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Author Topic: Graphics cards compatability  (Read 4384 times)

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Jareth

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    Graphics cards compatability
    « on: September 10, 2011, 05:05:27 PM »
    I have a Dell dimension 2400 2.2Ghz processor, 512Mb ram, built in graphics and Windows XP. I am going to put in some more ram and want to upgrade the video card but I only have PCI ports not PCI express. A guy on youtube working on the same exact computer as mine said that it has 64Mb built in graphics chipsets and you would be hard pressed to find a PCI card better than that so don't bother. However I have found multiple 128 and 256Mb graphics cards but there is a catch. My computer uses DDR1 ram and the cards use DDR2 can my computer use those or not? Also some of the cards say they are 64bit and my OS is 32bit does that make a difference? Someone said you can switch out both the RAM chips for 1Gb DDR1 ram and get 2GB but I haven't seen it done only the one put in. When the graphics cards say Directx9 can I upgrade them online to the most recent version or will I just be hosed? Any feedback would be most appreciated thank you.

    Computer_Commando



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    Re: Graphics cards compatability
    « Reply #1 on: September 10, 2011, 05:20:53 PM »
    I have a Dell dimension 2400 2.2Ghz processor, 512Mb ram, built in graphics and Windows XP. I am going to put in some more ram and want to upgrade the video card but
    1.  I only have PCI ports not PCI express. A guy on youtube working on the same exact computer as mine said that it has 64Mb built in graphics chipsets and you would be hard pressed to find a PCI card better than that so don't bother.
    2.  However I have found multiple 128 and 256Mb graphics cards but there is a catch. My computer uses DDR1 ram and the cards use DDR2 can my computer use those or not?
    3.  Also some of the cards say they are 64bit and my OS is 32bit does that make a difference?
    4.  Someone said you can switch out both the RAM chips for 1Gb DDR1 ram and get 2GB but I haven't seen it done only the one put in.
    5.  When the graphics cards say Directx9 can I upgrade them online to the most recent version or will I just be hosed?
    ...
    1.  I agree.
    2.  Memory type on graphics card has no relationship to memory type on motherboard.  Yes.
    3.  No.
    4.  Depends on what the Dell Dimension 2400 supports.  See:  www.crucial.com
    5.  No.

    rthompson80819



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    Re: Graphics cards compatability
    « Reply #2 on: September 10, 2011, 06:10:58 PM »
    If I read your specs right you only have a 200 watt power supply.  That's not enough power for most add in graphics cards.  64MB of video RAM is fairly standard on recent computers, but not enough for many of the newer games.

    Crucial is a great source for checking what RAM you have and what you could add, and you could use more RAM.  Their prices aren't always the cheapest, but they are not bad, and their customer service is excellent.  And I don't say that about many companies.

    DaveLembke



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    Re: Graphics cards compatability
    « Reply #3 on: September 10, 2011, 06:29:24 PM »
    I would invest in a new system myself if you want to do modern gaming beyond WoW's capabilities. I have a friend who is still gaming WoW on a 1.8Ghz P4 single-core with an 8x AGP ATI Radeon card with 256MB Ram, and the system running on 1GB Ram. He has to avoid certain areas where his frame rate goes from about 12-20 frames per second to 6 frames per second.

    That single-core Pentium 4 2.2Ghz is going to be a huge bottleneck. Even a cheap modern single-core such as the Sempron 145 ($35 CPU New) which is 2.8Ghz beats the pants off of that P4. I know because I upgraded my wife from a 2.66Ghz P4 to a Sempron 145 2.8Ghz after first checking what it benchmarked at passmark cpu benchmark data and it screams for a single-core. Of course 2,3,4, and 6 core CPU's are better, in which I have a quad-core AMD Athlon II x4, if you have a tight budget for about $120 you can build a cheap modern system, and put in a decent video card where most of todays games depend greatly on. But your DELL XP OS probably wont migrate over to the new motherboard so your also having to look into buying an OS for it.

