Upgrading graphics card on a DELL PC for home movie-making

[ianUK]

Hi all

I have just made my first digital camcorder movie on my DELL Dimension
L566cx Celeron PC using Pinnacle Studio 9 and have come to the
conclusion that the graphics card could really do with an upgrade.

My PC specs currently are as follows:
O/S: Windows 2000
System Model L566cx
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 3 GenuineIntel ~564 Mhz
Total Physical Memory 391,472 KB
Available Physical Memory 107,644 KB
Total Virtual Memory 1,333,112 KB
Available Virtual Memory 797,624 KB
Page File Space 941,640 KB

I currently have an Intel 82810E Graphics card installed.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a card that will fulfill my
requirements and work with the PC processor etc. that I currently
have?
I'm looking to spend around £100 if possible.

Cheers in advance

Ian

 

[Cerridwen]

Hi all

I have just made my first digital camcorder movie on my DELL Dimension
L566cx Celeron PC using Pinnacle Studio 9 and have come to the
conclusion that the graphics card could really do with an upgrade.

My PC specs currently are as follows:
O/S: Windows 2000
System Model L566cx
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 3 GenuineIntel ~564 Mhz
Total Physical Memory 391,472 KB
Available Physical Memory 107,644 KB
Total Virtual Memory 1,333,112 KB
Available Virtual Memory 797,624 KB
Page File Space 941,640 KB

I currently have an Intel 82810E Graphics card installed.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a card that will fulfill my
requirements and work with the PC processor etc. that I currently
have?
I'm looking to spend around £100 if possible.

Cheers in advance

Ian

Actually you don't have /any/ graphics card installed - you have an on-board
graphics chip. You should have come to the conclusion that the entire system
could do with an upgrade - stick a modern graphics card into that and the
CPU will become the bottleneck. You could use a decent P4 system if you're
going to be serious about it - you will certainly require more RAM,
especially as anything up to 64MB of what you have will have been poached by
the on-board chip. Celerons are designed as basic task machines (web
browsing, email, office tasks, etc) they aren't meant for video editing -
you need a meaty P4 with lots of RAM for that.

 

[Paul]

Hi all

I have just made my first digital camcorder movie on my DELL Dimension
L566cx Celeron PC using Pinnacle Studio 9 and have come to the
conclusion that the graphics card could really do with an upgrade.

My PC specs currently are as follows:
O/S: Windows 2000
System Model L566cx
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 3 GenuineIntel ~564 Mhz
Total Physical Memory 391,472 KB
Available Physical Memory 107,644 KB
Total Virtual Memory 1,333,112 KB
Available Virtual Memory 797,624 KB
Page File Space 941,640 KB

I currently have an Intel 82810E Graphics card installed.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a card that will fulfill my
requirements and work with the PC processor etc. that I currently
have?
I'm looking to spend around £100 if possible.

Cheers in advance

Ian

I'm no expert but make sure you have an AGP slot before buying an AGP
graphics card. My parents Dell has an Intel on board graphics card similar
to yours and there is no AGP slot.

 

[Cerridwen]

I'm no expert but make sure you have an AGP slot before buying an AGP
graphics card. My parents Dell has an Intel on board graphics card
similar to yours and there is no AGP slot.

As I stated earlier (and I'm sure Kony and/or AZ will disagree! ;o)) there
is no point in putting a fast graphics card in that system as the next
bottleneck will be the CPU and RAM. He also doesn't say how big the hard
drive is, either.

 

[kony]

As I stated earlier (and I'm sure Kony and/or AZ will disagree! ;o)) there
is no point in putting a fast graphics card in that system as the next
bottleneck will be the CPU and RAM. He also doesn't say how big the hard
drive is, either.

Nope, i don't disagree, there is no benefit to a good graphics card for 2D
work like that... it merely needs to be able to display 30FPS at the
user's desired resolution and bit-depth. If it will do that, there is no
benefit to a better card, except if 810 doesn't support MPEG hardware
acceleration, which I can't remember... if it doesn't, then any old card,
preferribly ATI, can be had for $15, in PCI version since OP's system
probably doens't have an AGP slot.

The entire system was low-end when it was new, and it's showing it's age
moreso today than ever before.

 

[IanUK]

As I stated earlier (and I'm sure Kony and/or AZ will disagree! ;o))
there
I have a main hard-drive which is 15GB in capacity and has some 5GB free on
it. I recently purchased a secondary drive which has 80GB capacity for the
actual film-editing itself as I quickly realised that what I had available
wasn't going to be sufficient.

Nope, i don't disagree, there is no benefit to a good graphics card for 2D
work like that... it merely needs to be able to display 30FPS at the
user's desired resolution and bit-depth. If it will do that, there is no
benefit to a better card, except if 810 doesn't support MPEG hardware
acceleration, which I can't remember... if it doesn't, then any old card,
preferribly ATI, can be had for $15, in PCI version since OP's system
probably doens't have an AGP slot.

The entire system was low-end when it was new, and it's showing it's age
moreso today than ever before.

I must admit I am coming to the conclusion that maybe I should just live
with the system as it is for the time being (rather than spend any more on
hardware) and then upgrade the entire system to a new P4 model - I have had
this one for 4 years and I guess it's now getting a bit long in the tooth!

Thanks all for your suggestions and input anyway.

Ian

 

[Pen]

His machine doesn't have an AGP slot, only 4 PCI
slots, and
it uses up to 6 MB of memory for the on board
video. It presently runs
the memory at 66 MHz. All in all, not worth
upgrading, although
in theory it will take a 8oo MHz/100MHz celeron.