guess and say you have a desktop and its most likely agp. but do let us know so we can give a more accurate response. however, wether it is an AGP or not - the graphics cards i stated before are still what you should be looking for.
Hi Exfoliate, my computer is a Cybermax. It says it has 2 pci slots available and i AGP slot in use which i guess is were the current video card is to be found. Motherboard is a Micro-Star international, model MS-7222 if that helps at all running in a desktop machine. Many Thanks Mat58
You'll only be able to buy and upgrade in AGP 8x graphics cards. Although not bad, they are not as good as PCI-e which I have to say is faster due to increased bandwidth. By the way (< btw - future reference) what is your current RAM, 512MB, or 1GB And how much money are you willing to spend on a new graphics card (< gfx - future reference)?? There are some good sites out there where you can buy some really good high qual products for a cheap price - this is, if you don't mind shopping online.
I have 1024MB and i dont want to go over the £100 mark. How will i find out what my pci slot are the device manager just says pci. I have downloaded a program called SIW which tell you all about system internals but this only says pci?
Your motherboard has an AGP graphics card slot and will therefore NOT have PCI-e, only PCI. Basically, you can't buy anf gfx cards that are PCI-e - you can only have AGP this isnt a problem though, AGP is still good for now. Your RAM is fine and if you don't want to spend more than £100 I am pretty sure you can get a GeForce 6600 or even a 6800 or even higher lol @ 256MB. check out these sites. Overclockers UK Komplett.co.uk RL Supplies Limited - computer parts and accessories, printers, mp3 players.. They all have some good products at great prices. And last but not least, try getting a program called Everest Home Edition, it tells you your exact system specs to a T. this is the program I use and it is very very good and comes highly recommended.
Thank you resonance for all your help its made things a bit more clearer. I will check these sites out and have a look at everest. Cheers Mat58
A GeForce 6600/6600GT should be plenty for your needs, and should be easily found within your budget.
Not a problem at all - I was happy to help. These forums and the users have helped me A LOT so I am glad that I could have helped someone too Your Welcome. Btw - let us know how your search goes for a new gfx card, which model, how much and where you bought it from if you dont mind?