     If your lucky that Dell has an AGP slot that will take a 8x AGP video card and you can upgrade the power supply to 450 watts minimum, but it still wont have the throughput necessary to play most modern games without low frame rate or errors trying to run. My wifes system I basically replaced motherboard, CPU, and Ram and kept everything else the same old parts. That 160GB IDE drive is still plenty for her. And fortunately she already had a 450 watt power supply in it and I had my second hand PCIe videocard to stuff into it for her and her WoW gaming needs, which is just a GeForce 8400GS with 512MB Ram. She is running Win XP Pro on 2GB Ram also.

    Total cost for that upgrade was like $35 for Sempron 145 2.8Ghz AM3 45watt CPU + $60 for Biostar AM3 motherboard + $20 for 2GB Patriot DDR2 800Mhz Ram stick = $115... and if I didnt go as cheap as i could go, I could have installed an Athlon II x2 for $65 instead of going with the $35 Sempron Single-core, but she doesnt need that extra power, I will probably have a Hand-me-down AM3 quad-core for her in the future when I move on to x6 or larger processing. The first time she hopped onto that madern low end single core she was in heaven with how fast it was compared to the pentium 4 she had prior. *She doesnt know I went cheap on it, but she does know that I have the better system since mine does run faster...lol

    Jareth

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      Re: Graphics cards compatability
      « Reply #4 on: September 11, 2011, 02:14:36 PM »
      Thanks alot to everybody for the input in response to Dave you're saying that a newer processor is faster because of the FSB speed right? I thought about replacing the whole lot but then the only thing I would be keeping is the case and that seems a little superfluous especially since my hard drive is only 60Gb. With the addition of most likely putting in an new OS which I'm not familiar with doing and the fact that most of the buying of parts would be over the internet. I'm the kind of person who likes to look at things before I buy them. If I were to stay with the motherboard I have it only supports single core so I'm going to upgrade the RAM to 2Gb and save up for a better gaming rig that I can upgrade in the future. I mostly play minecraft on this thing but the framerate was all ready pathetic and when I modded the game the framerate dropped to 0to7 instead of twenty. When I tried to get this basic input that you guys were so nice to provide from computer stores they all wanted to screw me by saying just bring it in and we'll test it. When I go to get a new computer I will buy it new but skimp on things like ram as long as it has the room for more and put it in myself I figure I can save a couple hundred if I do everything I can do myself after I buy it. You guys think thats a good idea?

      Computer_Commando



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      Re: Graphics cards compatability
      « Reply #5 on: September 11, 2011, 04:58:55 PM »
      Most new out of the box computers will require no additional RAM or anything else.  Win7-32bit will have 2-3GB, Win7-64bit will have a minimum of 4GB.  All will be DDR3 which is the latest & least expensive.

      BC_Programmer


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      Re: Graphics cards compatability
      « Reply #6 on: September 11, 2011, 07:01:13 PM »
      I mostly play minecraft on this thing but the framerate was all ready pathetic and when I modded the game the framerate dropped to 0to7 instead of twenty.

      A few points:

      Minecraft is written in java. The java VM (even the 64-bit version for some reason) seems to act weird after a program allocates about a GB or  so of memory. running MC for a while usually breaks this.
      -You could try the Optifine mod which tries to speed things up a bit.
      -Mods are, with the exception of the above, usually very badly optimized. They are written by 16 year olds, largely, so that isn't surprising.

      -If you are using the leaked 1.8 prerelease- that's got some weird memory issues too.


      The game itself is more dependent on CPU than Memory. OTOH, it's going to need memory to work otherwise you'll be swapping all over. 2GB with win7 or vista would be pushing it, I think.

      The above is on the assumption you are talking about minecraft, and not creative mode minecraft, which featured neither mining nor crafting.
      I was trying to dereference Null Pointers before it was cool.

