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Rozel wrote on 2011-05-21 02:17
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Yoorah wrote on 2011-05-21 03:35
Quote from Rozel;450985:
hp Compaq d530 CMT? xD; The only other things is a bunch of long numbers. Also I'll try it again, Osay :P Will update with edit in a sec.
Edit: It's working, but where do I find my watts? :o
Bingo.
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/11632_div/11632_div.html
Yours looks like the Convertible Minitower one, correct? It does have an AGP slot. Power supply is rated at 240W.
That 6200 card lists 250W as the required power, but 240W should be fine.
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Rozel wrote on 2011-05-21 03:46
Alright, is there a link or something you could give me that shows me one I can get? Cheap, but works well and is compatible with what I'm using. Even if I find a place that sells them I'm not quite sure what I would be looking for ><
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Yoorah wrote on 2011-05-21 03:59
I assume you're from the US? This seems like a decent deal, then:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187122
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Rozel wrote on 2011-05-21 04:12
Thank you! My father knows more about this stuff then I do so I'll ask him about installing it for me xD; This will be a good birthday gift if it works :P
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Rozel wrote on 2011-07-22 20:37
....
After much pestering, my dad FINALLY found a date to get me the graphic card. Jeez, such a long time. And then I go to look at the page again, and it looks like it's out of stock. My dad wants to check it out tomorrow, and, well, I don't know when it will restock or if I want to wait any longer then this.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187122
Can someone find a similar product that is like that one? Thanks...
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BobYoMeowMeow wrote on 2011-07-22 20:41
thank goodness you didnt buy that...
actually do you need a DDR2 or DDR3 graphic card?
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Yoorah wrote on 2011-07-22 20:44
I recommended that to her. She's limited by her old system's AGP interface and power supply, so it was the best card I could find at the time.
/searches some more
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Rozel wrote on 2011-07-22 21:03
Thanks Yoorah c:
And Bob, I just want something that makes it so my computer doesn't freeze every few minutes for over 15 seconds. I'm pretty sure this graphics card Yoorah showed me is a big improvement from my very old and terrible one. It doesn't even have the ability to look at Vindictus's graphics, I don't plan to play Vindictus ever and if I did it might still be pretty laggy however I'm just using that as an example xD
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Yoorah wrote on 2011-07-22 21:52
Yeah, old Intel chipset graphics performance is pretty horrible. It also has poor compatibility. But like I said before, I can't guarantee that it's the lack of graphics performance that's causing the brief lock-ups. It could be due to you only having 512MB of RAM, too. Anyway...
There were comparable GeForce 6200 products, but they all state a power requirement of 300W, unlike the lower 250W one that's out of stock. Your PSU is rated at 240W, so I would not risk it, especially since it's old. The only alternative is to go one step down, and settle for a
GeForce FX 5200. It's a bit slower, but it's also $10 cheaper. You could use the cost savings to partially pay for a
RAM upgrade to 1GB. 512MB is pretty bad, 1GB would help speed up your computer overall. Depending on how memory is installed in your PC currently, it may be possible to combine the total RAM to 1.5GB. Harass your dad for it. :D
But personally, I wouldn't be dumping money on that ancient system. :( Even a low end build with today's technology would be many times more powerful than your old comp.
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Rozel wrote on 2011-07-22 23:51
Eek, those two look a little expensive together....
Getting a new computer isn't an option, but, I'm curious if I had to just get one which would speed up the computer the most? A few people have said my lag has been because of my graphics card, and because it can't view graphics properly or something. As long as it can load the graphics properly I think it'll improve. I just want to get rid of the random 15 second spikes, I don't really care if things don't go super fast and here and there I might get a 2 second spike, but I mainly want to be able to play small areas in s4 league without freezing every once in awhile.
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Yoorah wrote on 2011-07-23 03:03
That's a tough question that I already thought about and was hoping I could avoid! x( Both options can improve performance by a lot, and I'm not sure where the bottleneck is with regards to that specific game.
