New graphics card

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

On Fri, 20 May 2005 11:47:00 +0200, Strider <aaaa@aaa.aa> wrote:

>I have a fair idea of what the Geforce can do, but I'm uncertain about
>the Radeon so which one would be better for playing the Sims 2? Any
>ideas? The computer is an AMD 64 3700+ running Windows XP Pro.

Hmm, that's quite a waste... pairing such a powerful computer with a
relatively weak videocard. What's your budget?

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

On Fri, 20 May 2005 13:43:45 +0200, Strider <aaaa@aaa.aa> wrote:

>The budget for the Videocard is about NOK 1000/$155 and you can't get
>something much more powerful for that amount.

Å joda, det skal jeg nok klare å finne :-)

Går ut ifra at du har AGP slot...

Hightech Excalibur Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB, 1258kr

Det er hvertfall ultrarimelig... og da får du sweet grafikk. Dersom du
kaster på et par hundrelapper. Dersom du MÅ holde deg under
tusenlappen anbefaler jeg ATI X600... det er den nye kusinen til 9600,
men den er ca. 15% kjappere og har en del nye features, shadere osv.

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

Uh, is there anything important in this message for others looking for video
cards Guardian? Im looking too.

piper

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

On Thu, 19 May 2005 17:53:36 GMT, "PIPER" <lewis@mindspring.com>
wrote:

>Uh, is there anything important in this message for others looking for video
>cards Guardian? Im looking too.

Well, Strider is norwegian and I used to sell videocards for a living
hehe, lemme know if you need advice :-)

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

"Strider" <aaaa@aaa.aa> wrote in message
news:rv4r81l07vs08cgsd2c15b6blh4ahkekj3@4ax.com...
>
>>>>
>>>> Hmm, that's quite a waste... pairing such a powerful computer with a
>>>> relatively weak videocard. What's your budget?
>>>
>>> The budget for the Videocard is about NOK 1000/$155 and you can't get
>>> something much more powerful for that amount.
>>
>>I got an ATI Radeon 9800 256M on eBay for less than that. The bargains
>>are
>>there, if you're willing to use eBay. The card was a factory refurbished
>>card and has been great for Sims2 and other games.
>
Can someone with a Radeon jiggle my memory.
I have the 9800 series and initially, the AGP wouldn;t go higher than x4. It
turned out to be some setting elsewhere that was holding the acceleration
back.

Something obscure.. Might have been the XP service pack. Whatever, I changed
or deleted something then later discovered the AGP was now x8 and I had all
the Sim graphics options (at last)

Thing is, I can;t remember WHAT I removed to get AGP x8 and I am not about
to start deleting things just to step backwards again. <moral - keep notes>
And yes, never use the graphics drivers sent with the card. 8((((

I appreciate that each system has its own quirks and someone else might not
even have had this problem. Ain't life fun?

Granny.

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

On Fri, 20 May 2005 08:28:08 GMT, "Granny Grumpling"
<marrowjam@[reallywild]blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

>Something obscure.. Might have been the XP service pack. Whatever, I changed
>or deleted something then later discovered the AGP was now x8 and I had all
>the Sim graphics options (at last)

Ahh, what a silly way to limit graphics options. They simply ASSUME
nobody knows what they're doing, eh? There are plenty of AGP 4 and 2
systems that can compete on par with 8. The actualy performance
benefit is only in peak bandwidth, which gives you a higher maximum
framerate... and that's all. No actual relative performance increase
what so ever. Very silly of Maxis as I'm sure there are lots of people
with cranked up systems running backwards compatible videocards, since
they have traditionally been the bottleneck.

>Thing is, I can;t remember WHAT I removed to get AGP x8 and I am not about
>to start deleting things just to step backwards again. <moral - keep notes>
> And yes, never use the graphics drivers sent with the card. 8((((

It should either be in the BIOS, or in Win XP under Control Panel,
Settings, Advanced, SMARTGART. If these settings are not here, you
need to update your Radeon driver :-)

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

>
>In my case I jolly-well didn't! 8))
>It was quite bad enough removing the other graphics drivers. I had no end of
>fun and games so getting AGPx4 was something of a relief. 8(

Well, my local shop had the 9800pro, so I bought it, installed it and
the latest drivers from ATI, it runs at 8*AGP - and the Sims now runs
incredibly much slower than it ever did with the old Geforce, jerky,
long long pauses, watching somebody walk from one end of the house to
the other takes ten minutes or so with all the pauses.

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

"Guardian Pegasus"
<Pope.Been-a-Dick.Adolf.Panzer.Rat.Nazinger.Torquemada.II@holysee.va> wrote
in message news:7gsr81lr4o62i1hj60pin7vtq1dfklc9ha@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 21 May 2005 13:03:22 +0200, Strider <aaaa@aaa.aa> wrote:
>
>>Well, my local shop had the 9800pro, so I bought it, installed it and
>>the latest drivers from ATI, it runs at 8*AGP - and the Sims now runs
>>incredibly much slower than it ever did with the old Geforce, jerky,
>>long long pauses, watching somebody walk from one end of the house to
>>the other takes ten minutes or so with all the pauses.
>
> Did you uninstall the GeForce and it's drivers first?

HA!!! Easier said than done!!!!!

What card did
> you have before? Have you had a look at the graphics options? It's
> possible more of them have been enabled. It may also be a fast write
> problem, or you may have connected the independant power cable for the
> card incorrectly. It needs a dedicated power cable from the supply
> unit.

Without daring to offer any help all I can say is keep checking. My Radeon
was a crazy thing until I stumbled on whatever it was I did to improve
things.
And that included a reformat.

Granny.

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

>possible more of them have been enabled. It may also be a fast write
>problem, or you may have connected the independant power cable for the
>card incorrectly. It needs a dedicated power cable from the supply
>unit.

