cant tell if my problem involves the graphics card?

[someblackguy7130]

ok i downloaded americas army (a fps game for pc dont worry its free) and this is my very first pc game i played cuz i nvr played pc before and so it downloads to my hard drive right? so when i play the game i put it on the lowest detail for settings and it still jerks around! i cannot tell if it is my graphics card or is it because it is playing from the hdd and it cant load up that fast or something? i am using the intel integrated graphics on the mother board for 915 and 2.8ghz with 1gb RAM and 120GB HDD i think 7200 rpm. i am pretty sure its my graphics card though, here is an image that the graphics suck and i put on lowest setting and still jerks around, it also happens for need for speed underground 2 when i play it off hard drive i never tried with any cd/dvd but i am pretty sure it is the graphics card here is a screen shot of americas army

 

[crazylegs]

You've answered your own Question there matey....

 

[someblackguy7130]

so it is the graphics card, do i need a new one to play the game really nicely?

 

[crazylegs]

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=307919&cks=PRL


One of these should do you lovely....

 

[someblackguy7130]

thx, administrater u can close this thread now im good

 

[Reefsmoka]

It does indeed sound like your graphics card that is giving you some trouble. You should seriously look into buying a new graphics card when you get the chance. Something like an Ati Radeon 9800pro would be perfect for around £100. If you want even more performance you should look at something like an Ati Radeon X800XT PE which is abit more, but with alot better performance.

Any game you install will be played from the hard drive, even though it asks for the disc, the game is still being played from your hard drive. The disc is only needed to try and prevent piracy (so you dont install on a friends PC and he can play without the disc) or sometimes its needed to play sounds.

With a nice system like yours you should definatly get a better graphics card to finish it off .

 

[Zhoul]

From your story, this actually sounds like a lot of things, compounded on top of eachother. Since you're just getting into PC's and gaming, The easiest way I can relate this to you, is through cars.

The mere fact that you have an integrated video card speaks a lot about the PC itself. Probably bought at a future-shop or circuit city?

All this new 'integration' into the motherboard is causing major issues to PC's in general. The reason for it, is because it's a lot cheaper to buy an 'all in one' motherboard, rather then buy a 'good' motherboard, and 'good' expansion cards. They can now sell you a PC with the same 'specs' as a top of the line model, but in reality, its like buying BigFoot , with a freshly installed 4 banger. (at least they gave you that nifty digital camera, eh?)

There are a LOT of bottle-necks in PC's, and these days, it's usually not just 1 thing that causes stammering in the most trivial of applications.

Upgrading a PC such as this will prove to be a 'quick fix' that won't seem to fix much at all. It's really easy to mis-diagnose a PC such as this, because of all the points something could be wacky.

A few years back, I had a P-3 800 that ran most games better then my girlfriends 2.0ghz, and it was all due to configuration and components used. (Just like those street racin' , 4-6 bangin, jap cars)

To help you diagnose this issue, I'd like you to do a few things.

1. More then likely, you're running out of RAM and hitting the swap file pretty hard. Further, you probably have the PC's swap file settings, set to 'default Microsoft' settings. They ship the software like this so most the world uses it the wrong way, and they excel in their own market, by 'fixing' it later If you need help on configuring your swap file, this site and google have many resources for it.
You can easily determine if this is the issue, by simply playing the game and watching your hard-drive light, or listening for it's clicking sounds. If it is constantly hitting the hard drive- you'll notice this is exactly when you 'stammer' in game. It's really not that your video card can't handle it, but more-so the fact that your system is having to push all this data into a file on your hard drive, which is about 100-1000x slower then swapping in RAM.

"But I have 1 gig of memory! what gives zhoul?"

They use cheap-ass RAM in those machines... RAM comes in all kinds of flavors, sizes, shapes, and their differences might seem trivial, however, there is MUCH difference.

Lets take a standard 512 meg chip.

We could have 8 - 64 meg chips on it.
We could have 16 - 32 meg chips on it.

You would think that the 8-64 would ring better, but because of the size of the singular chip, every time a program asks for 'a little bit of memory' they actually page out a LOT more then they asked for. This can turn the simplest of applications into huge memory hogs (causing you to page to your swap file, and screen studder like that kid you made fun of in school, but now feel bad about).

That's just 1 such 'bottleneck' that could be inflicting this horrid game-play.

If you're serious about 'getting into' gaming and don't like to waste money, check out www.tomshardware.com . For years, I've trusted his judgement when it came to certain aspects of the PC i've long since fallen away from, and hes not lead me a-stray yet.

Feel free to ask any questions, tiz my lifes duty and curse, to forever serve as tech support

- Zhoul

 

[crazylegs]

I think a new Graphics card is all one needs in this case....If he was running a Pentium III 1 gig or something with similar specs i might agree with you, but not in this case..


He's running a 2.8 gig processor with a gig of ram, in my book thats plenty to run this game the only thing he's missing is a 3D hardware card which this game needs to run...

Specs for this game are.....


