• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Graphics card? Total n00b, help needed!

lukechad

lukechad

lukechad

Soldato
Joined
25 May 2004
Posts
8,925
Location
Burton-On-Trent
Hi guys, a bit of a total n00b at this area, used to know a little bit a few years back but its been a long time since ive been looking at buying a new graphics card!

Right, so, basically, ive just purchased flight sim X and installed it on the main PC and its very very poor, fps is really bad, level of detail is pretty poor, ive tried putting it down to medium settings and it runs pretty poor but a bit faster, anything less than medium its pointless, the graphics are just very very bad.

Last time I had this issue was on an old PC running FS2004 and a radeon9600 128mb improved it no end! :)

Now the pc has a 2GHz dual core pentium 4 processor so I dont "think" thats going to be causing many issues?

The on-board grahics card is what I have put the issue down to? Now I know totally nothing and need to know roughly how much I am looking at spending on one to get quicker and better graphics, Im not after top end graphics but something realistic and smooth!

Not at all sure what connection the current one is but I have got a program to run to give me that kind of info! Will report back with the results from that.

Sorry to be a bit vague and stupid but I hope someone in this section can help me :)
 
Will find out in 10 mins mate, just got a program off a friend that will tell me "everything" about the card onboard at the mo :)
 
Hope this gives some answers....means pretty much nothing to me...

graphicscardspeccq3.jpg
 
Hope this helps.....

17082008003vy7.jpg



**EDIT**

From AMD.... "ATI Radeon™ Xpress 200

The industry’s first chipset with DX9 graphics and PCI Express upgrade capability for AMD 64-bit processors."
 
Last edited:
and these are the slots I have to play with....

17082008005kp1.jpg


Im pretty much clueless as to anything else that may help you guys :)
 
Well I was expecting it to be pants lol.....

Ive been informed that there are various connections ie. PCI and PCI-E, now I assume the white slots at the bottom are PCI-E? May be wrong? Ive just seen the Radeon 3850 Pro on ocuk for £55 which seems in the right price range if its any good?
 
What can that cause? Slower performance from the gfx card or just not working at all?

If we are sure I have a spare PCI-E then I think they are the cards i want to be looking at, right?
 
woooooosh! That went stright over mate :)

Im leaving this to the graphics card members mercy now, I want something better than ive got (which is believe wont be hard) and sub £50 if possible....so any suggestions are much appreciated now :)

Thanks in advance! Will check back tomorrow now, im whacked!
 
Thanks, yea the 3850 seems to be ticking the boxes, looks like the black one is a PCI-E x16. So I assume this is going to work no problems with my PC?

Is it worth looking at the 3600 range of cards? they seem a little less advanced so will they be more likely to work with this PSU?

Thirdly, I have m,y old radeon 9600 to hand, will it cause problems to install and run off that for a few days until the new one arrives or should I keep it simple and wait, dont want hardware or software clashes!
 
Last edited:
Just been told also I will be needing a new PSU to run this card? Is this true? Just seems to be stacking upto a lot of money now to get a game running better :s

All help again very much appreciated!
 
Right, bit of a bump too, PSU ordered should be here tomorrow, looked at the finances and decided I can afford the gfx card this month too so Im getting it ordered tonight, is the 3850 going to suffice for my needs?
 
I could be wrong with the processor, tell you what give me 10 mins again and i will boot it up, run cpuz and see what I can get info wise for you!
 
Ok, this brings me onto my next question, I cant remember from last time what happened, when I install the new gfx card I assume I can plug the monitor straight in and boot as normal and things "should" look ok, perhaps a few tweaks with res etc? Am I right or is there something more complicated than that?

Thanks mate for your help, think I will be leaving the processor alone for now :)

btw the res I run at is 1280x1024.
 
Ok matey, I follow most of that apart from the first bit about the latest drivers, where do i go to uninstall the old ones before I power off? I also read that as the new card will come with the 8.7 or 8.8 drivers? Correct?

Sorry, not "that" good with hardware :)
 
So im getting the latest ones for the 3850! Should be sorting the PSU tomorrow, found some helpful info online and the instructions are pretty simple to follow, dont see how I can be getting it wrong, just hope it physically fits nicely :)

Do I install the downloaded drivers after ive used the ones off the disc or do I use this file instead of the supplied ones?
 
Last edited:
Thanks a lot mate! Will trawl avsim for help and advice too :)

I realised FS is a difficult program to run well but im more than happy with medium settings to be fair, just at the moment even super low settings dont run well!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom