Thinking of getting into some PC gaming

The Good News: You don't have to worry about spending a whole lot of money on a new video card...

The Bad News: ...because you don't have an AGP or PCI-E slot to put it in. It looks like you have onboard video which severely limits your upgrade path to normal PCI video cards only (cheap, but not powerful).

 

Sigh, well, ok guys. Thanks for all your help. I'm mainly going to play most RTSs on this, though.

I wanted to get spore, but I guess Im going to rule that out now.

So, what about my other video card? Is it not removable? I just add the card to the slot as Mark had shown me?

Im also going to be getting a RAM upgrade, too. Probably up to a gig or something.

EDIT: Well crap, I really am limited. Well, whatever the card I buy is, I want a 256 megabyte PCI one. I want LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth II really badly. :crying:

 

Sadly, I don't think that they make 256MB PCI cards. If you do find one, you can just put it in one of the open slots and then disable the onboard one through the BIOS.

 

They make 256 meg PCI cards. I checked.

 

It's integrated into the motherboard.

You won't get any new games playing well on a PCI card - if a game says it requires a 256mb card then it certainly won't be running well on PCI. You'll also probably end up paying over the odds for the PCI version when the AGP/PCI-E versions are faster.

If it was me, I'd spend the $20 on a new motherboard (with AGP), and get an AGP card. You'll need to do a bit of reading, but it's information that'll save you money for the future as well - the fact that you're in this situation shows that it's information that's worth having.

Sure it's not PCI-E? PCI-Express is different to PCI.

 

You only have PCI slots so you will need a PCI card. The VERY best you can get in PCI is the 256meg GeForce FX 5700. They are ok cards but not uber fast. Remember the amount of ram matters little. I would say with your current rig you will see zero diffrence between a 128 meg 5700 and a 256 meg one.

You wont be able to crank up graphics on newer RTS's but you will be ok on lower-mid settings with a 5700. Your PC ram and CPU speed also will affect performace as well. If you could find a newer motherboard that your cpu and ram will work on then you could go with AGP. Just make sure the new board you get supports it.

 

Hmmmmm, I never thought about getting a new board. I think Im just going to go with that 257 meg GeForce FX 5700 for the time being.

BTW, the PC I have right now is a gift, and the next PC I get, hopefully with my own money, will be built with all the stuff I need to get it to be a gaming machine.

...But Im intrigued on how cheap Alchy said a new motherboard would be. Even if I bought one, I'd have to have it installed. Plus with the cost of a good AGP card, it would cost even more.

Thats a lot of money to spend, but if it will get battle for middle earth II to work well, I guess I'll spend it.

 

Whatever route you decide on, make sure your PSU is capable. Chances are the company that built that PC skimped and chucked in a 250w PSU, which might not be powerful enough to cope with the new VGA card. If your system becomes unstable after this upgrade, that'd be the most likely cause.

This Battle for Middle Earth game apparently only requires a 32mb videocard. In which case I'd advise you to go for the 128mb version of whatever card you get - the 256mb version is likely to have slower RAM to save on production costs (on a PCI card nobody would notice anyway).

In fact, how about you post up all the specs of your PC? I can't see them anywhere in the thread, maybe I'm going blind...

 

Ok, lets see.

Not sure what other specs I need but I have a 2.93 GHz processor.

Im not sure what my PSU is, either. I checked it with Dxdiag.exe and couldnt find it.

What all specs should I post anyway?

 

Dxdiag won't tell you what PSU you've got. It's purely a DirectX diagnostic tool.

I was thinking RAM/type, CPU/type mobo/type.

Download http://www.astra32.com/download.htm that, it'll show you a system summary. Let us know what Processor it reports, Memory size in megabytes and speed (PC3200 probably, maybe PC2700), and anything it says under video summary.

Your PSU capacity won't show up in a test, you'd have to open up your PC and see what's written on it. I checked out the pictures on the last page, I can't tell from them what it's rated at.

 

Open up your computer; write down what you see, and then tell us what you wrote down.

Look for AGP slot, the maker of the PSU, how much memory slots are being taken up on your motherboard and if your sound card is on a PCI card.

 

Ok...

Processor--Intel Celeron D 340 2933 MHz.

I did a print screen because Im not exactly sure what you were looking for. It would probably save time anyway.

 

If you don't have an AGP slot, then you're out of luck.. You'll have to upgrade your motherboard.

 

How much would things change on my PC if I upgraded the motherboard, anyway?

EDIT:

My PSU is 250w, BTW.

 

If you buy a motherboard which supports your CPU and Memory then possibly nothing at all. Well except the PSU would probably want replacing, and the case may need replacing. Nothing major. That processor will need replacing if you want a serious gaming PC, and you will need 1gb of RAM

EDIT: PSU will definately need replacing. Surprised its not a bit instable as is.
You may need to replace the case because sometimes PC manufacturers build odd cases which are tricky to replace motherboard or PSU

 

Something else that you should be aware of since I don't think that anyone else has mentioned it: if you change the motherboard, it will most likely require a reinstallation of the operating system to work properly. Hell, if the copy of Windows you have is an OEM version for that computer only, it may require that you buy a whole new license of Windows just for the new motherboard (there's a topic about it somewhere, I'm too lazy to link it).

 

It kind of depends on what you want this PC to do. If this is to be a current and future games PC, ie this is a long term investment, then you're going to end up doing quite a bit to it before it gets current (new mobo, more RAM, VGA card, PSU, and like mentioned above, possibly case). If you just want to play a few older games then the PCI 5700 might be what you're after, although you may still run into issues with the PSU (and then with the case). I'll say this from experience: it really seriously isn't worth the risk of overloading a cheap low-power PSU with kit that's drawing too much. The PSU will eventually give up and die on you, and the results can be extremely costly - you may get lucky and just have the PSU pop, or everything it's connected to could fry. I've had more or less an entire machine taken out before now. A good PSU is vital.

It looks from the pictures on the previous page like you've got a standard ATX PSU, though it's kind of hard to get perspective.

 

I think it's becoming increasing clear that you might as well start from scratch, outlay a few moolah and build yourself a nice new PC (the tower bit of it at least). Not only will you have mad cool gaming computer for your trouble, but you'll also gain some vital IT knowledge and thus emerge a happier, better person, became more attractive to the opposite sex and gain special superhuman powers. Okay, scratch the last two, but you get the idea.

I think we could all offer component advice if you give us a budget and help on how it all slots together. Up to you and how healthy your bank balance is.

 

Damn guys, I didnt realize how much I would have to change to get this stuff to work properly and on high settings.

A few days ago, I would have thought that any game would work on any PC if you spent enough money, but I didnt think that meant any game could probably work if you gut the case and put a lotta new things in and even then the case might not be able to hold all this junk.

I was going to get a $100-$200 video card for my B-day, but I guess I'm going to scratch that now. I guess I can pay off that liscensed version of RMXP, I guess.

So, whats a good computer company that will custom build it for me over the Internet or whatever?

BTW, whats a good PSU?

P.S.--I need to get a checklist of things I need too.

So far, my GHz on my processor should probably be around 3.0 or somewhere around there.

3.0 GHz processor
1 Gig of RAM
PCI-E video card motherboard
Good PCI-E video card
Good PSU (?)

That sounds about right. Am I missing anything?

 

yeah, new case. a new psu wont fit on an hp case.