I'm not the most knowledgeable when it comes to GPU's and things. I've been out of the HW world for about 10 years, and was never really a huge "pc gamer". I usually stuck to game consoles for that. I'm attempting to play a game beta (Zwift, real-time cycling game that uses sensors on the bike, on a trainer) that requires 1GB of dedicated GPU RAM.
I have the following setup, not terribly powerful, but not sure how to tell how much memory is allocated for the GPU, or how to add more:
MSI H61m-P31 motherboard with build in H61 VGA, DVI, and HDMI outputs.
Two identical V7 21" monitors (Each with a VGA or DVI connection)
8GB 1333 DDR3 RAM
Core i5-3470 3.2GHz
I went into the BIOS and looked at how to set the dedicated memory, looks like it is 64 or 256MB only.
So I guess I know the answer, an upgraded GPU, but I'm not sure what to get. For such a short term solution as testing a game beta, is a $30 card from Amazon ok? GeForce 210 1GB DDR3 PCI Express 2.0
I doubt the motherboard would even fix a PCI-E2, but I'll need to check.
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As a side note, For another computer, I just set up an MSI Z87M-Gaming motherboard with dual HDMI and a Displayport all on the motherboard. I bet THAT would let me set up 1GB dedicated GPU space.
It has some crappy old memory in it now and only one of the chips is detected, so it only sees 4GB total RAM for Windows. Not really enough to drive two 1080p displays with live television, so grabbing more GPU RAM may not be the best idea. This is the family HTPC, driving the TV in the family room and a TV in the basement as clones, so playing games on it could get me into some TV standoffs with the wife and kids. And I'd guess the wife won't be too happy to see my bicycle in the middle of the family room.
I have the following setup, not terribly powerful, but not sure how to tell how much memory is allocated for the GPU, or how to add more:
MSI H61m-P31 motherboard with build in H61 VGA, DVI, and HDMI outputs.
Two identical V7 21" monitors (Each with a VGA or DVI connection)
8GB 1333 DDR3 RAM
Core i5-3470 3.2GHz
I went into the BIOS and looked at how to set the dedicated memory, looks like it is 64 or 256MB only.
So I guess I know the answer, an upgraded GPU, but I'm not sure what to get. For such a short term solution as testing a game beta, is a $30 card from Amazon ok? GeForce 210 1GB DDR3 PCI Express 2.0
I doubt the motherboard would even fix a PCI-E2, but I'll need to check.
====
As a side note, For another computer, I just set up an MSI Z87M-Gaming motherboard with dual HDMI and a Displayport all on the motherboard. I bet THAT would let me set up 1GB dedicated GPU space.
It has some crappy old memory in it now and only one of the chips is detected, so it only sees 4GB total RAM for Windows. Not really enough to drive two 1080p displays with live television, so grabbing more GPU RAM may not be the best idea. This is the family HTPC, driving the TV in the family room and a TV in the basement as clones, so playing games on it could get me into some TV standoffs with the wife and kids. And I'd guess the wife won't be too happy to see my bicycle in the middle of the family room.
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