lol, im an idiot.

[Vasiliyi]

Ok, so I bought ETW. Installed it. No problem. Turned it on... Unplayable. I don't have a video card. Lol. I didn't know that. My friend came over for my bday and looked at it. Finally ordered a video card and a power supply. I got a Geforce 9600 gt. So I finally am entering the world full of graphics. So now I have to wait for the VC to come. I'm kinda pissed that I can't play ETW for a couple more days. Good thing I still have EB. Nothing will ever compare to it. Well until EB II. This post is going nowhere and fast. What kind of video cards do u have?

[Ibrahim]

to answer you question: I am not sure, but either its 8600 or 8800.

[Scipio Asiaticus]

Sapphire HD3850 512MB and 2 GB RAM, ETW works nicely and more importantly EB works like a dream.

[Rilder]

ATI HD3850 that has some sort of ATI2dvg infinite loop problem that makes it unable to play several of my games.

[mini]

Ati 4870 512ddr

[Irenaeus]

NVidia GeForce 7950GT PCI-E. Fairly old now, but still works well enough for most things I play!
[my laptop has Intel GMA 450, which actually works better for some really old games]

[-Praetor-]

NVidia 8600 GT. Actually, when I read your post I said "wohooo, I can play ETW, I have got the 9600!!" Went to check the model, and I was 1000 under...

Also, 2GB ram, and an athlon 64X2 dual core 5200.

I hope I will be able to run ETW, but I think I'm pretty much at the limit. No other choice than setting the graphs to the minumum :(

[bobbin]

Ati HD 4870 512ddr5, only played the ETW demo (holding out on the full game till after my exams) but it runs perfectly, goes without saying that EB runs well.

[Lucio Domicio Aureliano]

8800 GTS 512mb

[satalexton]

can one even run EB (or rtw for the matter) w/o a dedicated graphics processor?

[gamegeek2]

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/funny-pictures-bird-cat-cage.jpg

[Aemilius Paulus]

can one even run EB (or rtw for the matter) w/o a dedicated graphics processor?
I know, right? That is what I immediately thought. How in the name of Jupiter did you play EB without a graphics card? It must have looked horrific.

Anyway, as for graphics cards, I do not bother much with them. They are too darned expensive. I upgraded my RAM to maximum 4GB and I am going to purchase a quad-core processor. Both the RAM and the processor are cheap. The graphics cards... Not really. On the contrary, very expensive.



So, I have a question myself. When I was installing my RAM, I noticed my NVIDIA graphics card was fused to my motherboard. Does that mean I cannot upgrade my graphics card??

[desert]

You can easily get any graphics card for less than $300, most for less than $200. A good quad-core can cost more than twice that. And a good graphics card would probably do more for your gameplay than just a better CPU.

And isn't there a minimum graphics card requirement for all games? If he didn't have a graphics card, how was he even able to play EB?

[teh1337tim]

aemilus the graphic chip welded into ur motherboard is a onboard GPU, it saps memory of ur board to power it, if its nvidia its either a 6150 6200 7200 7300 based card


BUY A GRAPHIC CARD, its the most expensive thing on a computer but its the power of it.

Any card in the 7xxx+ serries of nvidia or geforce 1900+ can play ETW

i have 2 x Geforce 9800GX2s,
each cost me a hefty $400 when they were new.
And i can max out any game and play another game at the same time...
altho im seriously thinking about the gtx 295... o well...

in other words, the GPU is the most important thing of ur computer.
Buy big and go on for 3-5 years
or buy small and upgrade every year
its ur investment
and a quad core with no GPU is just a bottleneck... no real difference

System
Intel quad Core Qx9650 extremity to max =]
Geforce 9800GX2
Corsair ddr3-1333mhz ultra speed memory
500gbx2 Seagate HDD and a 1TBB add on

system cost.. $3500 when brand new

[Aemilius Paulus]

I am not sure a good graphics card is cheaper than a quad core. I have seen Intel quad-core processors for as low as 180 USD. As long as it is quad-core, I am relatively satisfied. It cannot be too bad, and I am not looking for something especially high-end either. I only play RTS games, nothing else. Graphics cards, are different IMHO. Quality is much more of a factor there. And while I can compromise some speed, graphics are a different issue...

