A friend of mine is in open beta with me and is having major issues with game play. Is anyone else running War with a PCI graphics card? If so would you mind telling me the make and model and if you had to do anything special to get it to run properly.

Thanks

What is the card?

Originally posted by celdridge

A friend of mine is in open beta with me and is having major issues with game play. Is anyone else running War with a PCI graphics card? If so would you mind telling me the make and model and if you had to do anything special to get it to run properly.

Thanks

Do you mean an actual PCI card or a PCI express card?  If your friend is still using PCI graphics cards it is time to upgrade as I am pretty sure they are no longer supported.

Now that that is out of the way, we need to know what types of issues your friend is running into.  Freezing, CTDs, poor performance, that sort of thing.

E Gforce FX 5200 with 128MB

He is running Vista with 2GB of Ram if that aslo matters.

Locklain is correct - its time to upgrade, they're no longer supported.  However if its not an option because of his motherboard, etc. then there might not be anything he can do. 

If you could describe the problems hes having (screenshots would help too) I might be able to try and help.

Originally posted by Locklain

Originally posted by celdridge

A friend of mine is in open beta with me and is having major issues with game play. Is anyone else running War with a PCI graphics card? If so would you mind telling me the make and model and if you had to do anything special to get it to run properly.

Thanks

Do you mean an actual PCI card or a PCI express card?  If your friend is still using PCI graphics cards it is time to upgrade as I am pretty sure they are no longer supported.

Now that that is out of the way, we need to know what types of issues your friend is running into.  Freezing, CTDs, poor performance, that sort of thing.

PCI cards are suppored by WAR, albeit they won't perform that well.  Before you tell him to upgrade, ensure that the motherboard will support PCI express or AGP etc.

Freezing and choppy.

Graphics look good and sound is fine.

Originally posted by celdridge

E Gforce FX 5200 with 128MB

He is running Vista with 2GB of Ram if that aslo matters.

Well part of his problem is running Windows Vista with only 2gb of ram.  Ram is pretty cheap these days I would suggest he look in his manual to see what his max amount of ram is and try to get at least 4gb.  Also, that video card is pretty dated but it is a PCI express card.  He could easily upgrade to one of

THESE

and have plenty of power to run WAR.

Edit:  Now I am not sure whether that card is PCI express or not. . .

The vista was a freebie the only running program a freind had when We were repairing it a year ago. But seeing h the system requirements jump up wih vista is pretty disheartning.  It's  a Del Dimensions E310 It's maxed out Ram at 2gigs, 2 slots 1 gig each. any advice is welcomed.

Hmm, he may have to bite the bullet and buy a new PC.  What you could try and do is get a hold of a copy of XP and install it.  That may help with the memory consumption but other then that he is pretty limited.

Ya was thinking that 2, well trying to get a copie of Xp again.

Manufacturer:Dell, Inc. Part Number:DE310HIP General
Type Personal computer Recommended Use Home use Product Form Factor Micro tower Width 7.4 in Depth 17.2 in Height 16.2 in Weight 31.5 lbs Localization English Desktop type Monitor included Processor
Type Intel Pentium 4 521 / 2.8 GHz 64-bit processor Yes Installed Qty 1 Max processors supported 1 Processor main features Hyper-Threading Technology, Intel Execute Disable Bit, Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology Cache Memory
Type L2 cache Installed Size 1 MB Cache Per Processor 1 MB Mainboard
Chipset type Intel 915GV Express Data bus speed 800 MHz RAM
Installed Size 512 MB / 2 GB (max) Technology DDR2 SDRAM Memory speed 400 MHz RAM form factor DIMM 240-pin Environmental Parameters
Min operating temperature 50 ?F Max operating temperature 95 ?F Operating humidity range 20 - 80% Storage Controller
Type 1 x Serial ATA - Integrated Controller interface type Serial ATA-150 Storage controller interface channel qty 2 RAID level RAID 1 Storage Controller (2nd)
Type 1 x IDE - Integrated Storage
Floppy drive type None Hard Drive 1 x 80 GB - Standard - Serial ATA-150 - 7200 rpm Hard Drive (2nd) None Optical Storage
Type CD-RW / DVD-ROM - IDE CD / DVD read speed 48x (CD) / 16x (DVD) Optical Storage (2nd)
Type None Storage Removable
Type None Monitor
Monitor Type DELL E173FP - Flat panel display - TFT active matrix Display (projector) diagonal size 17 in Max Resolution 1280 x 1024 Dot pitch 0.264 mm Response time 16 ms Image brightness 250 cd/m2 Display (projector) image contrast ratio 450:1 Graphics Controller
Type Integrated Graphics Processor / Vendor Intel GMA 900 Video Memory Dynamic Video Memory Technology 3.0 Audio Output
Type Sound card - Integrated Sound output mode Stereo Input Device
Type Mouse, Keyboard Keyboard
Keyboard interface USB Mouse
Mouse technology Ball Mouse interface USB Mouse features Scroll Audio Input
Type None Telecom
Modem Fax / modem - PCI - Plug-in card Max transfer rate 56 Kbps Networking
Networking Network adapter - Integrated Data Link Protocol Ethernet, Fast Ethernet Expansion / Connectivity
Expansion Bays Total (Free) 1 ( 1 ) x Front accessible - 3.5", 2 ( 1 ) x Internal - 3.5" x 1/3H, 2 ( 1 ) x Front accessible - 5.25" x 1/2H Expansion Slots Total (Free) 2 ( 1 ) x Memory - DIMM 240-pin, 1 ( 1 ) x PCI Express x1, 1 ( 0 ) x Processor - LGA775 Socket, 2 ( 1 ) x PCI Interfaces 1 x Headphones - Output - Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm ( 1 in front ), 1 x Audio - Line-out - Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm, 1 x Audio - Line-in - Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm, 6 x Hi-Speed USB - 4 pin USB Type A ( 2 in front ), 1 x Microphone - Input - Mini-phone 3.5 mm, 1 x Network - Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX - RJ-45, 1 x Display / video - VGA - 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15), 1 x Modem - Phone line - RJ-11 Power
Power device type Power supply Voltage Required AC 120/230 V Power provided 230 Watt Operating System / Software
OS Provided Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 OS Certified Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, Microsoft Windows XP Professional Software Adobe Acrobat Reader 6, Corel WordPerfect, CyberLink PowerDVD LE, Symantec PC Restore, Dell Starter Entertainment Pack, AOL (with 6 months membership included), Drivers & Utilities

