What video card?

bertietheblue

Hi, I was wondering if someone could help advise. I've just bought Sims 3 for my son's birthday and it doesn't work on the PC. The message I get is "Your video card does not appear to support at least Shade Model 2.0. Please ugrade your card."

I have 2 questions: how do I find out what my current card is (I believe there are different standards - PCI, PCIe, APG - so I need to know which one mine is, no?) and how do I decide which one to get? The minimum requirements seem for Windows XP with SP2 seem to be 128mb video card, GEForce FX5900 or Radeon 9500. Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers
Bertie

Psychofly

What PC do you have ? Is it a branded one with a specific model number ? That would help us determine which type you need. You can get some pretty good deals on graphics cards these days but it all depends on what you'd call a good deal. How much are you happy to spend ? How old is the PC ? Do you know the general PC specs ?

savemoney

You need to know what the pc can take obviously pci/agp/pcie

Its not always that easy it complicates matters as some of the newer cards but not all require a 350w+ power supply and need a direct fed from psu rather than from the pcie slot. You can get them but just bare that in mind

If you dont knwo what you are doing my advice is go to a local computer shop and let them do it you many pay a bit more but you dont run the risk of getting wrong card

My daughter got a new pc the other week its a small form factor case and it came with a pcie graphics card (low profile smaller than normal pcie card) it doesnt cut it will sims 3 it works but its slow so I am looking for a low profile card that works on a 300w psu. You can get them just want the best for what she can get

If you download this I believe it tells you what motherboard/graphics lot you need

http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/

Its not easy getting best card for buck as there are so many different types and chips/ram its very difficult comparing like for like

AceRider

Download GPU-Z
( I use this link http://www.brothersoft.com/gpu-z-67205.html)
It is a freeware program that will tell you all about your graphic card, including what shader version your card can handle and what Interface it uses (ie PCI-e, PCI, AGP etc)

bertietheblue

Thanks for the quick reply Psychofly!

MY PC is a Dell Dimension 2400 Series
OS: XP HOme Edition with Service Pack 2 installed
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.80 GHz
CPU speed: 2.79 GHz
System RAM: 510 MB (though have ordered an extra gig)
Video card: Intel(R) 82845G Graphics Controller
Video RAM: 57.7 MB

Finally learnt what the video card is above by doing a check on the Sims (EA Games) website but no idea what standard it is or what to upgrade to. It also says on the website that my CPU doesn't meet requirements, but that I don't get. Its reading for my CPU is:

Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz

and its requirements seem to be less than this:

(XP) 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent; (Vista) 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent [If built-in graphics chipsets then 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent.]

savemoney

We had a dell dimension 3000 and it would only take a pci card mind you it was a slower Intel processor

The Dell psu I believe are custom made so you cant even upgrade them for a better pcie card

Jaffa.

By the looks of this, your computer does not have a PCIe slot

savemoney

Help me upgrade the video on my Dell Dimension 2400.

I dont think a pci card will cut it for sims 3, sorry. They are hard to get now and very few cards around and I had trouble getting one 3 years ago let alone now


http://ask.metafilter.com/43104/Help-me-upgrade-the-video-on-my-Dell-Dimension-2400

EDIT posted same link as Jaffa

carlr

Looks like your graphic card is integrated and I think that it can't be changed. If I'm wrong, then you can buy ATI 3870 card - good price and great performances.

Knub

The situation is this:

You have an onboard (built onto the motherboard) Video card (Intel(R) 82845G Graphics Controller) - they are often very basic and will display windows related activity and VERY basic games (if you are lucky).

You need to now find out what slots you have available in your PC (open it up or check manual). You need to find out if you have an AGP slot on your motherboard (usually brown iirc) or a PCI-E slot (usually blue and a bit longer).

Depending on which of these you have will assist you/us in picking the correct video card to buy!


Edit:- Update from reading above. It looks like your motherboard is really old and I'm guessing that DELL is getting on now a bit...

You will need to find a graphics card that is PCI.

Depends on how far you want to go with it, doing it yourself is easy but may require a little bit of knowledge/experience - OR - you can take it to a PC shop/repair guy and ask him to do it.

I would suggest purchasing the card first and then asking someone to do it (if you are not savvy with this kind of thing).

savemoney

It can but only pci I did it on a Dimension 3000 next model up you have to disable something in bios to set for pci than intregrated chipset.

TBH it even struggled with sims 2 with a Nvidia fx5200 card I believe it had

My daughter has a pcie ATI 3400 and it struggles with sims 3

carlr wrote: »

Looks like your graphic card is integrated and I think that it can't be changed. If I'm wrong, then you can buy ATI 3870 card - good price and great performances.

EDIT even agp cards are hard to get hold off. I think you need a new pc, problem with Dells and the like is they are hard to upgrade