Is this a video card problem?

[MonsieurFish]

So recently I've been trying to soup up my computer, mainly in preperation for starcraft II/ diablo III. I have a new 22" widescreen monitor, and I just upgraded my RAM from 512 mb to 2gb. I bought the 14 day trial of WoW for a buck, and was hoping to see how well it worked on my computer.

The system requirements are:

• Windows 2000, Windows Vista or Windows XP
• Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon 800 MHz
• 512 MB or more of RAM
• 32 MB 3D video card with Hardware T&L or better
• 6.0 GB free HD space
• 4× CD-ROM drive
• 56 kbit/s or faster Internet connection

I also have a 128 mb video card (i think), and a 3.00ghz processor.

Now here's the problem, when I play the game on non-widescreen mode P(1024 x 768), there are 2 black bars on the sides, but the game runs smoothly. When i change it to widescreen mode (1680 x 1050), the game becomes very choppy. Anyone know why this is happening? As far as I can tell, my video card quadruples the system requirements, so I dont know why it should be a problem.

Thanks

[photon]

What model video card?

Memory isn't the only telltale part of a video card's ability, they vary widely in their performance so you can easily have one card that can handle 10 times what another can handle, and both have 128MB RAM.

It just sounds to me like the game is too much for your card at that resolution. At 1024x768 that's only 786,000 pixels, while at the higher resolution it's a million more pixels, so more than double.

You could try playing with the graphical settings, turning things down and off to get a better frame rate at 1680x1050, or choose a lower widescreen resolution (1440x900).

You could also try playing with the monitor settings to get it to stretch the 1024x768 image to full screen; but that will of course distort everything somewhat.

EDIT: Or get one of these: http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pro...gon=&langid=EN

[llama64]

What video card do you have?
And where in WoW are these slowdowns occurring? Have you made it out of Azeroth into Outlands for instance?

Upping the resolution is going to start putting a high demand on your video card. There is a chance that your card just can put out WoW at full speed at that resolution.

The key things to adjust in WoW is the anti-aliasing, shadows, ansiotropic filtering and draw distance.

Also, WoW uses a dynamic caching system to make the world seamless as you move from zone to zone. If you hard drive/bus speed is relatively low, you will notice some slowdowns that arn't the fault of your video card.

You could also check if you're using an updated driver for your card. The ones that come on the CD usually are rushed out the door, barely qualified beta software.

Other major thing to check for is ensuring that you don't have many programs running in the background. Especially anti-virus packages like McAfee or Norton. Running a defrag on your hard drive might help as well since WoW tends to install everything into one monolithic file that becomes fragmented really easily.

[MonsieurFish]

My video card is an Intel(R) 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family. I have no idea what that means, but it says memory is 128.0MB.

And i'm at the very beginnign of the game, so no I dont think im out of Azeroth yet.

[showtime]

Yeah that's a on board graphics card, which will not be good enough to run well anything really. You'll need to upgrade the video card for sure.

[photon]

Ah ok, yeah that's the standard built in video chipset, the one that's built right into the motherboard. That 128MB isn't even really memory for the video card, it's your system memory that's being allocated to the video card

Those video cards are bare minimum type cards, they really aren't intended for gaming.. you might be able to get it running at the full resolution by turning all the options down in the game but then it'll look bad.

And WoW is probably the least intensive game for video cards out there right now.. If you want to play Starcraft II or Diablo III, you'll need to upgrade your video card.

[BlackArcher101]

You are probably going to have to upgrade more once Diablo III comes out. You'll probably end up with a new pc pretty much.
Your PC sounds really old, so I'd be worried that the cpu isn't going to withstand these new games very well.

[MonsieurFish]

Hmmm... maybe I should have thought about this before I bought the ram. Is it possibly to upgrade cpu? and is that the same thing as my processor?

And also... anyone have any recommendations for video cards? Preferably not too expensive

[SebC]

Originally Posted by MonsieurFish

Hmmm... maybe I should have thought about this before I bought the ram. Is it possibly to upgrade cpu? and is that the same thing as my processor?

And also... anyone have any recommendations for video cards? Preferably not too expensive

You might not be able to upgrade the video card, most of the motherboards with onboard graphics don't have a slot for adding one or won't let you override it. System requirements are the minimum to use the software, not to use it at full resolution with all the eye candy turned on.

What are your system specs? No point upgrading the CPU if you can't upgrade your graphics card.

[MonsieurFish]

dang... i hope i can. this is what it says when i go control panel-system.

Dell Dimension DV051
Intel(R)
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
2.99GHz, 1.99 GB of RAM
Physical Address Extension


Does that tell you anything?