So, really, can I upgrade my graphics card is it is fused with the motherboard?? Anyone?

[Vasiliyi]

Lol! Tell me about it. To be honost I got used to the graphics, lagging, long loading times. Now, I'm so pumped to play both games. It kills me that I have to wait till tomorow... although I haven't been able to play eb at all for like a week. Its been a rough one. Oh, and I payed $69 for mine. Newegg.com highly recommended by my friend.

[miotas]

you cant replace your existing graphics card but if you have a pci or pci-express slot you can add a dedicated graphics card and buypass your old one altogether, if you dont know what a pci slot looks like, pull out you motherboard manual(if you still have it) or do a google image search, basically it kind of looks like ram slot.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Newegg.com highly recommended by my friend.
Heh, I love that site myself. They usually have the best prices. UniversalMemory is my preferred choice for RAM however.


you cant replace your existing graphics card but if you have a pci or pci-express slot you can add a dedicated graphics card and buypass your old one altogether, if you dont know what a pci slot looks like, pull out you motherboard manual(if you still have it) or do a google image search, basically it kind of looks like ram slot.
I do actually. When I was replacing my RAM, it caught my attention, as it was unfamiliar to me at that time, so I researched it and it said what you did basically. Thanks for the info though :yes:! I never knew I could use it to do that.

[antisocialmunky]

I've managed to run RTW at full on a Intel X3000 integrated.

[Ryanagan]

HELP...How do i fix my game so it doesnt lag in battle mode, and when i start the game and all the loading screen take foreeever to load.
-Ryan

[A Very Super Market]

Well.... what are your specs?

[Apázlinemjó]

Ati Radeon HD 3200, got it with my Acer laptop. It's quite good to play older games like Gothic 3 and MTW2, but I guess the new ones would kill it in short time.

[Iskander 3.1]

RAM upgrade!!! RAM upgrade!!!

[Nachtmeister]

Heh, I love that site myself. They usually have the best prices. UniversalMemory is my preferred choice for RAM however.


I do actually. When I was replacing my RAM, it caught my attention, as it was unfamiliar to me at that time, so I researched it and it said what you did basically. Thanks for the info though :yes:! I never knew I could use it to do that.


You need to find out what sort of graphics slots your board is using. If it is older but not ancient (assume not ancient because you mentioned upgrading to a quad-core which would be impossible without a modern cpu-socket) there are two possibilities: PCI-E and AGP.
Normal PCI slots (the non-E PCI ones) can also be used for graphics but it will likely be much slower than your onboard card that way.
You need to know whether it is PCI-E or AGP before you go about getting a graph card.
And IMO, the high-end solutions are usually not really worth the immense cost (unless you really have lots of cash to spare - then go for it as it doesn't matter anyway and you'd be helping the developers keep their jobs).
I'm running on an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (IIRC) which should be >4years old now and it has already survived (lit.) it's cooling unit due to my smoking-'n-open-PC-case habit. Ok the open case is not so much a habit as it is a necessity because otherwise the system overheats within 15mins of doing nothing because the power source's exhaust vent is right at the CPU vent's air intake. They REALLY knew how to build cases in 2001.
Point being, just get an older card that has already proven itself for ~1-2 years every ~3-4 years and all games should run reasonably. EB works for me on huge units scale as long as I do not speed up to the triple setting. Imperial Total War will probably not work at all though. Still, this is after >4 years during which everything worked somewhere between excellently and reasonably.

:2cents:

... You can laugh if I just mis-took your post and you are really some master of hardware.

[Caligula]

2 x ATI Radeon HD4870's in Crossfire :2thumbsup:

[antisocialmunky]

8800 GTS 320MB @ 679 Core

Yes back from the days where Nvidia was toying around with odd memory buffer bit sizes.