Zmann
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My graphics card is constantly getting worse. When I first got it, it worked perfectly. Then it started to freeze on 3D games. Then high-end 2D games. Now, I can barely play anything without it freezing the whole computer.

Obviously my crappy Intel card that came with the computer just isn't cutting it. I was wondering if any of you guys have any suggestions to what new card I should buy. I don't want a too powerful one, because I don't have that much money, and almost all my games have 2D graphics anyway. I would like a descent card that can run 2D games with ease, and 3D games without too much slowdown.

Does anyone know of/suggest a graphics card that is around $70 and will have enough power for most games?

Oh ya, I'm running a 2.0 GHz Emachine. 512 ram, Windows XP, etc. If you have any more questions please reply.

Thanks,
Zmann

Oneiromancer
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A year ago I picked up a GeForce2 MX 400 for $60, and it still serves me pretty well. Not good enough for super high end 3D action games, but Morrowind and Dungeon Siege ran pretty well.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

squeekie
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Have you tried updating your video drivers?

____________________________
"Don't accept that what's happening
is just a case of others suffering
or you'll find that you're joining in on the turning away."

Zmann
Level: Master Delver

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squeekie wrote:
Have you tried updating your video drivers?

Yes, multiple times. It just doesn't help. It seems to at first, but then it just keeps crashing again. I'm almost forced to get a new graphics card.

Oneiromancer
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I think I want to modify my former statement. The card I mentioned above probably won't be good enough for Doom III when it comes out, but otherwise I bet it is good enough for most recent FPS games. Looks like it's $50 now ($40 after rebate): http://shop1.outpost.com/product/3293621/

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

StuartK
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Firstly, are you absolutely certain the problem is with the graphics card? Do you have access to another card to swap them around, and see if the problem goes away? You seem pretty certain though, but if you can, it wouldn't hurt to check...


Anyway, if you're definitely upgrading, to use up the $70 budget, it looks like the most recent cards available would be an NVidia Geforce FX5200, or an ATI Radeon 9000. A Radeon 9000 Pro would be around $80-$90, though I'm not totally familiar with US prices.

If you want to play Halflife II (if the game is as good as the hype) it's looking from recent benchmarks like it would be necessary to avoid NVidia, and go for a Radeon for this particular game. However, the limited benchmark tests I've seen so far have only used a Radeon 9600 Pro as a minimum, which appears to be around $150, and so, far outside the stated budget unless you wait for a while (which appears not to be an option)


There's a price guide here...

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/priceguide.html

If you scroll down to the NVidia/ATI section, cards with reviews have links on the left.


FWIW, here's a July buyers guide, covering most of the range of recent cards...

http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030714/index.html

And an older Christmas 2002 buyers guide (in two parts) covering a wider range of cards, including all the ones mentioned in this thread (probably a little too much information)

http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021218/index.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030120/index.html

DubOSv10
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Are you using XP #1...I assume you are...If so, do you have MSN Messenger or any IM service...reply and give me your name or ID...and I'll show you how to stop the random freezing...



____________________________
My friends say no don't go
For that cotton candy
Son you're playing with fire
The kid will live and learn
As he watches his bridges burn
From the point of no return

Zmann
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 241
Registered: 04-21-2003
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You'll stop the random freezing huh? I'm doubtful, but it never hurts to be optimistic. Um, Screenname: ZmaniacK01, using AIM. Hope you can help.

-Zmann

Zmann
Level: Master Delver

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Oh, I got my graphics card today. A GeForce FX 5200 128 mb. It works like a charm. Thanks DubOSv10 for your help, and thanks everyone else for all the suggestions.

-Later
John Williams

Oneiromancer
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How much did it end up costing you? Is it DirectX 9 optimized, or is it too old of a model for that?

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

DubOSv10
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the 5200's are DX 9 optimised...

Watch that heat my friend...

____________________________
My friends say no don't go
For that cotton candy
Son you're playing with fire
The kid will live and learn
As he watches his bridges burn
From the point of no return

Oneiromancer
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DubOSv10 wrote:
Watch that heat my friend...

Any good suggestions for reducing case heat with a new graphics card? Strategic fan placement, a case with more holes, keeping the case out in the open, etc.?

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

DubOSv10
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Running an Open Case would be a good idea, but it depends, dust can get in easier, and there is more noise...

What I suggest is to have round IDE cables, and a clutter free case...no power cables running all over, etc etc...Have everything tied using rubber bands or those pull ties...

