Lenovo ideacentre K330B

[doubletapp1911]

hello all!....no seriously, hey, whats up, thanks for poppin by. I have a question about my PC here are the specs

 

Lenovo IdeaCentre K330B

 

processor- intel Pentium cpu g630 @ 2.70GHz 2700Mhz 2 core(s) 2 logical processor(s)

 

installed phys. mem 6.00gb

total phys. mem 5.85

available phys. mem 4.27

total virtual mem. 11.7gb

available virtual mem 9.91

 

the graphics card specs

 

intel hd graphics

 

max graphic mem 1760mb

min graphics mem 128mb

intel64 family 6 model 42

 

and I run off windows 7 service pack 1.

 

I hope that helps if not, if you can tell me how to pull up better sys. info, please let me kno how, and thank you!

 

so my question and semi brief summary are this,

 

I love some fallout, new to pc, and mods, so ya, lil kid at Christmas right? got my comp about 3 yrs ago now I think? mostly used it for internet n music, netlfix etc, but with FNV (fallout new vegas) I can only run at LOW graphics with very minimal tweaks before consistant frame lag etc. and this is just the game running thru steam. or steam via NMM. so what id like to do, is upgrade the (enter answer here?) on my computer, without having to mess with power sources or heat sinks, and without spending more than say 100$. im not looking to run ultra graphics or even high graphics, but a solid medium with steady fps and maybe minor tweaks.

 

on a more in game perspective for fall out new vegas, im lookin for objects being within the line of sight without things popping up as I get closer. with the settings on low with high textures and objects at 4 and actors at 6 with everything else being default low, the game for me begins to slightly lag, it is minimal but still enough to take away from the gameplay.

 

also, im playing on a 50 inch vizio the e500ar with a 60hz refresh rate. and also the vertical sync is on, if that effects the fps?

 

and I do run a good 15 mods, most of them r immerisive, like the ihud, better ai, the biigest ones I run are probably NMCs texture pack SMALL and Nevada skies with the winter edition, I do have sandstorms disabled, but even with nevade skies when it snows its nothing compared to what the sandstorms do to the fps.

 

so ya basically im looking for a minimalist approach whether its getting some more RAM, or a graphics card, or even a combo of both. any info would be awesome, thank you for taking the time to read n help me out!

Edited January 12, 2014 by doubletapp1911

[Vagrant0]

You probably wouldn't even be able to run the game on low settings with that graphics card. That computer model is essentially just designed for office applications which rarely need more memory than the OS uses, and doesn't do anything more graphically intensive than running a powerpoint presentation.

 

The first step is to throw away any preconceptions you might have regarding hardware upgrades. It's nowhere near as complicated as it was back in 90's and early 2000's. These days simple hardware upgrades can be done just by swapping out parts that fit into slots or snap into place.

 

Second step is to open up your computer and actually look at what you have inside and familiarize yourself with what those components are, how they're connected, and what they might need. If you can take a picture of your motherboard (that big circuit board that everything is plugged into), you could probably even have some kind soul label what things are just from a visual inspection. From there you can have some model numbers to work with when trying to figure out what might be compatible or reasonable to upgrade.

 

Third step is to work from that list of reasonable upgrades and find something that you can do, that will fit within your case, that won't require too much power, while being within budget. From what you listed, the one thing which is probably holding you back the most is your graphics card, or rather the lack of a dedicated graphics card. You might be a little low on RAM, you might be using a lower-end processor, but your graphics card is simply just not designed to handle the texture quality for any game made since 2002.

 

[Rennn]

Don't bother with more RAM... Your RAM is the best part of your PC, no offense. :3

You'll need a new video card mostly. In order to add a decent video card, you might also need to replace your power supply unit.

 

The CPU and motherboard can wait, those aren't nearly as important at the moment.

[Werne]

That is not a machine even remotely designed to run games, Sandy Bridge graphics core is pathetic at running anything other than Tetris even with 1024x768 screens and it's likely bottlenecked even further by slow RAM. Processor is good with games such as FO3 and New Vegas since those two are capable of running even on a Core 2 Duo, but games like Skyrim would choke and modern games would likely fail to even run. I'd personally get rid of that machine instead of throwing money into a bottomless pit, but anyway...

so what id like to do, is upgrade the (enter answer here?) on my computer, without having to mess with power sources or heat sinks, and without spending more than say 100$. im not looking to run ultra graphics or even high graphics, but a solid medium with steady fps and maybe minor tweaks.

The cheapest upgrade I can think of for $100 or less is a dedicated card - AMD Radeon HD 7750, it's roughly 35% slower than a 7770 and a 7770 can run FO3 and FO:NV at 60FPS ultra so I guess a 7750 should be able to pull 60FPS on medium/high.

 

Do check the power supply wattage before doing anything (open the case, read wattage and brand/model on the power supply, post it here), builds like that usually have just enough power to drive the built-in components and don't offer room for upgrade, while some actually do have PSUs that are worth something.

 

[Rennn]

That is not a machine even remotely designed to run games, Sandy Bridge graphics core is pathetic at running anything other than Tetris even with 1024x768 screens and it's likely bottlenecked even further by slow RAM. Processor is good with games such as FO3 and New Vegas since those two are capable of running even on a Core 2 Duo, but games like Skyrim would choke and modern games would likely fail to even run. I'd personally get rid of that machine instead of throwing money into a bottomless pit, but anyway...

 

 

 

A bit of an overstatement. He's not limited to playing Tetris, more like Morrowind.

 

It's completely pointless to throw out the whole PC. At the very least, the case, HDD, OS, and motherboard are probably good enough. The RAM is likely also okay for an entry level PC, I used to have 4GB of the crappiest RAM imaginable and I still ran games well enough with a solid CPU and GPU. The other parts are better than nothing until he gets replacements, there's absolutely no point to start over.

Also, PSU wattage means nothing unless we also know the specific company and model. A 500w Corsair PSU will perform better than a 750w Diablotek PSU. I know from experience. >_>

Edited January 14, 2014 by Rennn