      Jareth

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        Re: Graphics cards compatability
        « Reply #7 on: September 11, 2011, 11:27:49 PM »
        I was talking about the real minecraft not creative mode and I frequent a few minecraft forums. I think because my computer runs it just not well that if I ramp up the ram from 512Mb to 2Gb like I plan to in the near future it should run smoothly enough until I get a better computer. Minecraft wants 1Gb of ram out of the gate which is absurd to look at when playing the game. I have tried optifine and it doesn't seem to help. I agree with your assesment about mods but minecraft without it is boring fast. I'm smart enough not to use any leaked versions when Im already having problems particularly when the modders have done more for the game than Notch has or will. With Notch adding in Millenaire into the core experience the game is wrecking peoples computers with 2 to 4Gbs of ram. I just hope when I upgrade the ram I will be able to play it worth a hill of beans until I get a gaming rig to beef up.  >:(

        BC_Programmer


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        Re: Graphics cards compatability
        « Reply #8 on: September 12, 2011, 10:47:57 AM »
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        I frequent a few minecraft forums.
        Alright- but, what is your point? So do I (?)

        Minecraft wants 1Gb of ram out of the gate


        Minecraft normally loads up to 9 chunks around you, or 81 chunks. each chunk is 16x16x128, with a bit more than 2 bytes per block (one byte for the block type (1-255) and one byte for the skylight and data (4 bits each). another 4 bits for block generated light values, and another 256 bytes per chunk for  the heightmap data.

        This brings the grand total of data per chunk to 82,176, multiplied by 81 you've got 6 Megabytes of data that needs to be handled. On top of that you have the fact that java doesn't allow for the immediate destruction of memory data at a determinate point and that the classes that manage said data need to be instantiated, as well as data to be stored  for entities, and other blocks that have entity data (like chests, note blocks, furnaces, and so forth). And of course items like tooltip text and item names being stored as immutable strings. It's the java VM that is "using" the memory, not necessarily minecraft. a good quarter of the memory associated with javaw when MC is running is probably discarded data waiting to be gc'd. the other quarter is probably kernel-mode memory used by the OpenGL driver.


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        which is absurd to look at when playing the game.
        Not of the sort minecraft is. Games like crysis and stuff have precomputed geometry and optimized poly counts for everything. for MC every single visible block is going to add about 2 poly's on average, and with a lot of scenes you're looking at several thousand blocks. And that is just the Graphics driver side of the equation, you've still got the copious amount of loaded chunks being loaded/unloaded as you travel.

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        but minecraft without it is boring fast.
        For you, maybe. I got bored of mods, myself. Why? Because they are all programmed terribly. I have a fecking quad-core and the damned things make it feel like it did to play quake on my P-133. I've always ended up reverting to pure vanilla.

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        when the modders have done more for the game than Notch has or will.
        No, they haven't. All the modders I "know" are all elitist douchebags. It's not hard at all to mod Minecraft, given a little basic java knowledge.


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        With Notch adding in Millenaire into the core experience
        They aren't... they are adding their own. Millenaire itself is pretty badly optimized. An interesting (if unoriginal) concept, but badly executed, really.

        Personally, there are only two situations I've had where MC has had problems. After installing mods like the yogbox (good mod, terrible implementation), or with the 1.8 prerelease after leaving the game running for about 18 hours at the title screen. And this is with a ~2Ghz dual core laptop as well, which runs both fine.

        I was trying to dereference Null Pointers before it was cool.

        Jareth

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          Re: Graphics cards compatability
          « Reply #9 on: September 12, 2011, 02:37:16 PM »
          While your opinions are your own right I think the only one sounding like an "elitist douchebag" is yourself. Minecraft by itself BLOWS if it's so easy to make good mods then why are you not blowing the other modders out of the water? Like Vintron said in the chat room the other day "java has it's place but NOT in gaming". The point of bringing up the minecraft forums is that Notch refuses to tell you system requirements because far less people would buy the game. The people on the forums were the ones who told me it needs at least 1Gb of ram to run smoothly and some of them have 4Gbs and are still having fps issues. Sure there is alot of rendering going on but when Game Informer said you enter the game with hilariously low res textures and no idea what to do I figured my old computer should be able to play said textures without so many problems. If I had known java script was such a kunt I wouldn't have wasted my time and have you seen the 1.8 leak it's a complete train wreck The features hes added are lame and don't even work yet. It's bleak to know that when he does get all the bugs ironed out the game will still suck. If I need a new gaming rig just to play minecraft with more than 15 fps I would just play a better game. ::)

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          Re: Graphics cards compatability
          « Reply #10 on: September 12, 2011, 03:53:35 PM »
          While your opinions are your own right I think the only one sounding like an "elitist douchebag" is yourself.
          First, Kodaichi purposely places malicious code in his mods so that specific people can't play them. That's being a douchebag.