Try to run around I dunno six fans if you have a high end card...There are 1 to 2 fans on the card itself depending on the model, have a fan on the case cover, two on the Power Supply, a fan mounted to your harddrives so they don't generate extra heat, and a couple more fans in the back of the case...

Unless you go watercooled ....muhahaha...

Hope that helps, if I can elaborate on anything, just let me know, I'll be glad to...

____________________________
My friends say no don't go
For that cotton candy
Son you're playing with fire
The kid will live and learn
As he watches his bridges burn
From the point of no return

DubOSv10
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 31
Registered: 09-08-2003
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If you have CAD I can design you a couple of cases to show you what I mean...

____________________________
My friends say no don't go
For that cotton candy
Son you're playing with fire
The kid will live and learn
As he watches his bridges burn
From the point of no return

Oneiromancer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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No, I don't have CAD, but I have, let's see, a fan on the power supply, in the front of the case, one of those ones that slides in the card slot, there should be one on the processor, and of course one on the video card. I have one bundled IDE cable, the others are sort of out of the way, but I can do better.

I wasn't planning on getting a new video card, but after looking at what Zmann just got (around $80, looks like) I might just go for one. I've been having lots of problems recently, both with Morrowind after installing the Bloodmoon expansion and The Sims after installing the Superstar expansion. The first thing I will try, one of these nights, is to uninstall them completely, defrag my hard drive, and then reinstall them consecutively. If that doesn't work, then I think the culprit could be the fact that I installed DirectX 9.0b and the newest NVidia drivers with an old video card...perhaps there are some instabilities. Buying a new card (with more memory than my current one) that is DirectX 9 compatible may be the way to go.

Then again, perhaps I should just double my RAM to 1 GB. That might help too, probably in conjunction with reinstalling. I could totally reinstall Windows XP too, but that is such a pain.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

DubOSv10
Level: Delver
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what kind of problems you having in game?

Do you have an Instant Messenger...

____________________________
My friends say no don't go
For that cotton candy
Son you're playing with fire
The kid will live and learn
As he watches his bridges burn
From the point of no return

Oneiromancer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Nope, no IM, sorry...I would never get any work done if I had that distraction. I installed Bloodmoon about a month ago, played it a little bit, and it worked just fine. I started playing it again last week, and the movement was extremely choppy, even indoors. Before I had gotten a little choppiness when I was indoors in first person view, but now it's choppy in any view anywhere in the game. The only thing I've changed with the computer itself is installing new drivers, windows updates (including DirectX 9), etc.

As for the Sims, I have heard that installing the Superstar expansion makes the game even more unstable, so it may just be that, but let me try to remember exactly what happened. My fiancee is really the only one who plays the game, and she hadn't played for a few months. We finally got Superstar last week and I installed it, and she got these very, very strange graphical glitches in the "Studio Town". I looked up some information, and found that Maxis suggests running the game in 16-bit color mode. (Of course, Morrowind runs in 32-bit mode only, so we have to switch back and forth if we want to play both.) This actually solved that graphical glitch problem. Then after a while she noticed that the game was running insanely slowly, even on first book and immediately after loading it. I tried some other Maxis suggestions but they didn't work or made it worse (like running in windowed mode). The game has always had some performance issues, but never on this level. However, for this game it seems like it might be a software issue, so I would bet more on a reinstallation working than for Morrowind. Or more RAM is always good, like I said before.

So, yeah, any suggestions welcome.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

agaricus5
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DubOSv10 wrote:

Unless you go watercooled ....muhahaha...

No!

It must be cryogenically cooled/frozen in liquid nitrogen!

____________________________
Resident Medic/Mycologist

DubOSv10
Level: Delver
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Oneiro...DX9 is filled with bugs still...take it back to 8.1...

and also take your video card driver back to the driver BEFORE the latest one...

Also do you know how to make your programs emulate windows 98 mode? If so go for it...I'm at lunch, but when I get home, I'll post more...


____________________________
My friends say no don't go
For that cotton candy
Son you're playing with fire
The kid will live and learn
As he watches his bridges burn
From the point of no return

Oneiromancer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2936
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Yes, I know how to emulate Win98, but I figured that Morrowind at least is WinXP native. Worth a shot with the Sims at least.

