The problem now is that my mom is becoming skittish about my adding even a new graphics card. Apparently she thinks I could destroy the PC if I open it up and add one in. I've added memory before, it can't be too hard to add a gfx card. Yeesh. >_>
"I have to work on the PC sometimes and don't want to risk it breaking. You'll not question my authority, or else you won't have it at all."
That's her words exactly. So I'm screwed there. Only have to hope some games will run on an integrated card. What a bitch. Won't even let me make any money for myself. Takes it all for herself and has total control over my finances.
1. You won't be able to play anything recent also using it to play video games will use extra resources from your PC itself like the memory.
2. It might emulate very few games(but only if you upgrade the GFX card and probably not any games worthwhile). My PC is a dual core and I have trouble with quite a few games.
3. Yep.
4. Yes you should be able to if not a new GFX card would fix that.
5.There are some good Saturn emulators, I mean the selection of great games isn't large but there are some good ones.
6.I am fairly positive that you can play KoToR with the integrated GFX for the others just check their requirements, if i remember correctly the integrated GFX have Open GL 2.0 Not sure about the others check their req's.
Also to those who recommended newer graphics cards like the 4670/4650 I am pretty sure that PC cannot use PCI-X 2.0.
I received my PC today and am testing games and such out on it now. I've tried the Lego Star Wars games at full settings and highest resolution. They run great with almost no lag whatsoever except some slight lag when the screen gets busy. So far I'm pleased. Gonna try some more demos and emulators just to see how much it can handle. This is a beast of a system to me. Even game installation is 100x faster now thanks to greater RPM on my hard drive. I can also watch HD youtube videos now. Bye bye old shitty PC! XDXD
EDIT- How epic. Donkey Kong 64 now runs full speed at the resolution cranked all the way up. Using Project 64, all filters enabled and framerate set to highest. Amazing.
Thanks! May seem slow to everyone else, but it's fast for me. Just tried out Psychonauts demo and it ran silky smooth on medium graphics and about 20-50fps on highest detail and resolution.
Suffice to say, I'm damn pleased. I doubt I can get too good speeds on PS2 emulation, but anything beneath that will run great! YAY!! ....sorry, my noobiness is showing.
Nice. Pretty fantastic to hear it is running well. I should get a new hard drive, since it is only 40GB and am dying xDD. At least an external would be good too....
I really appreciate all the support everyone gave me on this as well. Full speed N64 emulation FTW! This opened up so many doors for me now! I was missing out on some great games like Star Wars KOTOR, Beyond Good and Evil, and Saturn/Dreamcast emulation.
Got Rayman 2, Sonic Adventure, and Sonic Adventure 2 to boot in nulldc so far. SA1 seems perfect minus a few blocky transparent glitches. The other two are a little slow, but I can fiddle around with settings to get them working pretty well. I had to use 3Danalyze program to emulate hardware transform and lighting. NullDC wouldn't boot games without that for some reason. After that, I get some minor errors here and there, but nothing major. I'm thinking of getting a new gfx card eventually to help DC emulation and some games run better. We'll see. Impressed so far. If DC emulation isn't full speed on my system, I doubt PS2 games will run. I'll try some soon but not now.
Ok, I got the heads up that I may possibly be able to buy a new graphics card to put in my PC. Long story short, I worked my ass of in the yard under the promise that mother would allow me to buy a new PC of my own to mess with. Sadly, she went back on that bargain AFTER I cut the grass due to insufficient funds or something. But she said if she doesn't buy the new PC, she'll let me purchase a new graphics card with my own money. So YAY for that I guess. I have a budget of $50 or less (preferably less XD, but I'll do $50 if I must). I've never added or bought a gfx card before and am clearly a noob in the area. I understand the technical details like pixel shader support, memory, speed, whatever. I just was wondering if anyone could give some advice or recommend any models to me.
Obviously, my biggest concern is my model PC- Dell Optiplex GX280. Is this model actually going to restrict me from adding in some models? It is currently equipped with an Intel Integrated Media Accelerator 900 I believe. I'll need to find instructions to help me learn how to install cards, but I can handle that. I assume that the current integrated card is inside the intel CPU chipset or something. Am I correct in assuming that I don't need to remove any cards before I add one in?
If no one minds, i'll post a GeForce that caught my eye-
EDIT- Apparently this card is not going to work. I might be wrong, but a review said it uses 300watts. My PC's power supply is only 280W I believe. Or am I thinking wrong and that doesn't matter?
Would this card fit in and run properly on my PC without modification such as a new power supply? And the reason I couldn't put in a card before this was mom being paranoid I would mess it up. I wanted to get some reassurance there that they're fairly easy to install without problems. I have added memory before, so I'm pretty careful with my PC's. Thanks for the help. Any advice is appreciated, as well as all the best sub-$50 cards you can suggest to me.
Why I want a gfx card-
Obviously you people can tell me this. My card just isn't sufficient to run Dreamcast games very well among many modern PC games. It's infinitely better than my old Radeon, but I'd rather have a inexpensive dedicated card with modern features without it leeching off my memory and CPU. Currently, some games require hardware transform and lighting which my integrated one doesn't support. I end up having to emulate this feature using 3DAnalyze which causes glitches, improper lighting, and some annoying slowdown. I am satisfied with my PC's regular speed and such, but would like to play some games more comfortably.
