Re: Graphics - More Tech Talk - Another PC

On Mon, 6 Oct 2008 06:34:02 -0700 (PDT), Orion Ryder
<orionryder@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

So I have this idjit VISTA PC, nice and shiny but the fps is awful,
manageable, but downright criminal in Shat.

This is the PC.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00679533&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&product=3184140&lang=en#N1255

It has integrated graphics chip. I bought it last year when I popped
my wife's PC into the shop and told the guy at Best Buy I wanted
somethign that would handle WoW. He showed me several machines
including this one. The others had ridiculous prices so I went with
this one. I asked for a PC with XP but I think they had just pulled
them all off the shelves over the last two weeks. I was leary about
getting the integrated chip but the guy said it would handle WoW fine.
He did not mention that I need to stay out of Shat. The other guy next
to him was in awe that my wife played WoW with me.

Geforce 6150 and I can't remember from my Dxdiag if it is NVIDIA,
probably is not.

It has 1 GB of memeory and considering I bought just when VISTA came
out it is likely it is 32 bit VISTA.

So I have options.

1) Add memory and pray this handles it. Since 32 bit Vista will only
handle 2.4 GB I would pretty much be limited with adding 1 GB to brign
it up to 2

Get another 1GB stick of RAM, regardless. It's dirt cheap now, and
will be a huge help to the quality of your gameplay. The jump from 1GB
to 2GB is a MAJOR game improvement on all counts.

2) Pop a new card into it, perhaps the 8800 and pray this does the
trick

It will. Between the RAM and the 8800, you'll kick yourself for not
having upgraded both long ago. Just be sure you find out the total
length of the card beforehand, and measure the space available inside
your case behind the videocard slot. Many proprietary OEM cases don't
have *** for room, so be sure to find out before buying.

and also hope that I am successful at disabling the integrated
chip and ensuring that it reads the card. I did this on antoher PC a
while ago and will ahve to look for my notes on what I had to do.

Easy peasy. Get into BIOS setup, find the video hardware management
section, disable onboard video, save & reboot. About 30 seconds work
:-)

Also
pray that I don't have to buy a more powerful Power Supply.

That could be problematic, but hopefully just the addition of the
video card and a RAM stick won't exceed it's capabilities. You can
find out from HP or your documentation, how much power your currently
configured system uses... then just find out how much the new items
will use and do the math.

3. Do both the card and the memory upgrade and possible the power
supply.

Yes on the first two, I'd find a way to do them both, no matter what.
Power supply only if needed.

I would like to go as cheap as possible and if a memory upgrade would
do the trick I would prefer to do that. Finiances will be tight over
the next year and maybe longer.

The extra memory will improve your game performance by allowing more
of the game data to be loaded into fast RAM for access when needed,
instead of the HD having to provide a lot of it all the time. Your
swapfile will get a huge break, which helps speed up everything your
PC does. But I rather doubt it will turn Shatt into an enjoyable
place, until you add the good video card too. But feel free to test
:-)
.