how can i tell what Video Card i have

either look in your system devices in the control panel, or reboot and look for the video bios to show up at the top of the screen.

Jon
"Water-Cooled CPU Runner"

i went to "system" under control panel, then went to device manager tab under "system". in that tab i chose "system devices" which they are all blue computer screen icons and none of them say anything i would recognize as my video card am i looking in the right place? could someone maybe see right where it is on their computer? thanks alot

ahh someone help  

If correct drivers are installed, right click from desktop and select properties. Then go to settings. If not, just reboot your computer, and right at the beginning, it will flash the video card info for a second (however, many branded systems prevent this from happening).

Rob
Please visit <b><A HREF="http://zidane222.cjb.net" target="_new">http://zidane222.cjb.net&lt;/A></b>

ok i figured out i have a: "NVIDA RIVA TNT2 MODEL 64"
what does that mean is NVIDA the brand? and how can i tell how many mb my video card is, because i don't think i have 64mb only 32 i thought...

nVidia is the chipset manufacturer. Riva TNT2 is the chipset type. Probably is 32MB, didn't think anyone made a TNT2 with 64MB.

"The answer is not in your hair."
"I'd rather jump in the lava than be fragged by you."

sorry that i don't know that much about this, i am guessing TNT2 is not a brand type thing but a technology that any company can use? oh can u explain about chipset? is that the manufacturer of my video card? i wanted to know who made it and what chipset is and what TNT is   hehe lots of stuff thanks if u can give me some insight on those 3 things

nvidia = manufacturer
tnt2 = chipset
tnt2 m64 = model

there are many different graphics chipsets (newer ones are called gpu or graphics processing unit). the chipset is the power of the card, like the cpu is for the computer. i believe tnt stands for twin texel. nvidia makes the tnt, tnt2, tnt2 ultra. they are successive generations of the chipset, like the geforce and then the geforce2. it is probably a 32meg card but it might be a 16meg card. the m64 part is just part of the model. i believe the m64 is a less expensive and less powerful version. any other questions...

ok so does NVIDA make any good video cards?

and also what is the x/y thing that people always talk about their video card achieving like 225/270 or osmething like that? 2 things:

1. what does those 2 numbers mean ?
2. how can i find them on my computer?

thanks alot for this help i wanna test how good my video card is performing so i can see to get a new one or not
thanks  

not counting professional graphics cards (which i don't know much about) nvidia is arguably the best manufacturer of graphics chips in today's market (i'm not sure if you realize that nvidia makes the chips but other companies, such a creative, leadtek, asus, etc... actually make the graphics cards that use these chips). the 2 numbers you asked about are the clock speeds of the graphics processor (often called the core clock speed) and the clock speed of the memory, both measured in mhz. for example, the geforce2 gts runs at 200/333, which means the core clock is 200mhz and the memory speed is 333mhz. as far as your card, i'm not sure what speed the tnt2 m64 runs at but i'm sure someone else here either knows the speed or knows a program that will tel you. my guestimate would be around 150/150

ok 2 things about that:

1. if NVIDA makes the chipset for the video card, they aren't the actually company that made the video card? if so who made the actually video card?

2. does anyone know a good program i can use to test the speed of my video card?

nvidia makes the chipset that many companies use to make the video card. just like via makes chipsets for motherboards that are implemented by companies like abit, asus, gigabyte, etc... nvidia makes chipsets that are used by companies like creative, asus, guillemont, leadtek, etc... nvidia makes an integral part of the video card, but not the video card itslef. companies use the chipset, memory, etc... made by other companies and package it together as a final product and sell it. as far as testing the speed of the card (i assume you mean the performance), you can use benchmarks like 3dmark2000 which is a video card intensive program and compare your results to other people using the same video card and processor as well as see how your video card compares to others using the same processor. you can get this benchmark at www.madonion.com otherwise you can always use games like quake3 to test performance. as far as the literal speed of the video card (the mhz speed) you can look at www.nvidia.com or you can go here to see a chart of the tnt chipset family: http://www.nvidia.com/Products/TNT2.nsf

To test in Quake do the following: press the tilde key (~) to access the console. Type "timedemo 1" (without the quotes), press ENTER, then type "demo demo001" and press enter. The demo will load and run automatically. When it completes, access the console again by pressing the tilde key and you'll see your frame rate. It's a good idea to run the benchmark a few times to make sure you're getting a consistent frame rate.

NOw be careful in comparisons. There are so many settings that can alter the fps: for the basic resolution, detail, how mny colors (16 bit, 32 bit), marks on walls, simple objests, force model, sound quality, and this is only a few.

TNT2 is old technology compared to today's boards but if it works who cares. I have that in my son's machine. What a diff between a TNT2 and PII 333 compared to GF2 and Athlon 750. GF2 Pro by Guillemot is best value in top perfoming gpu's.