          Second, I've seen their code. Their is a good reason they are modding a pre-existing game and not writing one of their own.

          Third, I never claimed I wasn't an elitist douchebag. It takes one to know one, I suppose.
          Quote
          Minecraft by itself BLOWS
          Maybe if you have the creativity of a grapefruit.

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          if it's so easy to make good mods then why are you not blowing the other modders out of the water?
          False dichotomy.



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          Like Vintron said in the chat room the other day "java has it's place but NOT in gaming".
          Then he's a dumbass. The programming language has nothing to do with the result. Arguing about what programming language is better than another is like arguing over the colour of blueprint paper that should be used for a house. It won't make a difference when it comes to the end result.

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          The point of bringing up the minecraft forums is that Notch refuses to tell you system requirements because far less people would buy the game.
          First, you are clearly one of those people who seem to think there is only "Notch" working on it (this is common, for  some reason). For one thing, he isn't even working on minecraft at the moment, only Jeb_ is, and second, the reason he's never given a system requirement is because he has no idea what would be required. Additionally, the differences between different versions make it a ballpark guess at best. And it's just silly to assume that no value is given for marketing reasons. In fact that's downright absurd.

          It runs fine on my 3 year old laptop, anybody who thinks it's "simpler" than your average game on the basis that somehow the construction of cubes is easier than anything else is wrong, because it's not. a rolling hill in a game could easily consist of far fewer polygons, vertex, and normal surface data (if not texture-mapping data) than a minecraft landscape of similar proportions.

          Either way, the wiki has taken upon the task of trying to assemble some comparisons of performance with different systems. Nearly all the listed systems using a integrated card fare badly, probably because if Intel's more or less Software implementation of OpenGL.
          http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Hardware_performance

          Quote
          The people on the forums were the ones who told me it needs at least 1Gb of ram to run smoothly and some of them have 4Gbs and are still having fps issues.
          a lot of the people on the forums are 14-year old technological dilettantes. But they are right, it likely would require more than 1GB of RAM. I only have two systems available to test with (a 3 year old laptop with 4GB and a newer desktop with 8GB) and they seem to run it fine. Then again, neither of them is 10 years old, either.

          Quote
          Sure there is alot of rendering going on but when Game Informer said you enter the game with hilariously low res textures and no idea what to do I figured my old computer should be able to play said textures without so many problems.

          Ahh, so this is the course of events:

          -Gaming magazine with the summary technical knowledge of a bowl of walnuts says game uses "hilarious low res textures"

          -you assume that game runs fine on your ~10-year old system, which was a value-oriented system even at the time of it's introduction, despite them not saying anything about the other million factors of a game that contribute to what is processed. a "hilariously low res texture" (16x16 pixels) on 1679616 blocks (that would be the number of block surfaces required to render when all 81 chunks are visible on far distance, on a perfectly flat surface no less) would still mean pushing 768 bytes (assuming 16x16 at true color for the textures, which the textures.png backs up) 1679616 times, meaning that the GPU has to churn out about 128959488 bytes per frame. Warranted, optimizations in the rendering of MC would reduce that to a single tiled texture rather then setting the material for every single block (rather, groups of colinear faces with the same texture will be made into a single face with that texture tiled across it's surface the appropriate number of times). But the minecraft landscape is hardly flat; even the savannah biome doesn't usually have flat areas bigger then a chunk or two. And in your case, the Graphics card is your CPU, and with a single core that CPU is also dealing with everything in the background as well, so you end up with far more context switches and kernel-mode/user mode switches that it's no wonder it doesn't run that well. No modern game, regardless of language, would run very well on such a system, unless it used a 10 year old game engine.

          Quote
          If I had known java script was such a kunt I wouldn't have wasted my time
          What does javascript have to do with it? Is that your credibility on the matter falling through a sieve? I think so.



