So I Need A New Graphics Card...

[jethro jazz]

i dont know anything about them or how to install them or how much i should be paying for what.

all i want to play is city of heroes, it says i need a geforce 2 but id like something a little better maybe? will a 128 mb card play it?

i have a 64 at the moment and it isnt good enough.

best manufactuers?

how much should i pay?

whats the difference betweenagp and pci? i gather its to do with compatibility with my motherboard, are all one or the other? might it be both or neither?

[anephric]

AGP is much faster and is the standard now: don't bother with PCI graphics cards...

A 128mb 9800pro should do you and can be procured around the ?100 mark these days...

[marcus]

Go for the AGP option, PCI slots are every handy to have as spares also. Do you have a budget we can work to as GFX cards vary considerably in price. Expect to pay around ?300 for a Gt6800 or Radeon X800 XT card, and then perhaps work down towards something in your budget.

Try this link - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal..._Video_56.html for price lists and so on.

[Ciaran]

The amount of memory on a graphics card doesn't determine the speed of it. This is commonly used to sell crappy graphics cards.

You will need to determine whether you need a PCI or AGP graphics card by opening up the pc and taking a look inside or if you tell us what PC you have it might be possible to tell you. This will help you identify wht you have: http://www.si87.com/Products/Videocards/agpvspci/

In your price range you should go for a ATI Raedon 9800 or 9700. You should be able to get one for around ?100.


EDIT: Beaten by two people >_<

[wod]

save up and upgrade to a pci-express motherboard and vga card

[Ciaran]

Theres no point upgrading to PCI-E now, no AGP graphics card can fill the available bandwith of AGP 4x or AGP8x, so PCI-E will make no difference.

[anephric]

It's worth checking if your current mobo even has an AGP slot, because older ones/Dell specials etc won't necessarily... and then you'll need a half-decent mobo as well (I recommend Asus).

[jethro jazz]

am i gonna need to upgrade any other bits to get it going?


processor:
model: AMD athlon
speed: 998Mhz
model number: 998
performance rating: PR1327
type: standard
L2 onboard cache: 256kb ecc synchronious write back (16 way, 64 byte)

mainboard:
bus(es): isa agp pci usb i2c/smbus
mp support: no
mp apic: no
system bios: american megatrends inc. A619101 V1.07 08022001
system: msi ms-6191
mainboard: msi ms-6191
totaly memory: 255mb SDram

chipset 1:
model: AMD AMD-751 (irongate) cpu to pci bridge
front side bus speed: 2x 100mhz (200mhz data rate)
totaly memory: 256mb SDRAM
memory bus speed: 1x 100mhz (100mhx data rate)

video system:
monitor/panel: studioworks 771b
adapter: NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 model 64/model 64 pro

physical storage devices:
hard disc: generic ide disk type 47
hard disc: generic nec floppy disc
cd-rom/dvd: atapi dvd-rom 16x max
cd-rom/dvd: mat****a cd-rw cw-7586

logical storage devices:
hard disc (C: 37.3gb (32.5gb, 87% free)(fat32)

peripherals:
serial/parallel ports: 3 com/ 1 lpt
usb controller/hub: amd 756 pci to usb open host controller
usb controller/hub: usb root hub
keyboard: standard 101/102-key or microsoft natural keyboard
mouse: microsoft ps/2 post mouse

multimedia devices:
device: creative sound blaster pci128 (wdm)

operating system:
windows system: microsoft windows Me (win32 x86) 4.90.3000
dos system: microsoft MS-DOS version 8.00A

[Ciaran]

You should just scrape by on the minimum system requirements for COH. But it will not be pretty.

[jethro jazz]

the card isnt good enough to run it at all.

what kinda modifications am i looking at if i want it to be pretty?

[Ciaran]

You would need a new CPU, which would mean the motherboard would need a change, then the ram would not be compatable. With all this new stuff your powersupply wouldn't be up to the job so that would need to be upgraded and depending what pc you currently have you might need a new case. So basicly you would need a complete new tower (except cd drive, you can keep that )