Jump to content

Guess i need to upgrade my video card....


locohosa

Recommended Posts

(Im a bit long-winded, so skip to bold section for short question.)

 

So, my pc came with an on board Ge-force 6150 back when i bought it, the idea was to buy a computer that was in-expensive but was upgradeable so it could keep up for a while. Ended up being like a 2.2 gigahertz duel core with only 512 mbs of ram, and I bought it i want to say 4 years ago. now, I want to play fallout 3 and maybe a good MMO, so I figured upgrade the ram and I would be good, so I went out and bought 2 one gig sticks of ram. Figured I was good to go!

 

(I had played and beaten fallout before on the x-box)

 

So I spend all morning looking for mods, ended up downloading FOOK, MMM, and WMK along with a cross repair mod (not sure I will keep) onto my laptop, get back home to my internet-less pc, Im all excited while I eagerly await the install to hurry up. Much to my disappointment though, I boot it up, turn all my graphics down, and its so slow i would call it un-playable. Needless to say, I'm heart broken. No internet to play my MMOs, no video card to play fallout. FML.

 

Im looking on Seattle-Tacoma criegslist for anything that might work, but i don't really know what I'm looking at.

 

Part 1 What is an in-expensive video card that can run fallout 3 reliably?

Part 2 what is the cheapest/goodest video card that can run with a 350v power supply that can run this game?

Part 3 should i try overclocking my power supply and running a 400v card? (Not sure if i stated that correctly....)

 

EDIT: PCI express card slot it looks like....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sapphire - ATI Radeon HD 4350 512MB DDR2 PCI Express Graphics Card

 

Would be better or worse than

 

Asus - NVIDIA GeForce 840 512MB DDR2 PCI Express Graphics Card

 

Also, I see an hdmi slot on the first one, but not the second. What is the third type of plug on the card? The white one that is not VGA and not HDMI?

 

Im sorry, I know a lot more about cars than computers, but playing fallout is cheaper than working on the Firebird any day.... Even if I do need a new video card. With a Ge-force 8400 series, how well will it play fallout? How do I tell the power supply requirements?

 

Also, will an 8400 play games like WoW well?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I highly recomend going to Newegg.com You will find some very reasonable prices on video cards there. Tigerdirect.com is also a good place to shop. if You go to Newegg.com and look up video cards..in the specification for each card it will tell You power supply needs etc. if you need to upgrade your power supply Corsair makes a very nice 750 watt power supply and that will handle anything You could ever need in a computer.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have an ATI HD4770 from Sapphire. It has only 512 GB RAM and i got no graphical stutter. The modder of EVE (Energy Visuals Enhanced) was baffled by some screenshots i had put up on Nexus because of how the graphical shaders of my card fleshes out what he called "the alpha channels" (i guess they are called shaders or something. When i got the card halve a year ago it costed 100 euros, i would guess it costs arround 60-80 Dollars today.

 

ALSO YOU SHOULD GET HERE ON NEXUS THE "3 GB ENABLER" (search for Enabler). Fallout can only handly 2 of your GBs. With the tweak from this "mod"

it will be able to handle all your Ram so the game should instantly run better - new graphics card or not.

 

If you choose another card than mine still look that it has the latest SHADERS. I don't which are actual right but look up the internet. Thats what i would go for.

 

Olaf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You cannot 'overclock' a power supply. If you have a 350Watt supply and try to run 400Watts worth of parts, it may work for a short while. But the Power supply sill run very hot and will eventually fail. You will have a fried power supply and probably destroy some parts, such as the mother board or video card.

 

350Watts should be enough to run a mid range video card without too much risk. But a high end supply will require more power than you have. I think the ATI cards actually use a little less power than the Nvidia cards

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with bben46...!!! be very careful with what video card you finally choose with that 350W power supply. Video cards will dramatically increase their demand on your power supply when their getting hammered, especially newer models. It's not unusual for a video card to draw 125W or more under full-load which even FO3 can do depending on your settings.

 

I have personally seen problems with a multitude of newer games on older rigs with under-rated power supplies. Worst part is the symptons often manifest themselves in less than obvious appearances, e.g. CTD, lock-up, game freezes, etc.

I could dribble on for hours on the subject so sorry - first upgrade I would suggest would be a decent 500W PS (you can always reuse it when you upgrade the rest later on)

 

Also does your MD support PCI-E or AGP? That will make a big impact on your choices.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...