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Ye olde style PCI slots

Discussion in 'PC hardware help' started by kiwi1, Oct 6, 2006.

  1. kiwi1

    kiwi1 Regular member

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    Hi all, one of my pc's is quite old and has a nvidia geforce 64mb vid card, It plays the particular game I want to play but compared to my other comps it can get a bit choppy. Ive tried and tried to find a more powerful card but I cant seem to find anything to fit the old style PCI slots.
    I was wondering if overclocking the cpu would help with the graphics at all? Its an AMD Athlon xp 1700+
     
  2. s3a

    s3a Guest

    I'm not familiar with old cards but can't you overclock the gfx card itself? Apparently you get a 5-10% peformance increase if you overclock it to it's max! However, if you do this, I recommend you buy at least one fan ($5-$20 CAD). I am not sure but, I think that if you overclock your graphic card, your cpu is also overclocked automatically. Someone clear this up plz. PCI is old, Im not even sure you can overclock. I don't think I was even born in the PCI graphic cards era..lol
     
  3. marsey99

    marsey99 Regular member

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    first up make sure he drivers are the latest available for you card (forceware 91.47 i think)

    http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

    unistall the old driver and delete all remaining files on c drive relating to it (usaly called nvidia) restart and install new one, then click

    http://oc3dmark.octeams.com/tip02.html

    and follow the instructions to open coolbits in your nvidia driver thru the regedit. then use the forceware to find the optimal setting for your card and it will oc itself. then see how it runs it should make it run a bit better.
     
  4. kiwi1

    kiwi1 Regular member

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    Hey thanks guys, I did a complete format about a month ago and had allready dl that driver but I had no idea about the coolbits programme hidden inside, I think that could be the ideal solution.
    Thanks again for the info.
     
  5. satvik

    satvik Member

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    What game is this, may I ask?

    Oh right, the question =]. Clear solution: Get a new comp :p. Or you can turn down the settings or try overclocking the GPU, like someone said (youll only get a very tiny increase in performance, barely recognisable). Maybe at ebay, a hobo might be selling a better PCI graphic card, who knows?

    Good Luck
     
  6. kiwi1

    kiwi1 Regular member

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    lol@satvik
    The game in question is DFX from Novalogic, I allready brought a new machine but usually my other half wont get off of it when I want to play so I have to fire up the old beast and push it to its limits, It meats the minimum requirements and everything is set to low, just gets a bit choppy when I encounter alot of tree's or water.
    Anyway... Yes your right, I've overclocked it and havent noticed much difference, it does run a bit smoother than usual but still has the prob with tree's and water. Guess I'll have to make do for now and keep an eye out for hobo's on ebay :)
     
  7. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    could get the ati radeon 9250 with 128/256 meg of ram. have a couple of custumers with p4-2.5 to 3.0ghz with only onboard video & pci slots. both went to the 9250 card.
     
  8. s3a

    s3a Guest

    Aren't PCI gfx cards sooo old? I mean this in a positive way, can't you sell them for more since they are antique's or are they not that old...yet?
     
  9. lecsiy

    lecsiy Regular member

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    Not quite yet.. If they were i got a million sitting in my garage!
     
  10. kiwi1

    kiwi1 Regular member

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    Hey thanks ddp, I found a supplier locally but before I buy, is it worth getting 256MB for a higher price? I was told I wouldnt see any diference between 128MB and 256MB because PCI has such a low bandwidth, is this correct?
     
  11. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    depends on the card's gpu speed. are the 2 cards the same except for ram or totally different makes?
     
  12. kiwi1

    kiwi1 Regular member

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    They are both different.
    Powercolor Radeon 9250 128MB PCI

    ATi Radeon 9250 GPU
    Core Clock: 240MHz
    128M 64-bit DDR
    Memory Clock: 400MHz (200MHz x 2)
    Connectors: VGA + DVI-I + S-Video Out
    PCI Bus
    -----------------------
    ATI RADEON 9250 256 MB PCI Video Upgrade Card

    Product Description
    The ATI 9250 Radeon 256MB PCI Video Card offers the perfect balance of advanced graphics and enhanced multimedia. Enjoy superior image quality when gaming, or viewing digital photos or streaming video. The onboard support for single and multi-display lets you enjoy graphics on a VGA monitor, flat-panel display or TV screen. It's the stable and reliable graphics card you've been looking for. Lossless Z-Buffer compression and Fast Z-Buffer Clear, reducing memory bandwidth by up to 25% Advanced vertex shader support, with DirectX 8.1 FULLSTREAM hardware for accelerated de-blocking of Internet video streams 8-bit alpha blending and video keying, for effective overlay of video and graphics CATALYST driver software suite for more reliable and stable performance Image enhancement features for Direct3D and OpenGL applications Complete support for OpenGL extensions Dual integrated display controllers (drive two displays separately) 400 MHz dual integrated DACs with 10-bit per channel palette Integrated TV Out support, up to 1024 x 768 resolution DVI compliant 165MHz TMDS transfer Connector - 15-pin VGA port Operating Systems - Windows XP, 2000, Me, 98SE

    Which one would be best? were talking $50nz diference between the two, thats around $30us
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2006

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