Best Graphics Card to allow games to run, not to run well

robbieflower · Feb 16, 2016

I have been running games in small windows on my Intel HD 2000. Even games that minimum requirements say I cant. My current system is i5-2500 3.30GHz, 8GB Recently I cant get Far Cry 4 to get to the menu, where I can change the screen size, and I cant get help as I am < requirements. But I get the feeling I do not have to hot requirements to get it to run. It starts to load then quits. I wonder what part of the video card is failing the load? Not enough RAM? Too slow bandwidth?

There is not much literature out there on the best game cards that will barely run software, which is kind of what I am looking for. I am not looking to run games well, just to run them (badly) in a small window. So I am looking for something better than my HD 2000 (no laughing at the back) that will allow me to get to a game's menu. Will this allow me to run games like far cry 4, or various FPS that are slotted to come out this year.

I am looking at non game cards - the Asus GeForce 210 & maybe the GT610 because it has 2GB of Ram. Will these allow newer games to run, and maybe even be played in a tiny window? Is the 2GB worth doubling the price? Some sites say extra ram wont help, but I dont really get what is going on. And there is not much literature on my niche request. I will probably upgrade my chip one day, and maybe even get a HD 4000 (wow). Would the 210/610 be much better than the HD4000?

ModernWarfare · Feb 16, 2016

those cards are way too weak even at lowest settings. you can try getting atleast 740gt or gtx 750, 750ti

robbieflower · Feb 16, 2016

again I dont want to run them well, I just want them to load. They are too weak to load far cry 4? I think I saw a you yube video with some guy playing it on a 610 http://bit.ly/1PZ3jlX . lets say the Asus Nvidia GeForce GT 740 was in my price range. What benefits would I see over the 610 if the 610 can run it?

Davinlevey · Feb 16, 2016

You can buy a refurbished 560gtx from Microcenter for 59.99. This will play almost every game on the market at a reasonable frame rate (30+.) It wont change the world, but it will from an HD 2000.

johnnyb105 · Feb 16, 2016

Try this to see the min requirements of any game http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri it will tell you if you can or can not run a game.

robbieflower · Feb 16, 2016

But the minimum requirements are not true! I can run many games on my HD 2000 that dont meat the min requirements. I rarely play games, and dont really want a games GPU, just something that can run stuff every now and then

Davinlevey · Feb 16, 2016

http://www.microcenter.com/product/457860/GeForce_GTX_560_(Factory-Recertified)_1GB_GDDR5_Video_Card

This will play everything.

maxalge · Feb 16, 2016

robbieflower :

they are true, just because you can run a game at 5 fps doesn't mean it wont make most people barf

"playable" means at least 30 fps on lowest settings

for that you need something like a gt 740

that deal on the refurbished gtx 560 is nice >.>

robbieflower · Feb 16, 2016

but my question is to run them, not run them well. I dont care about the fps or barfing. You are saying the min req are for playing the game to a certain level. Not if it will run or not. Ergo "it will tell you if you can or can not run a game" is not true, since running the game is what I want. I thought I could get some guidance here as to the difference between cards, what stops games running, and what benefits I would get moving from one card to another.

I have bad experience with refurbished goods, I am not in the US, and even if I was that deal is in store only, and I have to guess from their list, which store it is in. Chances of me living within 500 miles of that store?

king3pj · Feb 16, 2016

robbieflower :

No one is going to be able to answer this for sure because every game is different. Since you don't even have a GPU at all right now any modern model should be at least somewhat of an upgrade but no one is going to be able to tell you for sure that a GPU below minimum system requirements will be able to launch all of your games or not.

Why don't you give us a budget of what you are willing to spend. We can tell you the best option in that price range. What we can't do is guarantee that it will run every game that lists a stronger GPU as the minimum but we can probably find something that is an improvement over your integrated graphics.

robbieflower · Feb 16, 2016

can you give a guideline to what factors to look out for - not for high fps, but bottle necks that can stop the program running? DDR3 not fast enough? More ram?

hang-the-9 · Feb 16, 2016

Need your budget, and current system full specs, case, power supply, etc... before you can get a good suggestion for a video card.

Game requirements change all the time, even if a nVidia 210 may load a game, it may not load another game you try. For the CPU you have, getting a bad video card would basically be a waste of money, spending another $20 on a system that can run for several years is really not much of a difference at all. Buying cheap and bad products usually means you have to buy something again to get what actually works. I don't know how many times I got cheapest cables or components and had to replace them in days or weeks instead of just buying good quality and paying for it once. I have a pile of crap I wasted money on, iPod/iPad/iPhone cables, laptop batteries, etc.., all cost based and all junk that did not work properly.

You can buy a cheap crappy video card, sure, it may load games. It may not load a game you get in a week. You can get a better video card that will, and the cost over life of the card is pretty much nothing.

Davinlevey · Feb 16, 2016

What it sounds like you should do is buy an AMD APU. I think an APU would treat you very, very well in your situation, and be very inexpensive.

hang-the-9 · Feb 16, 2016

Davinlevey :

That won't work at all, he has an i5 CPU, to get AMD he'd have to buy a new CPU and new motherboard, and will have a much worse CPU and video card in the process for more money spent.

robbieflower · Feb 16, 2016

thank you - I agree. So I want to know what a better card is. Not a model or a price. But the factors that stop games working. And things to look out for to help in running games - get more Ram and dont spend the extra on speed. Or Vice Versa. I am trying to get an idea on what is going on . And what do I get for the extra money. If it's fps for example, I am not spending on right things....