<b> Fragg at will!!! </b>

I know this post is a little late but one way to identify your card is to go to start, run, then type dxdiag and hit run. This will bring up the DirectX diagnostic tool. From there go to the display tab. This will give you information including how many MB the card has. Enjoy!

ok then nvida is the chipset maker, who is the video card maker of mine then????  

it could be manufactured by any company. if the company's drivers are installed, then you can right click on the desktop and view properties. if you have generic nvidia drivers then the manufacturer info will not be present. is your computer home built or is it from like dell, compaq, gateway, etc...?

i think the nvida driver must be generic like u say, it is a dell computer by the way, so i still don't konw who made my video card  

the actual manufacturer of the card doesn't matter much. dell probably uses a generic refernce design. generally, video cards with a certain chipset perform pretty much the same, regardless of who makes it. the only difference would be if a manufacturer adds a few things like a tv-out or they include games with a retail packaged card. otherwise, i wouldn't worry too much who makes your card. like i said, it should perform basically the same as any other tnt2 m64 card on the market. out of curiosity, why are you so hung up on this? or is it that you are just learning? what are the rest of the specs of your computer? have you run any benchmarks?

well i am hung up on this cause i am trying to figure out what exactly i have, so that i know what everything can handle. i am thinking of trying to overclock my FSB but i want to make sure my graphics card can handle the increased AGP port mhz (i don't really know what i am talking about)
i just don't wanna screw anything up. i don't understand about the clock multiplier and i dont' konw how to figure out what mine is. i have ran benchmarks for certain stuff my CPU is at 797 and it is a PIII800 hehe. i have PC133memory and a ata100 30 gb hard drive at 7200rpm any help/tips/advice apreciated

i'm not too familiar with intel since i only use amd so someone else might want to correct me if i'm wrong with anything i'm about to say...the pIII-800 has 2 available options, one comes with a 100mhz fsb and one comes with a 133mhz fsb. the multiplier for the 100mhz version is 8 (8x100=800) and the multiplier for the 133mhz version is 6 (6x133=800). since your dell came with pc133 memory, it might be reasonable to assume you have the 133mhz fsb version. from what i understand the multipier on the pIII is locked and cannot be changed. some motherboards allow for fsb changes and therefore overclocking, but i don't think the dell motherboards allow for this so you are probably stuck at 800mhz (it's possible i'm mistaken on this point). if i am wrong and you can change the fsb, you should realize that any fsb change effects the memory, video card, pci card, etc... so it's not just the agp card that you have to think about. you seem unsure about how everything works together (not that i'm a guru or anything) so if you are serious about attempting to overclock i recommend that you read up on it more. there are tons of articles on the topic if you do a search for it.

how would i find out what my motherboard allows?

i think dell makes their own motherboards so i don't think you can overclocking information (because it voids the warranty and is a no no according to manufacturers). if you look on the motherboard are there any dip switches? can you make changes in the bios (are there any fsb options in the bios)? also, look in the motherboard manual and see if it has details.

The Dell 4100 series use Pentium 3 with an intel 815 chipset. It sounds like that is what you have, or something very similar. It runs at 133mhz bus. The TNT2 m64 video card used by Dell has 32meg video memory. Considering that your machine is probably fairly new and still under warranty you may not want to mess around with it much. I doubt Dell would allow the bus speed or much of anything to be changed as that would tempt people such as yourself to mess around and possibly cause them tech support headaches. Dell and other companies that build complete systems test them and make sure everything works well together, they don't want to upset the reliability of the machine by allowing too many different components and settings.

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends...

yeah, you're right. oem don't like overclocking. the same things also apply to the intel mainboard. all setting are automatic...

<font color=orange>What do you think? :wink: </font color=orange>

<A HREF="http://www.h-oda.com" target="_new">WINCPUID</A> is a great utility to show what processor you have.

<font color=orange>What do you think? :wink: </font color=orange>

There is an utility called PowerStrip which has an option which tells the core and memory speed of your 3d card.
Have you noticed any warranty void sticker preventing you from opening the case? If there isn't any you could have a look at your nVidia TNT 2 M64 and see if there is any brand sticker. You can change your FSB via software using a program called softFSB, but you should not be able to go further than 150 mhz if your FSB now runs at 133 mhz.

ok guys, i see i probably better off leaving it alone till maybe my next computer i won't get a system already made one. Just trying to check on what u told me, how do i get into the CMOS? thanks guys

RE PIII 800 that video card is way underpowered for that processor, i would recommend getting a gforce 2gts
however the current one will probably perform adequately with that powerful a processor.
in fact i have a viper 770 which is a TNT2 32meg card
this card is 128bit and yours is 64bit.
These tnt2 were good in their day but the new ones do soo much more and do all the processing on the video card,
the tnt2 merely has a setup engine and the main cpu still has to do alot of work with it .

Bored, Certified tech
btw i would leave the other settings alone too  

Do this instead! it works pretty good with most cards!

goto a dos prompt, type

debug

at the prompt that looks like this '-' type
d c000:0010

It should tell you the name of the card.. type d again to get the bios version

type q to exit

try it out!
-Jeff

"does anyone know a good program i can use to test the speed of my video card."

Yes get 3dmark2000
got to
<A HREF="http://download.com" target="_new">http://download.com&lt;/A>
type in 3dmark2000 and download. It best bench mark for video cards. Also if you can run it the whole way though with out crashing you got a stable system. Also, set it to loop for a couple of hours and that will be a better test for how stable your system is.

Jeff

can someone give a brief explanation of CMOS and how you get to it, (i understand BIOS and how to use that) thanks for the help

in common usage, CMOS=BIOS
CMOS is hardware technology, BIOS is software that is on a chip on your motherboard, and that chip is built using CMOS.
They're used interchangebly on the boards...

tankdawg, we answered that question (CMOS vs BIOS) to you on another thread... what, don't you trust us? ;-)

u hury my feelings