I was wondering, I wanted to upgrade my comp a bit, I have friends that seem to drown me of the thought to try Skyrim but my comp isn't up the standards to play it really, ( plus I did like morrowind ) and ideally, I always wanted to try Dark Souls. So here's my ordeal, I went to check out the minimum recommendation from System requirement lab: Can you run it, and it seem under the minimum, my ram was fine of the minimum of of 2.0 ram ( I have 3.8 ram to note ) but the video card which require 512MB dedicated video ram, it only give out 384MB When I check under the recommended, it recommend that the ram should be 4.0, and my video card 1GB of ram ( the Pixel and Vertex shader is fine to note ). So my question is, as a guy on a budget, should I buy and upgrade my video card, or ram? As a additional question, is there a way to to force more dedicated video ram to the video card? If it help, here is my specs: Acer AspireX3400G AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 255 Processor 3.1 GHz Cpu speed 3.8 GB Ram GeForce 9200 video card (If anyone can recommend a good video card and a good price, I would very much appeciated it. )
get a videocard as your pc has onboard video not a seperate videocard. also onboard video are low end versions compared to full blown videocards. what is your budget & what is the output wattage of your power supply?
My limit give or take is $100 - $300, I know their costly, but I don't want to go over the $300, ideally any money saving deal would just be helpful as long as the video card is powerful enough for some major games ^^;;. As for the Output, I may be wrong about this since I'm not 100% sure, but checking inside the comp, the label say "Output continue Power 220W, 80 plus Bronze" There is some additional thing on the label such like: +3.3V & +5V total output not exceed 80W
you will need a bigger wattage powersupply to go with the new videocard, about 500 watts plus. check this link http://www.manualowl.com/m/Acer Computers/Aspire-X3400G/Manual/257846?page=8 to see if this is your computer because if it is then you have problems.
then upgrading your psu is going to be a problem. use these links http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp (don't click on the download icon) & http://www.vbutils.com/power.php to calculate the wattage for a new psu.
ok, I will do so, although it will take me awhile since ideally I don't know how to answer some of the calculations. ^^;;
without seperate videocard "Your power supply rating should be greater than 238.25 watts. I suggest adding 10%, which would be 262.075 watts, for future expansion." http://www.vbutils.com/powercalc.ph...tnSubmit=Let's+Go+-+Calculate+my+power+supply with videocard "Your power supply rating should be greater than 388.25 watts. I suggest adding 10%, which would be 427.075 watts, for future expansion." http://www.vbutils.com/powercalc.ph...tnSubmit=Let's+Go+-+Calculate+my+power+supply
Thank you for the info, I would have been definitely lost on this part for awhile . ^^;; Although I do have a question, how do I know which PSU would be advisable to buy and able to actually fit in my comp? Edit: Err...., scratch that, now that I truly check my comp,A new PSU and probably Video card would be quite big to actually fit in this small computer case, this is becoming quite more complicated then I expected. XD
that is why i use clone computers instead of namebrand computers as you can replace any part in a clone easily compared to some namebrands like yours. you might still be able use your current parts minus the psu in a new case thereby allowing you to upgrade whenever you want. can get a new case with psu for $80+ & still have money leftover for a new video card.
Sounds like a plan that I will have to do if I want this to work for me. Question though, is there any computer case that you might suggest would be good to go for? ( I'm sorry for asking all these question, although I have some knowledge, I only know some minor to basic things of such trivia. ^^;; )
look at the cases but get 1 that has 4x5.25" bays & at least 4+ 3.5" bays. if you have to then take your computer with you to see if the motherboard will fit to the mounting posts of the case.
Thank you very much ddp, I think for now I will take the time to do a bit of research on what component I need and invest a bit more money for the parts, I know it will take some time, but I do look forward to this nifty project.
