Graphic Card Question?

Hi there, Graphic Card, processor and RAM are the most important things when it comes to games, being Graphic Card more important than the others, ofc. By your settings I can see that your computer is really old and you should think of getting a new one. The problem is compatibilities. If you buy a new graphic card(hd 4650 would be more than enough for that game) it won't "fit" in your motherboard, it will need more RAM to run properly, and probably a new processor. These days you can buy "good enough for old games" computers, at least where i come from(Portugal) for 400 euros(561.12 USD). My advice is to get that money together and find an expert, maybe a friend or someone trust worthy that could help you build your own PC. It's always cheaper if you buy the parts and build it yourself ;)

Also, read this article: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/19473-42-cheap... , some of the comments have links that show you cheap gaming computers. Cheers and good luck.

Computers 101:

CPU = Central processing Unit (your computer's processor)

Thus you cannot in any way install a graphics card on your CPU...

Computers 102:

RAM = Random Access Memory (your computer's memory in which temporary programs and instructions are stored and executed). The more (GB) and the fastest (DDR, DDR2, DDR3 - 667 MHz, 800 MHz) your RAM is the faster your computer will be. RAM as well as other types of memory come in multiples of 16 MB (16, 32, 64, 128, 512, 1024 MB = 1GB, 2048 MB = 2 GB, 4096 = 4GB, etc)

Computers 103:

For any gaming, video or DVD playback, pictures and graphics the most important is the graphics card or GPU = Graphics Processing Unit.

Your computer does not have a graphics card, it has integrated graphics (on board - on the motherboard, using your CPU processor and part of your RAM memory). Thus your graphics are low quality and slow, low end. When you say your computer has 504 MB RAM, it actually has 512 MB but 8MB are reserved for integrated graphics.

See how it all makes sense now?

For gaming you need dedicated graphics (an actual card mounted in a slot on your motherboard that has a separate graphics processor and its own memory). They are 3 main types of graphics cards, categorized by the interface (slot) in which they are mounted on the motherboard. PCI, PCIe (express) and AGP. The best, newest fastest cards are the PCIe cards. You can only install a card with a compatible interface that will match your motherboard.

So the first pace will be to find out what type of slots your motherboard has. To do so you can access the manufacturers website and look for the specifications (specs) of your computer and motherboard.

Also a graphics card needs power to run, so your power source has to be big enough to support it.

The better graphics cards are the more expensive they are. Low end cards may cost under $100 while good and very good cards may cost $150 or even $600.

Have we learned enough today?

More next time.

for gaming, graphics card all the way, but you should also consider the ram and cpu.

if its your cpu thats the problem, a new grapfics card won't help much. it would create a bottle neck effect. but usually its just the gpu you need to upgrade, if it's the one that came with your computer.

also check the ram, 2 gb is the min i would go with, but i would recommend at least 4 gb.

you didn't specify, but if its a dedicated gpu or one that came with the mother board, if its one that was intergerated into the motherboard, definitional get a new dedicated one, because it shares ram with your motherboard.

also make sure that you check for dedicated video ram. because you could have 504 mb of video ram, but only 32 mb of that is dedicated for gaming.

because dark orbit isn't a high end video game, an radeon hd 4650 is more than enough.

to install you have to check if you have a pci express 2.0 slot on your mother board. download the drivers from the manufactures website and not from the cd, if you want the best results from your card.

check video tutorials on how to install a new graphics card.

ram and graphic card are both important, upgrading one other the other will improve your computer's speed, but again for gaming make sure you have at least 2gb of ram, and a dedicated video card.

Well I would say the graphics card is more important. If that's the only game your aiming to play with then sure you can buy that. But if you want to play modern games like crysis 2 then I would recommend the ati radeon 5450 for somewhere between 30-60 dollars(google shopping) or a somewhat cheap but near perfect card than go with the nvidia gtx 460 at 100 and something(google shopping). But first buy one that can meet your system specs and I mean check you power supply so it won't burn out your gpu.

you cant download a graphics card... its something you buy and place inside your pc. you can download drivers for graphics card though but this depends which one you have. i cant help more without full details of your pc. it could however be that you have selected a resolution or refresh rate above what your monitor supports. see if in the setup options there is a way you can change to 640x480@60hz, this will display on all monitors.

Try a free solution first: http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

That probably won't help too much. Most of the problem would come from a bottleneck in the cpu/gpu.

Since you said 'online browser fps shooter', I'm assuming it's a flash-based game, and thus is really wasteful with CPU/GPU cycles.

well you do not want to bottleneck the processor. or vice versa tell us what kind of computer you have and the processor and memory