Minimum RequiredPentium III Minimum RAM Required128 MBMedia TypeCD-ROM, DownloadMinimum CD-ROM Drive Speed Required4XDrivers/APIs SupportedDirectX 8.1, Hardware TNLInput Devices SupportedKeyboard, MouseMultiplayer OptionsInternet (TCP/IP), LAN (Windows Networking), ModemNumber of Players SupportedOnlineMiscellaneous Attributes3D Accelerator Required

 

[Zhoul]

In this case, I don't think the RAM is *the* issue, as it's quite obvious from his screenie that his vid card is having issues with newer 3D games (most likely due to a lack of pixel shader 2.0 support). My post was more of a revelation of what is to come, with that specific PC If indeed the vid card is integrated and functions like *this*, on a 2.8gig machine, then what else did they ghetto rig? Easy answer: Everything.

I'll be suprised if he even has an expansion AGP slot, and if he does, how easy will it be to disable the current one. Nooo, I don't mean, how physically easy it'll be... more-so , if his system would throw a fit or not (as I've seen from other similar setups).

- Also, is this truly a 2.8 gig machine, or just an XP2800? Big diff there.

Next couple-a-questions...

- Are there active virus/spyware scanners currently running?
- How much spyware has the PC aquired since it's birth that's gone unremoved?
- Is the factory OS installed, along with all its "Extra Arse Draggin' Features?
- When was the last time the bios was flashed?
- Fully updated drivers for Network/Video/Sound/Chipset ? (which im assuming could all be in the same package heh)
- Are any 'extra' USB hubs disabled in system? (Believe it or not, they can drag on the +3.3V rail and cause all kinds of fun issues)


So instead of asking all that, I kinda took the easy way out and tossed him a link to tomshardware.com , in hopes that he'll get into 'All this crazy PC mumbo jumo'



I do have a recommendation, however.

That screenshot is in 1280x1024 ... /jawdrop
Here in the game scene, that's whats known as an "Insanely" high resolution. Based on your card, I would run most games at 800x600, or 640x480 if I was really trying to get the best framerate.

Another thing you REALLY want to do, is set your desktop resolution, color depth and refresh rate to the same thing you'd set your games to. Past that, *do not* use 32 bit depth anything if you can help it. I run a P-4 3ghz and 16 bit is still a necessity.

If your vid card has to hold more then 1 set of 'Video Configurations' in memory (i.e. your desktop bit depth and refresh rate differ from a game), that puts a serious strain on the card and your system in general.

Recommendation:
Set your desktop resolution to 1024x768 - 16 bit color depth (if you can tell a difference, you need to be a watchman or somethin') - and a refresh rate of 60hz.

The difference in speed, between 16bit and 32bit is by Far greater then 2x usually. This is the main setting of the three that will speed up your games. Make sure when you start any new game, to set any graphics options to 16 bit, else it will have no effect. It's *much* easier for a video card and system to switch resolution, when it doesnt have to change bit depth and refresh frequency as well.

I recommended 1024.768, but to improve game preformance, you may want to set it to 800x600, if you're running the game at that resolution.

The reason I suggest 60hz refresh rate is simple. It simply means, your monitor will update 60 times a second, or 60FPS. Cartoons being at 30, you can see where 60 would be 'quite acceptible' for gameplay. Alsoi, your pc is less stressed, because it only has to render a scene 60 times a second, instead of the 85 or so it currently is.

Now: The FPS your PC is 'processing' can differ from your refresh rate. There is, however, a way to match in-game FPS's with desktop refresh frequencys. Most games give you 1 of 2 options usually.
1. Direct Resolution/Color Depth/Frequency modification (i.e. 800x600 16-bit 60hz)
2. "V-Sync" or "Video-Sync" - Essentially tells the program to sync its FPS with your refresh rate.

Some games give both options, in which case, you'd set them both.

Hell, with 16 bit/60hz , you just may be able to run america's army at 1280x1024. but I still recommend the +/- 800x600 range.

Once you make these changes in your game(s) and windows, reboot the PC and be amazed.

- Zhoul

 

[crazylegs]

No problem point noted....All we can do is advise and hope the recipient has enough savvy to keep his pc up to date with Antivirus, and scanners etc, and drivers and Bios are relatively up to date....

 

[Zhoul]

No problem point noted....All we can do is advise and hope the recipient has enough savvy to keep his pc up to date with Antivirus, and scanners etc, and drivers and Bios are relatively up to date....

Actually, I was kind of hoping he's savvy enough to *not* run active virus/spyware scanners. These *kill* games, as every time your game wants to read a 'new' file, these scanners also want to read the entire.. damn.. thing

These days, if you're behind a router, all you really need are scanners you can run once every few days, or when things get thick.

Funny this topic comes up here, as I just wrote a small 'How-To', on super-securing Internet Explorer (without hindering it at all) - This method negates 99.8% of all spyware thats tried to install itself, and can be done with any XP (and 2k system, im guessing).

Since I sent it to just 1 soul, I'll go ahead and create a new post in the Windows Applications area, subject... "A brief introduction, to Gimp surfing... (How-To negate almost all hostile internet attacks)"