I want to be able to run doom 3 and call of duty 2 among all the other new pc games. I can run the demo of doom 3 but it is a little laggy. I'm a cheap prick and am not in the market to drop $300, or even $150 for that matter. Is it possible to grab a decent graphics card that won't be out of date in a few months for a bargain price? I was told that I could get a decent one to rock doom 3 for like $80. I don't know shit about them- at all- anyone got any suggestions?
Is this one worth buying?
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_in...6&Pn=Xtasy_Radeon_X300SE_Video_Card

You can indeed find a cheap card now to play doom3 now. I'll say though that CoD2 is a lot more resource intensive than doom3 though.

What's your current computer set up right now?

Dell dimension 3100
Intel Pentium 4 cpu 2.8GHz
512 mb RAM

I have no idea what this is, but it says I have it for a display adapter:
Intel(R) 82915G/GV/910GL Express chipset family

Also, I only have 2 slots for RAM. Can I put a 512 in one and a 256 in the other?

look into the GeForce 6800 series card. you should be able to get an 8xAGP card for around $200.

I have an overclocked 6800GT and CoD2 doesn't play exactly smooth as ice.

HTB: get another 512MB of RAM (CLS 2). RAM for a 2.8 should be rediculously cheap. you can put 256MB in the other slot, but what's the point? get 1/2GB or 1GB stick for $25-60 and bang!

I have no idea what CoD2 takes for resources, but I like the 256 ATI cards. they should be under $100 now.

The documentation for the Dimension 3100 says it has no AGP or PCI-E slots. If this is true, I'm afraid you're SOL.

menstrual_sweatpants_disco said:

fuck. That's what I'm finding now too now that I'm am researching possible video upgrades. Would a shit ton more RAM help me with running doom?

I can run Wolfenstein Enemy Territory and my old lady runs Sims 2 with no problems what so ever. I guess I just want to be able to run Doom 3 a little more smoothly

I don't think so. 512 should be enough for Doom3 :(

shit. It figures that the one pc I decided to buy doesn't allow for video upgrades-wtf!

hung_to_bleed said:

Yeah, doom3 is more graphically intensive. Wolfenstein ET runs off the quake3 engine from 1999, so It's a previous generation engine that requires less.

Dell typically suck for upgrading.

The more I look this shit up the more I think I'm learning about it. I guess I have a PCI (rather than a AGP or PCI-E) slot and the card that is stock in my dell is a 128mb card. Would buying a 256 mb pci card help me any?

I was wondering that too. I was just looking up 256MB PCI cards.. there's a few of them.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....on=&srchInDesc=&minPrice=&maxPrice=

I wouldn't get an nvidia fx5200 though. That'd be slow and wouldn't handle CoD2. I'm not sure how good the Radeon 9250's is, but that's the other option.

I guess I'm not too concerned w/running CoD 2. If I can run doom and any other game that requires similar specs I would certainly be content.

I'm not sure if my current 128mb pci card runs directx 9.0, whereas it says that these 256 mb pci card are compatable with 9.0 - essentially what I think may be making the game lag to where it's almost not worth playing

I think I may go buy the fx5500
I read the specs on Cod 2 and doom 3 regarding the supported chipsets and listed was the gforce fx series - what this fx 5500 runs.
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_in...3475&pfp=browse&tabtype=ts#moreinfo

Nice. Doesn't sound too bad. And the good thing about doom3 is that even on the lowest settings it still looks just about as good as it does on the highest setting!

Everybody was bitching when that game came out. They all thought they'd have to buy top of the line machines. It's amazing what the game gives you, though. Even on minimal hardware. Shortly after, other games started coming out that didn't look nearly as good as doom3 and ran twice as bad. Really makes you appreciate id software's engines.

Are you into Half-Life 2 at all? Similar in performance and about the same amount of eye candy (although different types of eye candy). If doom3 runs good on your rig give that game a try.

Both doom3 and HL2 both have expansion packs out right now too.

I'll definitely check out Half-Life if this all works out. i heard of it and all, but have just never played it. I think I may be hooking one of these up this evening.

So I've installed the fx5500. I had a bitch of a time trying to determine how to disable my existing on-board video display driver. I've tested it by plugging my moniter into the old input (the on board adapter) on the back of my computer and I have no signal - thus, I'm assuming that it is completely diabled and now running my fx5500 as default. I actually just played the doom 3 demo and it runs 100%. Only problem is that it seems as the game is not fitting on my screen. the edges are a little cut off. Any suggestions?

menstrual_sweatpants_disco said:

a friend of mine has the 9250 and it's a good card for PCI purposes (probably the best one available for PCI)

HungtoNLI said:

when you boot your computer hit F2 (or whatever key you need to boot into your bios) and you have to set the graphics adapter from onboard to PCI (alternatively there may be a jumper on your motherboard, but this is unlikely)

there was no way to disable my onboard using bios. There was just a setting for "onboard" or "auto" - I just kept in on auto, installed my new card, and then disabled my old display driver in the devise manager. I actually think that I just got it running for sure, but well see...

Sometimes the BIOS is smart enough to know when there's another video card plugged in. In that case it will automatically disable the onboard vid.

The video's not fitting on the screen? Do you have a CRT monitor? Did you try goofing around with the settings on it?