Seeking Video Card help.....again

Ok I posted some thing in the general forum a week or so ago, but I am seeking more help, figured I would try here.

My system is a
*2.2 ghz Celron
*256 RAM
*Extreme Intel 64 MB Shared Ram video adapter (on mother board(HP))
*DSL connection tops out at like 350k
DirectX 9.0
Win XP

SL runs very choppy for me. I have to set my draw distance to 64 and all the detail all the way down, even then I still do not run great. I cant ride vehicles and such because more often than not, I end up under the surface .

I was going to buy a video card but am unsure how much it will help. Hardware is not my forte' . I know Linden recommends ATI or Gforce 32 mb or high. So would replacing my 64mb mother board graphics adapapter with a good Gforce 64mb really show much improvement? I hate spending money and it doesnt help.

Is it really going to be worth it?

*ANY* dedicated video card (almost) will be a *HUUUUUUGE* help over the integrated video 'decelerators'

if its just for SL look for something in the $150ish range... a geforce 5600 or ati 9600 will both give you *HUGE* performance boosts. Thats not to say framerate won't occasionally slow down.. but if yer in a mostly private area you'll get framerates in the 15-25 range pretty easily with that setup

also look for something with 128-256 megs memory, not 32

again the $150 range that should be perfectly doable.


Basically you don't *HAVE* a video card right now.. you have a little chip on the motherboard that is using your system memory to render some video stuff... even a 32 meg ACTUAL video card would be much *MUCH* faster (even bargain basement cards typically ship with memory 2x faster than the best motherboard ram)

See my post here:

/invalid_link.html

As much of a GeForce fan I used to be, ATI blows em away when talking about price/performance!

of course, all that could change in a month, knowing that industry!

Good luck!

Artillo

PS - buy the cheaper 128mb card, yeah 256 is more memory but it takes that much longer for your comp to address those memory areas. 128 should be plenty.

depends alot on the card itself an yer drivers... generally the 9600 beats the 5600 but its not by *THAT* much... more like 10-20%, tho its generally more'n 10-20% more cost wise

I dunno, perhaps it was poor choice of company when I bought my original GeForce FX card, but I had a terrible time with the thing!

For what it's worth, from what I remember (I'd have to go back and look it up), what I got for a 3DMark01 score for my GeForceFX 5600 was something on the order of 3200, whereas the ATI Radeon 9600pro card was pulling 12,000ish straight out of the box.

Cheers!

Arti

that would be using the integrated (unaccelerated) xp drivers arti x.x

heck my old 4600 would pull about 11,000 3dmarks

I bought a Radion 9600 and WOW its like a new game. I didnt realize how bad that crummy chip was.

one thing to try is turning on anti-ailasing in the drivers menu

that will significantly smoothen SL and make everything look quite a bit more 'real' since it won't be all stair steppy jagged along every edge

w00t Beau enjoy yer card

see u in world,

Artillo