I'm looking for someone to help. Video/graphics card question.?

Question

I really don't know what kind of details to give you. I was kind of hoping someone would just e-mail me and help me personally.

I have a HP Pavilion tx1000 with a nVidia GeForce Go 6150 card. I'd like to upgrade my card to something better, something that can simply handle The Sims Castaway Stories (and possibly some other PC games I've had my eye on).

What exactly does this entail, besides possibly spending a bunch of money I probably don't have? This laptop is a year old and it still works like it's brand new. I don't do much on it besides the occasional game.

I saw a graphics card on nVidia for $99. I think it was in the 7 series or something like that.

I'm just looking for someone who knows what they're talking about that can talk with me about this. Cause I don't even know where to start asking my question.

Answer 1

i am sorry your Laptop has on board video and its not possible to upgrade.

You could upgrade the ram if you only have 1GB to 2GB this may make it a bit better as on board ram uses normal memory so if your computer has 1GB the video will use approx 256 MB to run video and only leave 750MB for operating system which is a bit low for XP and Vista

Answer 2

These are the minimal specifications for that game.

OS: Windows XP, Vista

CPU: 1.8 GHz or more

RAM: 512 MB (1 GB for Vista) or more

Disc Drive: 8x or faster DVD-ROM drive

Hard Drive: 2.9 GB (15 GB for Vista) or more free space

Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible

Video: DirectX 9.0c compatible*

Video adapter must have 32 MB of memory (128 MB with Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware for Vista) or more and one of these chipsets: ATI Radeon 7500 or better; Mobility 7500, 8500, 9000 series; Mobility M7, x200 or better; Mobility Fire GL/GL v5200; NVIDIA GeForce 2 or better; GeForce Go 6100 or better; Quadro series; Intel Extreme Graphics 82845, 82865, 915, 945 series, 950 or greater

Go 7900 GS is the card i suggest. I have the desktop variety and it has seved me well for a year already. It has 256mb of memory which isn't great mut it is the core clock and 256bit memory interface that make this an awesome card. It also utilizes ddr3 memory which is quick. I play the most demanding games such as Crysis and Assassin's creed on med-med high. most anthing else i am able to go high or max the setting.

The main thing to look for is at the very least 256mb of dedicated video memory. second ddr3 memory. 3rd a 256bit memory interface Th highr th number in the nvidia series dos not always mean better. My 7900gs is betr han he 8600gs an the 8400 and the 850 because thy ony utiiz a 128bi memory interfacewhih s a "bottleneck" of information to happen.  happen. Like six lanes of traffic trying ti squeeze thru on 2.

don' t let them force you to take a more expensive card because it supports DX 10 and that is the next level of gaming, Well they ar right it is the next level but 95% of games are not DX10 compatible and is not truly mainstream yet. DX9 will be fine with your game and 100s of others. yeah i know Vista is DX 10 friendly but most all of the games out are not. oh and have at least a 3.0 pixel shader capability. to maximze the efficiency of the card u should have at least 2 GIGs of RAM installed which is the amount of memory that the system will have at it's disposal.