One last thing- I don't mind my CPU being a bottleneck here which I know it is. Assuming I ever get a better PC, I could potentially take the gfx card I bought out and install it in the new PC assuming it was better than what the new PC has. And if I can find a sub-$50 card that is really good, that's cool.
Well, I'm probably the last person to offer help, but I will say this, paying less a $100 for a PC with those specs sure sounds like a damned-good deal to me. I don't know. I paid $400 from Circuit City back in 2006 for my desktop. It's a bare-bones machine with a 3.2 Ghz processor and came with only a 120GB hard drive, no monitor. Back then, that was a steal, as far as buying retail goes. Now, I know that's probably no bargain for folks who know how to build their own systems, but for a noob like me, I was happy. Sounds like you're paying $170 total after shipping, and for the spec you listed, it seems like a lot of bang for your buck. You'll obviously have to throw some money into it down the road if you want to make use of it as a gaming system, but perhaps now you'll have a decent starting place to build off of.
That's the only problem with upgrading your graphics card is that you're going to need a new power supply in most cases. Even the ATI 4650 requires a 400 watt power supply.
The card I mentioned earlier (X1300) requires only a 250 watt power supply.
Installation of a graphics card is dead easy. It's the same as installing any other PCI card, except there's a little bit of plastic to help hold the card into place. All you do is unscrew the metal placeholder for the slot, insert the graphics card, and screw the card into the slot.
Here's a simple tutorial. Ignore step 1 though, you shouldn't uninstall the drivers for integrated graphics chipsets. It's for AGP cards, but the process is the same. The only other thing you might have to do is go into the BIOS and set it to use the graphics card rather than the integrated chipset if it doesn't automatically.
I understand. Thanks for the X1300 suggestion as that sounds pretty much what I wanted. I've had trouble finding deals on these below $50 until I tried Ebay and found some skrinkwrapped buy it now new ones. Do you have any suggestions about which memory capacity I should get. I hear they come in 128MB, 256MB, and 512MB in most cases. Will getting more memory cause the power supply to overheat or anything on 250watts? Or is memory not dependent on power supply in this case?
I'm also not QUITE sure if my PC comes with PCI Express slots. I think I read it does, but I'll have to research that. If not, I'll just get regular PCI.
The memory shouldn't change power consumption. Depending on the manufacturer the card may ship overclocked, with a more powerful fan, or passively cooled (no fan). The more memory you have the higher quality textures you can use. 256MB should be fine, but if you see 512MB for a couple of dollars more then you might as well.
Don't spend too much on the card, it shouldn't run you more than $20. Be sure to get a non low-profile model if your PC uses full-size cards. You don't need one new in box, but make sure that it has VGA output. The main reason you'd be getting this card is that you'll be able to use it without any additional spending.
If your computer doesn't come with PCI express, get an AGP card.
PCI Express > AGP > PCI
I'm now 95% sure my Dell comes with PCI Express slot(s). I've also got the largest desktop model, so size of a card shouldn't be much of an issue either. Thanks very much for your advice. I've found some great deals on this X1300 model on Ebay for $20-$30. 128MB models are generally around the $17 area. 256MB models are around $22-$25. But 512MB models are usually more expensive, like around $40. Not sure which memory size I'll get yet, but I've got all the info I needed thanks to you! I appreciate your help! Hopefully I won't have any more questions for now. It's important for me to choose a card with VGA support too since that's my monitor.
Just as long as I can use this card without any freezes or blow outs on my power supply, it's all good.
It should also be noted that my mother is still flip flopping on whether to buy the other PC she promised me (and lied to me about). She REALLY doesn't want me to add a new graphics card to the current working one. She's read horror stories about power supplies exploding, and just general nightmares on PC's being fried. These were obviously from idiots who didn't know about wattage and such, but she won't accept that excuse very easily. Either way, she's won another identical PC to the current one on Ebay and is attempting to force me to raise some money for it. I need just $17 more to make enough to buy it. I'll work my butt off on my job until I've made enough and we'll see if she follows through on it. At any rate, then I can do whatever I want to the PC since it would be my own system. But then I need a new monitor, so sucks to be me I guess. XD Either way, I'm going to have to work my ass off. And she'll probably just end up guilt tripping me into selling the other PC anyways eventually.
The new PC is going to have to happen. My other old Latitude crappy laptop just died a minute ago. Now, I'll be getting another Optiplex identical to this one. I've now only got one working PC, which means only one of us (between mother and myself) can work at once. That won't do, so we're getting a new PC. Now I can add a new gfx card to the new one when we buy it. And I need a cheap monitor, which is no problem in finding I guess. I'm halfway between pleased and sad. XD
hey guys anyone can help me for LOZ : TOTK ? im trying to install theses 60fps file but I don't understand where i'm suppose to paste them. ? anyone kno ?
Speaking of meatballs, what's the deal with meatball sandwich? How can people eat those? It's ROUND. Trying to bite those in a sandwich is a challenge. It's easier to eat a burger stacked with toppings.
@Sonic Angel Knight:
Speaking of meatballs, what's the deal with meatball sandwich? How can people eat those? It's...
