Whats a suitable but decently inexpensive video card

[dparrey]

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[Mr. Perfect]

Heh. Technicly that Intel thing isn't even a card, it's just a little chip on the mother board that mooches of the main ram and what not.

If you absolutly have to have a new card now, look for a Radeon 9600 Pro or a GeForce FX 5700 Ultra. If you don't need one imediatly, the new generation of cards will be out in May, and some hardware sites are predicting the new midrange cards will out perform the "old" high-end cards.

[Inglo]

You don't have a card per se. Your computers motherboard has integrated graphics as part of the chip that handles some of the other controls on the mobo. There isn't any independent graphics memory so it has to share with the rest of the system.
I recently did some work on a 2 GHz P4 with the same onboard video and it is definitely passable for playing some older games and handling your everyday computer needs. But it just doesn't cut it when it comes to the most modern games. You better check and make sure you've got an AGP slot, easiest way to tell is just take the cover off and look, the AGP slot is closest to the CPU and is set back a bit in comparison to the PCI slots.

The best advice I could give you for finding a decent card is just go search at
newegg.com and put "128-bit" in as a keyword and then limit your price however you want. Try getting at least a GeForce FX or a Radeon 9200.
You can get a Radeon 9800 Pro, which just last fall cost twice as much, at newegg for $210. That is one of the bargains of the century right there and will make you 20 times happier than a card you'd pick up for $75 or so.

I hve exactly the same problem, and exactly the same card. only I don't have an AGP slot. So today I ordered a PCI Radeon 9200 (256MB). Good for the job?

[Inglo]

I put probably that exact Radeon 9200 256 Mb Card you've ordered into a friend's pretty crappy 1 GHz celeron w/ 368 Mb of SDRAM, and though I haven't tried Deus Ex: IW on that machine, it's handling Splinter Cell: PT (which uses a similar Unreal engine to DX:IW) and Call of Duty at 800x600 fairly well.
It will probably handle DX:IW at 800x600 and low details.

Ah'got 2.8 ghz and 512MB of RAM. Still the same, mm ?

[Mr. Perfect]

Still the same. IW is very much dependent on the video card's pixel shaders, which is something the 9200 is hurting on. Do yourself a favor and get a decent card to go along with that system. GeForce 5700 Ultra, Radeon 9600 Pro, or anything higher then those.

[Inglo]

He can't, no AGP.

Meh, I'll live. Not for long, though.

Bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad. In BIOS, when I try to disable my onboard Intel card, I only have 2 options: Onbaord and Auto. Not helpful at all. My computer also doesen't seem to be detecting the card in the PCI slot. Any suggestions?

[Mr. Perfect]

Heh. I should read more carefully...

Sometimes you have to disable the on-board things with a jumper on the motherboard. If so, it should be in your computer's manual. Other times you have to boot into windows safe mode and disable it that way.

Game:
deus ex invisible wars

Running:
Amd1.6
win xp
512 ram
Radeon 7000 W/AGP

Black Screen Of Death then;

whats up with the message "engine requires 1.1 pixel shader" ?

no update from ion or eidos or ATI that allows to force pixel shader off?

Game wont run with out pixel shading?

Anyone with some info? thanks

never mind -old card- just never had any problems before playing even halo! looks like im selling this game for $30.00 can't sell it as new know! cant return it!

Originally posted by Mr. Perfect
Heh. I should read more carefully...

Sometimes you have to disable the on-board things with a jumper on the motherboard. If so, it should be in your computer's manual. Other times you have to boot into windows safe mode and disable it that way.

This is DELL. Nothing is in the in' manual -.-

[Mr. Perfect]

Looks like it's time to put their 24/7 tech support to the test then.

But they won't tell me much 'cos nothing is... *broken*.. =/ With the card in, it isn't detecting it..

Is that a Dell Dimension 2400 by any chance? Mine is.

I play most of the games you do, by the look of it, and they run OK on high detail. With the addition of Max Payne 2.


And windows still isn't detecting my new graphics card, but I can only even get to the desktop without my monitor cable plugged into the new card. Othersie I just get a black screen. And no, the card isn't faulty...