The reason I believe RAM could be the culprit is because of how memory management works. Basically, when a PC runs out of real RAM, which can happen often on lower-end machines, the OS will use your hard drive as virtual RAM. The problem here is that the hard disk is mechanical and is many times slower than electronic, real RAM. If your game makes the computer run out of physical RAM, this will cause a brief freeze while your computer figures out what should be moved to the virtual RAM to make room in the physical RAM.
One thing you could try is open the Task Manager while you play in (windowed mode can make this easier, dunno if that's how you play usually) and look at the memory usage graph, under the Performance tab. The sections you care about are:
Physical Memory (K)
Total: ___ <-- Total RAM visible to system. You have 512MB, but the shared video chip takes some away from here, so it'll be less.
Available: ___ <-- "Free" RAM that can be used by new programs, or if a running program suddenly needs more RAM to use.
Commit Charge (K)
Total: ___ <-- How much physical and virtual RAM is used by your system. If this value is much higher than total under Physical Memory, it means it needs to use a lot of virtual memory, aka slow hard disk access. This would mean a RAM upgrade would be beneficial.
But on the other hand, the shared memory graphics card steals a whole 96MB of RAM away from main RAM. D: I believe you'd get most of it back if you installed a dedicated graphics card, and that 96MB could be all that's needed to make the freezing go away. A graphics card would improve the overall smoothness and compatibility with games in general, too. @__@
It's so much easier to just spend an extra $20 (compared to what you were gonna buy before). :(
But in any case... look at the memory stats, first. Maybe post a screenshot of the memory usage while you play the game.
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Yoorah wrote on 2011-07-23 03:04
That's a tough question that I already thought about and was hoping I could avoid! x( Both options can improve performance by a lot, and I'm not sure where the bottleneck is with regards to that specific game.
The reason I believe RAM could be the culprit is because of how memory management works. Basically, when a PC runs out of real RAM, which can happen often on lower-end machines, the OS will use your hard drive as virtual RAM. The problem here is that the hard disk is mechanical and is many times slower than electronic, real RAM. If your game makes the computer to run out of physical RAM, this will cause a brief freeze while your computer figures out what should be moved to the virtual RAM to make room in the physical RAM.
One thing you could try is open the Task Manager while you play in (windowed mode can make this easier, dunno if that's how you play usually) and look at the memory usage graph, under the Performance tab. The sections you care about are:
Physical Memory (K)
Total: ___ <-- Total RAM visible to system. You have 512MB, but the shared video chip takes some away from here, so it'll be less.
Available: ___ <-- "Free" RAM that can be used by new programs, or if a running program suddenly needs more RAM to use.
Commit Charge (K)
Total: ___ <-- How much physical and virtual RAM is used by your system. If this value is much higher than total under Physical Memory, it means it needs to use a lot of virtual memory, aka slow hard disk access. This would mean a RAM upgrade would be beneficial.
But on the other hand, the shared memory graphics card steals a whole 96MB of RAM away from main RAM. D: I believe you'd get most of it back if you installed a dedicated graphics card, and that 96MB could be all that's needed to make the freezing go away. A graphics card would improve the overall smoothness and compatibility with games in general, too. @__@
It's so much easier to just spend an extra $20 (compared to what you were gonna buy before). :(
But in any case... look at the memory stats, first. Maybe post a screenshot of the memory usage while you play the game.
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Rozel wrote on 2011-07-23 06:15
Keep in mind it's not an extra 20 dollars. It's an extra 30, because it's 29.99. I'll ask if my dad is willing to pay 60 dollars, if not I might go with the graphics card... but I'll try and see what you were talking about for the task manager.
Edit: Saw my physical memory total is around 515564 while commit charge total is around 578788. Will try the game thing tomorrow.
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Rozel wrote on 2011-07-23 19:40
Lol, it's funny. I just realized I didn't start this thread.
Wow I feel like a derpface. Assumed it was mine because I had also made a thread talking about getting a Graphics Card. But anyways, here's a screenie of me ingame, in a room with nobody else in it.
[Image: http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/543/meept.png]