Now, about reinstalling my old drivers...I thought I heard that DirectX was irreversible. I suppose that's not true? And I thought that rolling back video drivers was difficult/annoying, although certainly possible. I know that things can go wrong, so some advice on that would be good. So, the previous driver...44.03 I assume?

Thanks in advance...

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

Oneiromancer
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Well, I used Driver Cleaner 2 to get rid of the 45.23 drivers, and reinstalled the 44.03 drivers. That fixed the choppiness in Morrowind, but the Sims is still horribly slow. I am still leaning towards a reinstall solution on that one, as running in Windows 98 compatibility mode didn't work at all. I don't know if I will go back to DirectX 8.1 yet, since the driver rollback worked. Thanks for your suggestions.

Game on,

[Edited by Oneiromancer on 09-22-2003 at 01:54 AM]

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

Zmann
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 241
Registered: 04-21-2003
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Um, heat is killing me. I think my motherboard produces too much heat, and it heats up the graphics card, causing a crash. If I open it up and run a fan on it, it seems to work fine, but I don't want to have to do that everytime I want to play a game. Is there such things as little fans you can put in your computer that cool it down? Thanks,

Zmann

[Edit:]

Nevermind, I just reread some of the previous posts. Now my question is where can I buy these fans.

[Edited by Zmann on 09-21-2003 at 11:57 PM]

Oneiromancer
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Well, you should be able to get some computer fans at any good computer store, like Fry's Electronics or CompUSA. If there aren't any near you, then you can buy some online. I typed in "computer fans" to Google and most of the hits on the first page were for places where you can buy them online, so try that. Make sure you allow for airflow by tying cables back like Dub suggested earlier.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

DubOSv10
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Ah..Ok, sorry I haven't been around Oneiro...Been busy, school is a killer...I'm glad you got Morrowind fixed, take back that DirectX my friend...

Links to rollback DirectX:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2935

There ya are...Tell me what happens, and I'll try and help you some more if you need it...

As far as the fans...Like Oneiro said, you should find them at stores like Frys, CompUSA, etc...

you might also want to think about a different Power Supply with stronger fans, a stonger CPU fan, or a MB chipset fan...ur uh...yep...

Tell me how it goes...

____________________________
My friends say no don't go
For that cotton candy
Son you're playing with fire
The kid will live and learn
As he watches his bridges burn
From the point of no return

DubOSv10
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 31
Registered: 09-08-2003
IP: Logged

What happened?

____________________________
My friends say no don't go
For that cotton candy
Son you're playing with fire
The kid will live and learn
As he watches his bridges burn
From the point of no return

projectpat
Level: Roachling
Rank Points: 10
Registered: 10-06-2004
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Emachines all have this problem it is so rediculus i have to constanly reboot computer with those 2 discs that u ghost boot your comp with, any ways after a fresh clean boot i will get these crashes constanly comp is t1842 1.8 gig 512 ram 40 gig Hd
i play counter-strike and diablo 2 a lot and mainly diablo is the worst it constanly gets sprite errors making it so impossible to play allthough there are sum clean runs. but jus doin simple stuff like internet also click x to close a window and the thing restarts

____________________________
pat campbell

projectpat
Level: Roachling
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Registered: 10-06-2004
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ps: HELLLPPPPPPPPPPPP ........

____________________________
pat campbell

Mattcrampy
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Hmm.... let's pull out the tech-fu, and see if I can earn my yellow belt.

It probably isn't DirectX, unless you've got a tangle o' problems going on, in which case you might want a professional. First step, as always if you think there's a graphics problem, is to update your drivers. Work out what brand of card you have, even better, what model, then find their website. Drivers suitable for GeForce and TNT cards can be found here: http://www.nvidia.com while drivers for Radeon cards are here: http://www.ati.com

While you're at it, get the latest patches for Diablo. Apparantly they added some things to the game, so it might be worthwhile.

As always, scan your computer for viruses (personal favourite: securityresponse.symantec.com will work where all else fails or you have a virus that blocks anti-virus programs) and spyware (DROD.net apparantly recommends http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ and http://security.kolla.de, which do similar jobs and between them will cover it), which should improve performance across the board - some "sprite errors" are caused by the computer just not having enough power to redraw all of each frame, so it glitches in some areas.

Matt

____________________________
What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

projectpat
Level: Roachling
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Registered: 10-06-2004
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oh i have the new driver for my card beacuse it is the peace of crap that comes with the t1842 emachine and i got the updated drivers owell there is no hope for this computer

____________________________
pat campbell