Davinlevey · Feb 16, 2016

hang-the-9 :

I certainly understand this, it just seems that he doesn't want to put a GPU in his system. The APU setup is likely the only way he'd be able to play games without buying a dedicated gpu. This would of course require basically a new system.

Davinlevey · Feb 16, 2016

robbieflower :

I think you are asking a couple of different questions here.
First," So I want to know what a better card is. Not a model or a price. "
This statement confuses me.. how can we answer which is a better card without naming a model?
Second, getting more Ram will not make a difference without a gpu.
What is the aversion to a gpu? PSU issues? Case size issues? Cost? The difference in a 210 1gb and a 610 2gb is very, very small. Neither will play 3d games very well, but both would be better than an Intel 2000.

robbieflower · Feb 16, 2016

I am trying to find the why not the what. Why is a card better, not get the 7x not the 6x. The difference between the 1 & 2GB is very small. I would think it is twice as good. Why is it a small difference. Where would I see the difference? I am not against getting a GPU but I am trying to understand the benefits of getting a 740 over a 620 other than it will run games better. How and why?

Davinlevey · Feb 16, 2016

In a very basic sense, the ram difference is belittled by the gpu itself. The greater the ram, the larger the texture that can be loaded into it. That being said, the processing of a x10 gpu is so small that it shouldn't be loading the larger textures regardless. It's for this reason why a 740 would be quite better than a 620. There are many other reasons why this is, but they are all nearly the same; processing power.

The first number is the "generation." So a 610 and a 210 are the same level of card, but the 610 is from 4 models (you can basically think of this as years) later. A 740 is from 2013, and a x40 card, so it would win over a 240, or even a 640. the Second number is arguably more important, as this is the tier of the card. This number shows where in that generation the card falls. For Nvidia, this is on a 1-9 scale. This is a very basic explanation, but I hope it clears up some of the confusion.

king3pj · Feb 16, 2016

robbieflower :

You can't just compare 1GB and 2GB cards and say the 2GB card is twice as good because it has twice as much VRAM. The R9 390 has 8GB of VRAM and the 980 Ti has 6GB of VRAM. Even though the R9 390 has more VRAM the 980 Ti is a much better GPU.

You can't even really compare clock speed between different GPUs because they are built on different architectures. Although, the clock speed does typically improve from year to year.

You keep saying you don't care about framerates but the bottom line is that the easiest way to compare two graphics cards is to compare their framerates on the same games. If you get a GPU that gets higher framerates it's also much more likely to make a game able to run.

There is no magic hardware specification number that will tell you whether a GPU will run a game or not.

hang-the-9 · Feb 16, 2016

robbieflower :

Games don't work if the video card does not have the features the game needs, simple as that. Or the operating system but that is less likely of an issue. In your system with an i5 CPU and 8 GB of RAM, you need a proper video card. If a game needs Shader model 3, your video card does not support that, game won't run. If the game checks for a certain video card speed or RAM amount, it may not install and so on. A modern video card that is slow should run games, but why would you bother playing a game if it plays slow and in a small screen when for a small amount more you can actually use it for games. Why did you bother getting an i5 and 8 gb of RAM if you did not care about performance? A much cheaper dual core system with 4 gig of RAM would "just run" any program also.

If you just want to learn about gaming video cards, http://www.pcgamer.com/how-to-buy-a-graphics-card-six-things-you-must-know-about-gpus/

robbieflower · Feb 16, 2016

There are more uses for a computer than playing games...

Davinlevey · Feb 16, 2016

Lies!

hang-the-9 · Feb 16, 2016

robbieflower :

Yes, and a cheap slow one will do anything that a good one can do, just slower. I can encode the same video on a Core 2 Duo system with 4 GB of RAM I can buy for $100 as I can on a $2,000 system. Did you tell the computer sales guy, I want a system that will turn on to Windows, even if it takes 5 minutes to boot and will take 1 minute to start playing a movie? If you play games on the computer, why look for the minimum if you did not do that with the rest of the system aside from the video card? It's all the same reasoning. The cost difference between a bad and decent video card if you look at the overall use you will get from it is basically 0. Bad video card is $30, decent one is $70, $100 for a pretty good one. $40 is 4 visits to McDonalds or over a 3 year normal lifespan of the card it's $15 or so a year to own it if you are just trying to not spend money on the system.

Only thing you need to watch out for is what your computer can run for size and power.

robbieflower · Feb 16, 2016

so if I spend 5 hours a year playing games I should not spend much on a GPU, and spend the rest on system pieces used more often. The small amount of time spent so lack of interest in spending for super performance. So if I can get a bad card that works for $30 its worth it and spend the saved $70 going to McD

Best Graphics Card to allow games to run, not to run well

Honorable

Splendid

Honorable

Reputable

Dignified

Honorable

Reputable

Champion

Honorable

Distinguished

Honorable

Titan

Reputable

Titan

Honorable

Reputable

Reputable

Honorable

Reputable

Distinguished

Titan

Honorable

Reputable

Titan

Honorable

Share this page