Video Cards

[Alucath]

Ran the benchmark, but it was unsuccessful, due to the fact that I've got an onboard 32 mb card.. God it sucks. I get a hardware (bunch odd characters and symbols) error. I'm thinking of getting a video card, don't have a lot of money.. but hoping to get enough. Here are my system stats:

2.40 GHz Intel Celeron Processor
256 MB DDR SDRAM (Hoping to up this up to a GB of RAM soon)
Stupid onboard Video Card

So, here's my question.. I want to get a new graphics card, and I was told that the Radeon 9600 Pro 128 MB card would be good. Anyone who has this card and played the game here? It'd be great to have some feedback as to the quality of the game, running on this card. Also, any place that might have a good price?

Thanks
--Alu

[Edit: Stupid typos...]

[Tokitoki]

Ok you cant upgrade to a RAM of RAM.... RAM stands for Random Access Memory not the amount of it you can have. The Radeon 9600 Pro should run it quite nicely. Altough I dont have the card i ahve the 9800 Pro, Ive heard from several people on this board that it runs very well. Check Pricewatch.com they usually have good deals.

EDIT: Oh and this should have gone on the Computer Forum not the FFXI Main Topic

[Karandras]

Yes, Ram ram ram....you will notice the difference even in windows. The CPU can handle it so you are really looking for two things.

Video Card - Try and find a Sapphire Radeon series. They run a little bit slower then the main stream models but are alot cheaper. Still very powerful. Also, if you can find one (not made anymore) NVidia GeForce 4 Ti 4400. You can clock this one to the speeds of a 4600 and its quiet alot cheaper. (This is what I run) Just research before you buy. The 9800 Pro is a sweet sweet card. The GeForce 5600+ish sound like a jet engine, I'm staying away from them.

RAM - My guess is you have DDR not SDRam, two different types. If you can, get pc2700 at least and at least 512meg, least.

Hope this helps a little bit.

[Alucath]

I wish I could say either or.. But I'm just going by the sticker on my out of the box PC. It says 256 MB DDR SDRAM*

*up to 64 MB shared video memory

Great help I am eh?

Thanks for the help on the vid-card though. RAM RAM RAM *goes ram hunting*

[wacky]

also make sure what kind of slot you have available. whether it's PCI or AGP will be a deciding factor in your buy.

[Alucath]

Ok, it says.. Available 4x Slot for Graphics updates.. so I'm guessing that's what you're talking about.

[Karandras]

Well, the best way to find out if you have an AGP slot would be to slide your case open and look for a brown slot, that would be the top slot closeest to the CPU

PS - My bad about the ram. Guess it is DDR SDRAM :-/

[Alucath]

w00t, I found out I can up my comp to a GB of ram for sure.. gonna go get that soon, and I'm absolutely sure I've got an AGP slot now.. so I'm going to best buy with money.. and stuff :D