[Vulcan]

I would check your Mother Boards specs to see if it has a PCI-e, a VGA or only a PCI slot. If it has a PCI-express slot you will have good choice of video cards from $40 to $600. If it only has AGP or no dedicated video slot but an empty PCI slot you can get video cards but I wouldn't invest much money. Maybe look for a used card if it's AGP or PCI.

[photon]

Originally Posted by MonsieurFish

Hmmm... maybe I should have thought about this before I bought the ram. Is it possibly to upgrade cpu? and is that the same thing as my processor?

And also... anyone have any recommendations for video cards? Preferably not too expensive

Yeah CPU and processor are the same thing.

Hard to say with that computer, you might be able to upgrade the processor as I think it has the same socket as modern processors, but it might not accept a new one.

And I think that computer might only have a PCI-e x1 slot which means your choice of video cards will be limited to almost nothing.

But there should be a service tag # on the computer, that would let me look it up on Dell and get a better idea of what's in the system.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by MonsieurFish

dang... i hope i can. this is what it says when i go control panel-system.

Dell Dimension DV051
Intel(R)
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
2.99GHz, 1.99 GB of RAM
Physical Address Extension


Does that tell you anything?

Try and find your model number on your case. It sounds like it may be an e-310.

[MonsieurFish]

Thanks for the help guys.

I think this is my service tag/model number: 6F16X81.

That's about the only number I could find on my comp.

[Vulcan]

The best way to find out what kind of video connectors you have is to open up your case and look at your mother board.

If it looks like this, the best you can do is PCI -e x1 as photon says.

http://support.dell.com/support/edoc....htm#wp1052309

If it is, you can order a card from here but these can be expensive as they are kind of rare.

http://www.ncix.com/search/?categoryid=2-108&q=PCI-e+x1

[Cliche]

http://support.dell.com/support/edoc....htm#wp1043338

is the link to the service manual for your system. Unfortunately, you have only 1x pci-e lane expansion port. You do have available pci slots, so something like

this card from tiger direct would be what you would looking for to reach minimum specs. (EG. just able to run it, and probably at low resolution)

At this point, you should ask yourself how important it is to run those programs well, and to find what the lowest minimal graphics eye candy you can live without, as anything more will cost. (depends on how much you want to spend) considering a student budget, the Econobox specifications from the techreport should provide a good basis for a system that won't have to be replaced for 2-5 years.

Or, you could probably find some decent gear from the last ~2 years that's been used, but is now obsolete, by those folks who are spinning those upgrade wheels.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

The best way to find out what kind of video connectors you have is to open up your case and look at your mother board.

If it looks like this, the best you can do is PCI -e x1 as photon says.

http://support.dell.com/support/edoc....htm#wp1052309

If it is, you can order a card from here but these can be expensive as they are kind of rare.

http://www.ncix.com/search/?categoryid=2-108&q=PCI-e+x1

Sorry this link to NCIX doesn't have PCIe x1. There are some but they are hard to find.

[photon]

And their performance isn't going to be that great, so you'll just be spending $$ to patch up the system. I agree with Cliche, if you really want SCII or Diablo III I think you'd be better off with a different system.

Check the hot deals section of redflagdeals.com's forums, people post good deals for bare-bones type systems there quite a bit.

[Hack&Lube]

Unfortunately that computer was never designed from the beginning to be upgradable to play most 3D games. It only has a built in onboard graphics chip on the motherboard. That computer was designed for 2D, home computer, office usage, etc. Ram means next to nothing for videocards. Never use it as an indicator of videocard strength.

A computer capable of playing WoW, Starcraft II, Diablo III (all very low requirement games actually) would be very cheap in today's market. You could buy a used one cheaply (or used parts) that can play those games. If you don't want to waste the memory and CPU you have (3.00GHz Intel single core should be okay for those games since there is multithreading even if no dual core), there is the possibility of getting an older motherboard that will have a proper PCI-E 16x slot so you can use real videocards (which are also cheaper since they are plentiful)...but no guarantees it will fit in that Dell case and you will probably need a new installation of windows.

Ultimately, you were totally right in your gut feeling that it was the videocard. Basically, your system has none, it is just an onboard 2D graphics chip with limited 3D abilities stealing your main ram for graphics memory... and the system doesn't have the ability to add proper videocards.

[MonsieurFish]

Damn... well then one final quesiton. Does anyone know where I could get a cheap computer that is fairly high quality (aka capable of playing these games, and not at bare minimum system requirements).

Thanks for the help so far