Proc should be good enoug (cpu) 
Memory max is a bummer but 2gb should be ok, Yep even on vista it should be fine.
However he should have the Recovery cd/dvds from Dell to reinstall XP mce, would boost preformance.

The XPS (its the luxe ) version of this Dell type machine has One PCI-E slot, The lower-end have a AGP slot.

The videocard chould be upgraded.
Best possible for AGP would be the 7950 (geforce) but might be expencive and simply not worth it for this machine. (cost vs gain vs livespan machine)
In that case try a lower end card 7600 or so, Good enoug to run the game whitout huge invest.

If it has the PCI-E go buy a 8600, Should be more then enoug for WAR at  a desent settings and  would be "low cost"
If you go higher end card the power suply needs to be replaced as well.

be aware that its the videocard that realy slows this machine, Vista is taking a huge part of its preformance in the background.

That should do it, Oh yea, He should Have a MCE XP licence on the machine, If not go download a "ilegal" retail copy and use the key when installing, That should leave him whit a legal xp installation.
Download all drivers from the dell suport site and he is ready to go.

goodluck

Edit: Add letters and spaces for the non-english jiberish understanding people

Edit2: this machine came whit several Xp version make sure you download the one you have the licence for.

Originally posted by celdridge

Freezing and choppy.

Graphics look good and sound is fine.

Why the heck did he install Vista in it ?   Not another fool that thinks VISTA has to be better than XP becasue it is newer.

If you like gaming your priorities are decent card , decent processor decent ram and erm learn to build your own pc.

Originally posted by DrDwarf

Originally posted by celdridge

Freezing and choppy.

Graphics look good and sound is fine.

 

Why the heck did he install Vista in it ?   Not another fool that thinks VISTA has to be better than XP becasue it is newer.

 

If you like gaming your priorities are decent card , decent processor decent ram and erm learn to build your own pc.

 

 

 

 

Mate,  he is asking a question and he also said that he dint have anyting else at the time of installing vista.

and this might be new for you but Games do work better if you have a good modern systeem whit vista.
 

older systems however should stay whit Xp. .

point is, stop lecturing people if you do not even read all the post made. It makes you the fool around here.

oh, bevore you say it..yes my english suck..

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Originally posted by Locklain

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Originally posted by celdridge

E Gforce FX 5200 with 128MB
He is running Vista with 2GB of Ram if that aslo matters.

---

Well part of his problem is running Windows Vista with only 2gb of ram.  Ram is pretty cheap these days I would suggest he look in his manual to see what his max amount of ram is and try to get at least 4gb.  Also, that video card is pretty dated but it is a PCI express card.  He could easily upgrade to one of
THESE
and have plenty of power to run WAR.
 
Edit:  Now I am not sure whether that card is PCI express or not. . .

---

I brought a 30 buck Radeon 9550 from TigerDirect and it runs WAR on balanced settings like a Champ. I was blown away by the level of performance that card had when I logged in and later did RvR with it.

The GeForce 5200/5500 FX Cards... I had two 5500 FX cards before this Radeon and they both blew up while playing games. I had to return them, and in the end I am happy because the ATI card is newer than those, actually on the WAR supported cards list, and was 50 bucks cheaper.

Good luck in WAR to the OP.