Graphics cards help for a tech-noob

Hello Forum,

Currently I have a Dell PC- (Pent 4, 3.2 GHz and 1.00 GB of RAM)...whatever the hell that means but which I assume to be ok for running MTW2?

(The PC is not particularly cluttered BTW)

MTW2 graphics are shuddery on my PC at the moment- particularly in the pre-battle speeches sections.

I was under the assumption that the graphics card might be letting me down? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

If so, can anyone recommend a good graphics card for no more than £200? More importantly, I heard that dell do not use standard interchangable parts in their PCs...is this an issue when thinking about getting a new G Card?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Radeon X1950Pro and Geforce 7600 GT are the best cards I can think of that cost less than $200. What video card do you have right now? Your computer is about the same as my old one except mine had 1 GB more RAM and a GeForce 6600 card and it ran MTW fine on medium settings with some of the settings turned off so RAM might be the problem.

Before you spend a cent, make sure of what you have now and if it can be upgraded. Companies like Dell often "weld" the graphics card into place and changing it is not an easy affair.

*Something I just saw that you might want to read.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/10...006/index.html

Changing parts in a dell can be a risky business. If I were you I would do a google search on your dell model number and see if you can upgrade anything in it. Like "dell dimension 450 graphics upgrade" or something like that or give us the model number and we can look it up and let you know what would be best.

Thanks for the replies guys- I really do appreciate it. My PC is a dell dimension XPS Gen 3.

I was looking for graphics card info but I couldnt seem to locate it :wall:

Assuming that the graphics card isnt the problem- is RAM the prob?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lancelot

Assuming that the graphics card isnt the problem- is RAM the prob?

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One gig o' RAM is both the minimum and the standard.

Two gigs gives you breathing room for the big games.

Three or more is top shelf, nice to have, but not often required.

You've got an x800xt and shouldn't be having any problems.....

linky

Thanks again guys...

So, the general consensus is that more RAM is needed? Does anyone else have the same problems with MTW2 as Im having?

I play with 1gb of ram and a Go6800 and I don't have any problems. I did have to have a lot of the eye candy off, but it still looks better than rtw ever did. Turn grass to low or off and turn shadows to low. That bumped my fps up about 10 or so which made a huge difference. Also turn buildings to low. That will help in siege battles. Just turn everything on low and then slowly add more eye candy till it makes it jerky again and turn the settings down a notch. See how that works for ya. Do some tweaking before you dump any money into hardware.

Another gig of ram probably isn't going to help your situation any.

Is there any card for normal PCI that will run MTW II? I got one but it does not have shading pixels (something like that)

BTW: Should I wait to get a new Pc after Windows vista is released?

Ok, old PCI + gaming = no way! They don't make PCI graphics cards(for gaming anyway). It just isn't going to happen.

As for Vista, IMO, I would wait. Who knows how Vista is going to be with games. I personally am going to stick with XP for now and wait 6 months or so and see how it goes. The choice is up to you, but I would wait, see how good/bad it is, let 400000 patches come out and then decide if it is worth it. It's going to cost an arm and a leg anyway...

Changing the Shader Version from 2 to 1 should help as well if you didn't do that yet.