Help choosing a cheep graphis card for Runes of Magic

[Huffel]

Hello, I am currently playing a free MMORPG called Runed of Magic & wish to upgrade my onboard graphich to a suitable (but cheap) hardware (preferably NVIDIA) alternative to improve my gaming experience. The trouble is all techinical stuff baffles me... The minimum requirements for the game are :-

Operating System: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 512MB
Required Harddisk space: 6.7GB
Graphics card: DirectX 9.0c compatible with 128MB RAM, Pixel Shader 2.0 (or better)
Broadband Internet connection
Keyboard and Mouse

& I have a Pentium 4, 2.8Ghz with 2Gb Ram & am not sure of the top of my head my power supply spec.

Please help me with sujestions on a suitable graphics card for the job or at least a price range to go for. I would like 1 that maxes the game but buying 1 too powerful would be a waist of money

 

[Timop]

Do you have a GPU right now?
throwing more money in that system is almost worthless.

What resolution do you plan to game at anyways?

 

[jyjjy]

If your system has a PCIE port then something cheap like the HD4650 or 9500GT should be fine.

 

[jaguarskx]

Please download a little program called CPU-Z....

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z/versions-history.html

It will give you various info about your motherboard like what type of graphic card port it has. It can be either AGP, PCI or PCI-e.

Do not confuse PCI with PCI-e. PCI is ancient and what little video cards there are for that port, it will be expensive and very weak. PCI-e on the other hand is newer; all modern video card uses this particular port.

AGP is outdated, and only a handful of video cards now uses that interface (port). It is newer than PCI, but has been replaced by PCI-e.

 

[Huffel]

CPU-Z

Binaries
CPU-Z version 1.55

Processors
Number of processors 1
Number of threads 2

APICs
Processor 0
-- Core 0
-- Thread 0 0
-- Thread 1 1

Processors Information
Processor 1 ID = 0
Number of cores 1 (max 1)
Number of threads 2 (max 2)
Name Intel Pentium 4 521
Codename Prescott
Specification Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz
Package (platform ID) Socket 775 LGA (0x4)
CPUID F.4.9
Extended CPUID F.4
Core Stepping G1
Technology 90 nm
Core Speed 2793.0 MHz
Multiplier x FSB 14.0 x 199.5 MHz
Rated Bus speed 798.0 MHz
Stock frequency 2800 MHz
Instructions sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, EM64T
L1 Data cache 16 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
Trace cache 12 Kuops, 8-way set associative
L2 cache 1024 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
FID/VID Control no

Chipset
Northbridge Intel i915P/i915G rev. B1
Southbridge Intel 82801FB (ICH6) rev. 04
Memory Type DDR2
Memory Size 2048 MBytes
Channels Dual
Memory Frequency 266.0 MHz (3:4)



DMI System Information
manufacturer Dell Inc.
product Dell DV051

manufacturer Intel
model unknown
clock speed 2800.0 MHz
FSB speed 800.0 MHz
multiplier 3.5x


Display adapter 0
Display name \\.\DISPLAY1
Name Intel(R) 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family
Memory size 128 MB

 

[Timop]

So its a Dell system with a 915P chip-set and 1 2.8Ghz Prescott Pentium 4 520.
It seems like it does have a PCIe slot, but that P4 is gonna bottleneck even a HD4670.

Look for a 9500GT/HD4650, anything better would be held back by your CPU.

 

[jaguarskx]

woah!!!!!!

Information overload!!!!!!

Brain melting.... melting....

All the info necessary is in the 'Mainboard' tab under graphics interface.


From the looks of it, your Dell does not have a PCI-e 16x port. It only appears to have PCI-e 1x ports. Please look at the 'Mainboard' tab and might as well provide which Dell model you have.

 

[Huffel]

Do you have a GPU right now?
throwing more money in that system is almost worthless.

What resolution do you plan to game at anyways?

No no GPU as yet & want to run Runes of Magic at 1152 X 864 rez. Want to throw as little dosh as poss to get the game run smoothly as this a multi user P.C. in the main family home not my personal 1 lol (Vista, Quad Core 2.4Ghz, 4Gb RAM, Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 512 Alpha Dog Edition)

P.S. Apologoes for using Vista lol

 

[Huffel]

woah!!!!!!

Information overload!!!!!!

Brain melting.... melting....

All the info necessary is in the 'Mainboard' tab under graphics interface.


From the looks of it, your Dell does not have a PCI-e 16x port. It only appears to have PCI-e 1x ports. Please look at the 'Mainboard' tab and might as well provide which Dell model you have.

lol copy & paste the least effort on my part. Thanks for the link

 

[Huffel]

Dell Model - 0JC474. The graphics interface section of the Mainboard tab is blank!
So whap peeps are sayi is that I shouldnt spend any More than 50 notes on GFX for this this out of date CPU

 

[jyjjy]

Yeah, your computer doesn't have a PCIE x16 or even an AGP port. Honestly I would just forget about it. Start saving up for a new system. Even for just a few hundred you can build something several times better than that one.

 

[Huffel]

Thanks for the advice, was just a thought to try & beef up my Parents outa date machine. (Mabey I'd b better bringing the 8800GTS outa my own machine down each time I visit lol)

 

[Timop]

Yeah, your computer doesn't have a PCIE x16 or even an AGP port. Honestly I would just forget about it. Start saving up for a new system. Even for just a few hundred you can build something several times better than that one.

It does have a PCIe X1..
But seems like a uBTX, yuck.

 

[Mousemonkey]

lol copy & paste the least effort on my part. Thanks for the link

Just as "Delete thread" would require the least effort on my part if there where ever a next time. [:mousemonkey]

 

[Huffel]

Just as "Delete thread" would require the least effort on my part if there where ever a next time. [:mousemonkey]

No need to be nasty Mousemonkey

Thanks again for the peeps that made the effort to answer me, saved me dosh. will just pick up an auld £20 GFX card on ebay like a 6600GT & make do.

P.S. There are peeps out there that arnt as technically minded, thankfully not all of them are as unhelpful as Mousemonkey

 

[jyjjy]

will just pick up an auld £20 GFX card on ebay like a 6600GT & make do.

You can't actually do this, nor can you use your 8800 GTS in that system. You do not have the proper motherboard to buy even an old card. AGP was the old standard and PCIE x16 is the new one. You have neither of these ports. The only discrete video cards you can use are PCI cards and those will be both expensive and very weak.

 

[Mousemonkey]

No need to be nasty Mousemonkey

Thanks again for the peeps that made the effort to answer me, saved me dosh. will just pick up an auld £20 GFX card on ebay like a 6600GT & make do.

P.S. There are peeps out there that arnt as technically minded, thankfully not all of them are as unhelpful as Mousemonkey

Then don't be so lazy and edit your own post to remove the unneeded text next time.