There is a 4-pin power connector, the cable from the power supply fits
only one way so it should be correctly connected.

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

O
>
>Did you uninstall the GeForce and it's drivers first? What card did
>you have before? Have you had a look at the graphics options? It's
>possible more of them have been enabled. It may also be a fast write
>problem, or you may have connected the independant power cable for the
>card incorrectly. It needs a dedicated power cable from the supply
>unit.

Never mind my messages, I found the problem! It was the driver, I
deinstalled the ATI drivers, then I reinstalled them as a final effort
before I reinstalled windows and now it's working! All the pauses are
gone!

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

>>Never mind my messages, I found the problem! It was the driver, I
>>deinstalled the ATI drivers, then I reinstalled them as a final effort
>>before I reinstalled windows and now it's working! All the pauses are
>>gone!
>
>Excellent. I imagine the game is a WEE bit smoother now? :-) You can

Oh yes, it's almost like a completely new computer, I would never have
believed a Video-card could make such a difference. The only problem
is that now I have to upgrade the video-card on the other computers:-)


>even turn on edge smoothing, becaue the lag that IS in the game is now

I already did that, it looks very nice.

>coming from the CPU and harddrive. The game is just gorgeous with edge

There is a lag, a very tiny one when people get up from chairs.
Doesn't really bother me. The HD is a Maxtor 200GB Serial ATA so it's
fast enough.

>smoothing... sometimes I suspect NVIDIA and ATI of conspiring against
>eachother so that when you switch from one manufacturer to the other,
>it screws up your system...

It wouldn't surprise me, but sometimes the person behind the keyboard
can do a good job of screwing up..

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

On Sun, 22 May 2005 03:43:36 GMT, "PIPER" <lewis@mindspring.com>
wrote:

>Guardian,
>Can you help ME buy a good card?

Absopositivelutely!

What kind of graphic card slot do you have, and what's your processor
strength, and estimated budget? :-) Oh, and what card are you
currently using?

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

On Sun, 22 May 2005 08:17:44 +0200, Guardian Pegasus
<Pope.Been-a-Dick.Adolf.Panzer.Rat.Nazinger.Torquemada.II@holysee.va>
wrote:

>On Sat, 21 May 2005 10:28:16 +0200, Strider <aaaa@aaa.aa> wrote:
>
>>
>>Oh yes, it's almost like a completely new computer, I would never have
>
>Heh heh, I thought as much... you had a major bottleneck! There's no
>sense in buying one really powerful component, only to have another
>one completely anull it's effect!

You're right, but I don't play any games but the Sims and the old
Geforce worked well enough with the Sims 1 game. I Usually go for a
fast CPU and the cheapest Video card there is, works OK for office
work and Internet which is what I mostly use the computers for.

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

On Mon, 23 May 2005 03:40:20 GMT, "PIPER" <lewis@mindspring.com>
wrote:

>Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!
>Ok, I have a 2.36ghz processor.1 gig of ram,and currently have a nividia
>geforce 4 mx 440 agp 8x witha 64mb ddr memory and a tv out?My budget is no
>more than $200.
>
>thanks again!!!

My pleasure :-)

Alright, let's see... your budget is plenty. It appears you live in
the US, right? Just around, or just over[195-219$], the 200$
pricerange is the NVIDIA 6800. Just make sure you get the AGP version,
AND make very sure it's not an LE! Brand doesn't matter much, from
what I can see they've all got 256bit bus 700Mhz memory. The reason I
tell you NOT to get LE is because it has only 8 pipelines, and the
normal one has 12.

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

u mean ur sims 2 doest run well on this card?

Sim Gal

"PIPER" <lewis@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:Egcke.1565$oT1.536@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!
> Ok, I have a 2.36ghz processor.1 gig of ram,and currently have a nividia
> geforce 4 mx 440 agp 8x witha 64mb ddr memory and a tv out?My budget is no
> more than $200.
>
> thanks again!!!
>
>

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

On Tue, 24 May 2005 00:56:08 GMT, "PIPER" <lewis@mindspring.com>
wrote:

>No, it doesnt work well at all...and i cant use UNI . with it.

It won't run, or it runs so slow it's unplayable?

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

Thanks for your help

Smudge
"Guardian Pegasus"
<Pope.Been-a-Dick.Adolf.Panzer.Rat.Nazinger.Torquemada.II@holysee.va> wrote
in message news:kdc891pph8gmevpn5r8cl6o15qu575cipl@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 23 May 2005 16:45:12 +0100, "Smudge" <andymag@tiscali.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>>Can you help me find a good graphics card please
>>
>>My processor is 1.40 gigahertz AMD Athlon XP
>>I have a nVIDIA GeForce2 AGP MX 400 Display Adapter (don't know what
>>speed)
>>and my budget is around £100 (live in the uk)
>>
>>Thanks ever so much!
>
> No problem :-) I had a GF2 MX400 in my day...
>
> http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=122901&cks=SPK
>
> Radeon 9800 PRO... exactly a hundred quid :-)
>
> I think you'll find your game QUITE a bit more enjoyable from now on
> :-)

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

On Fri, 27 May 2005 03:17:19 GMT, "PIPER" <lewis@mindspring.com>
wrote:

>It just loads forever til I have to alt ctrl delete it.

Well that's just odd... my screens tend to load 20-30 seconds. Screen
loading isn't related to videocard, though...

Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)

On Fri, 27 May 2005 22:11:02 GMT, "PIPER" <lewis@mindspring.com>
wrote:

>No? I'm going to take all my downloads(i already took the hacks out) and add
>them back 10 at a time.
>
>to videocard, though...

The graphics card doesn't really kick in until the screen is finished
loading :-\