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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
 
Is there any chance you could find out you power supply's wattage, and how many amps are on the 12v rail? It should say it on a sticker on the PSU
 
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."
 
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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?
 
lukechad said:
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?
Click to expand...

They are PCI slots. I think the black one is PCI-e but you need to double check, ie. is it x4/x8 or x16 etc..
 
lukechad said:
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?
Click to expand...

the black slot is your PCI-E and white ones are normal PCI

Yes the 3850 here Is an Excellent Choice, and your power supply should be able to power it just fine, however id double check it HERE!


lukechad said:
How do i go about checking this out mate?
Click to expand...

what motherboard do you have
 
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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?
 
lukechad said:
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?
Click to expand...

its certainly not a 4X, if its an 8X it would be fine anyway because the card probably doesnt need a full speed connection..

i think 8X is 40 GBit/s while 16X is 80Gbit/s bandwidth

open CPU-Z to find out what "mainboard" you have, google it and you should see the PCI-e 16X

Edit it should say in CPU-Z on mainboard tab your PCI-E "Max Supported"
 
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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!
 
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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?
 
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