          Quote
          and have you seen the 1.8 leak
          Yes. I did. In fact I have it running right now.

          Quote
          The features hes added are lame and don't even work yet.
          I rather like hunger, strongholds, and abandoned mineshafts, and critical hits, and the new bow mechanic (I know actually use a bow, for one thing) and how the arrows stick in mobs. Something satisfying about impaling a creeper's face with an arrow. the mineshaft spawn rate is way above what it will be when actually finished, too, likely for testing. Ravines look bloody awesome. Only issue I have with it is those bloody blue spiders, which have at least in part made me more careful when navigating said abandoned mines. And the furnace bug that crashes the game, but that only happens after you exploit the dupe bug. (and both of these have been fixed in the version that will be released, as well as most of the other bugged issues (like waaaay too many mineshafts). It is, however, a pre-release.


          Quote
          It's bleak to know that when he does get all the bugs ironed out the game will still suck.
          Mojang. Not Notch. Jeb_/Jens is the one preparing 1.8 for release, not Notch. Notch is working on something that was probably a contractual obligation. And whether the game sucks is purely subjective. Obviously you are allowed to think it does, just as I am allowed to dismiss your arguments as wrong and invalid based on their lack of anything but emotional creedence. I think the creative/classic mode "sucks" too, but certainly not technologically (moreso in that it lacks both mining and crafting, which is a bit weird)
          Quote
          If I need a new gaming rig just to play minecraft with more than 15 fps I would just play a better game. ::)
          And yet, here you are, talking about building a new computer for minecraft. I'd like to say I build this machine for minecraft, but I actually built it for VS 2008, which I ironically said the exact same things you are saying about minecraft for until I was able to run it. It's software envy, I guess.

          Another thing to try, might be to dual boot a Linux distro. some people report minecraft running a bit better there, which I suspect is because their linux install is a lot newer than their windows one, but it get's the job done and is far less invasive than reinstalling windows itself from scratch. (I've personally noticed no real difference between Win7 and Mint 10 as far as Minecraft's speed is concerned, though,  but YMMV.)

          As  for framerate, *queue old man voice* back in the day I used to play quake on a Pentium 133, which was well past the recommended requirements for the game. Average FPS was 12, iirc. I can't be bothered to check again. the passive matrix screen is almost painful. I guess since something better was at the time unattainable I just dealt with what I had. I didn't rant about id Software though, that I recall... despite their system requirements being laughably wrong in my case...
          I was trying to dereference Null Pointers before it was cool.

          Jareth

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            Re: Graphics cards compatability
            « Reply #11 on: September 13, 2011, 01:35:47 PM »
            It's not that I lack creativity it's the fact that once you build a castle with a moat of lava and have already found diamonds there is not a lot left to do. Other then maybe build another or a roller coaster or something. Notch has posted that he plans to fix the memory hogging and graphical issues "sooner than later" but by that he seems to mean after the whole freaking game is done. I only dis java script because it allows for such sloppy game design and many game devs have posed the same question of why he didn't use a better avenue. I realize he used java because he was familiar with the program but the coding is sub par. Also I do think hunger and the ability to sprint are good ideas but there is no reason to add experience when you can't use it on anything. The strongholds and mineshafts clash with the ravine generation far too often even though the ravines are also cool. I know there are more employees but for the amount of sales he should have hired a few more myself and the moderator on Get satisfaction go crazy trying to help all the people with critical errors or issues with buying the game. Mojang should seriously have better tech support and customer service of any kind. I only bring up Notch because he is the one saying this and that will get fixed then he releases another "update" and fixes few to none of the problems just introduces a handfull more. The guys who created the aether mod did a very good job of coding and it doesn't slow the game down a bit. But my crap computer still doesn't get a good enough framerate to fight any of the bosses well. I am not getting a new computer for minecraft it has just illuminated the fact that I should have saved my money from the get go to play the games I really wanted to play. Though you're going a little overboard I do agree with one thing quake and my computer both suck but buying a PCI card for it is too expensive for a piece of junk. I had a p133 back in the day too. 8)