This is my computer, will Rome work for me?

[Red Harvest]

PCI Express graphic cards will require a new motherboard. They only make sense when you are ready to upgrade your system (not just the graphics card). These are just now entering the market, and you can expect teething pains. AGP isn't dead by a long shot. It will be phased out for newer cards a year or two from now, but AGP cards are not going to disappear for years. AGP slots are available on most home machines today (except for many Intel integrated graphics chipsets -- junk machines that businesses buy primarily.) There will be a market for them for years.

PCI Express and PCI are different critters. PCI cards just use an existing PCI slot. You can't find modern vid cards in PCI format, because PCI has been dead end for many years. There are some old graphics cards still made for PCI, but they are slow and about three or four generations old now.

Performance wise PCI Express will probably not offer much boost over AGP for some time. The increment from PCI to AGP was small for awhile as well. The current AGP bus at 8x is not really heavily used. You will barely see any difference from setting your AGP at 2x, 4x or 8x. The reason is simple, traffic over the AGP bus (and PCI Express) is still much slower than traffic on the card itself. So game and card manufacturers keep the AGP traffic to a minimum anyway.

The original poster needs to either check with his vendor, or find some documentation of his motherboard, or look at some other motherboard reviews to find images of what an AGP slot looks like. None of us can see it, so we can't tell him what he has. If he can find the model of the motherboard chipset, someone can probably track it down for him. Documentation and "help" on these pre-built systems are hard to come buy (not his fault.) When I mess with them I often have to open the cover to figure out what is really in there.

[Inuyasha12]

Anyways the only reason i will get a new one if is Rome doesn't work on mine.
So im keeping my fingers crossed that it works well


So wadda ya think will rome still work fine on it?
Will i 'need' a new card?
I need opinions here people. gotta keep my hopes up

[CrackedAxe]

Seems like a fairly decent machine,Inuyasha, badly let down by lack of a serious graphics card. You can pick up the Radeon 9800 or the Geforce FX 5900 for about £150 ($200) now. i'm hoping to be able to run RTW ok, with an Athlon 1900XP (may upgrade this, mobo will take up to 3000) 512 DDR, and Geforce FX 5600. Not a particularly powerful system, but judging from the specs thread at the .com, it should be fine. I imagine then, with a little investment in a grfx card, you'll have no problems at all.

Anyways, dont you want a new card for all the stunning looking games due out this year?

And thanks for the comprehensive answer, Red Harvest.

[Inuyasha12]

Yes thanks to everyone who helped me and others alike who are a bit ignorant in this matter

[RTKLamorak]

i dont think the battle map will even load with integrated intel graphics, or if it does i reckon less than 5 frame per second, even that is being optimistic ;/

Take Red Harvests advice, and do NOT get a 5200 or any MX series Geforce4!!!

To be honest, i havent much looked into the use of directX 9 features in RTW. If it is going to be using directX9 features, and you want to see the extra eye candy get nothing less than a ATI 9600pro (do NOT get ANY GeforceFX series of cards if you plan to use Dx9 effects) ... otherwise, get a Geforece 4 4200ti 128mb or above for Dx8 play , or any Geforce FX card over a 5600ULTRA , or ATI card over a 9600pro.

Sadly, a celeron with its castrated cache will struggle with the computations necessary for large scale battles in RTW, and i think 1gb RAM will be essential for stutter free gameplay. But.. i havent been following RTW very closely as of yet (it will come round quicker that way ;) ) ... so am not entirely sure of the requirments needed for "good" gameplay (usually doubling the minimum specs given will give a nice level of play.. but we shall see).

I reccomend ANYONE who is thinking of upgrading for RTW to make a thread in The Apothecary and let us make sure you are getting the right kit