Maybe a new graphics card?

[BottlesOf]

So I just installed and started playing Half Life 2 yesterday. It kicks an incredible amount of ass, needless to say.

However, I notice that on 1600x1200 resolution, the movement appears sliiightly choppy. Not bad, I could definitely play like that, but when I go to the next lowest setting, it runs perfectly smooth, and doesn't appear to sacrifice graphics clarity.

However, it does raise the question if it would be even cooler at the top res.

My computer is fairly new. 3 or 3.2 GHz processor, a gig of RAM, 160 Gig HD.

My current graphics card is an ATI Radeon. I thiiiink an X300 with 128 MB, but I'd have to check it.



So, do I need a new one? If so, which one should I get? How much? I'm not a hardcore gamer or anything, but I think I may start to play a couple nice games....

[kenberman]

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I thiiiink an X300 with 128 MB

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my understanding is that you prob. need a better card

[BottlesOf]

It may be something with 256, i have to check. Perhaps I posted this prematurely.

You aren't sacraficing too much going from 1600x1200 down to 1280x1024, but of course when there are a lot of sprites and action on the screen at once, you could notice the lower rez starting to lag a little too...

Instead of simply upgrading your video card, you also can consider the followng:

-- Install new video drivers from ATI's website,
-- Make sure you have the latest version of DirectX from Microsoft,
-- Make sure your motherboard's drivers (Via 4-in-1s or Nvidia's NForce chipset pack, etc) are up to date. There are windows drivers that affect AGP timing and such, and if you have mysterious graphical glitches or jerkyness this can be a culprit.
-- Check in your BIOS to make sure your graphics apperature is running at the proper AGP level (4x or 8x) and not running at 2x. Also your AGP Aperature Size in the BIOS should be set to twice the memory available on the graphics card. (128mb card = 256 mb apperature size)

Of course if you aren't interested in doing all this tinkering, or you are rich from your massive poker earnings, you could always just go buy some new-hotness for $700 and not have to worry about it =).

[Neuge]

The X300 is really a terrible gaming card, at least as far as next-gen cards go. It only uses 4 rendering pipelines at a modest clock speed. To give you an idea, top of the line cards have 24 pipelines at 450 MHz and the soon to be released Xbox 360 has 48 pipeline graphics hardware at 500 MHz.

It's better than most cards, but not good enough to run HL2 maxed at 1600x1200. For that you're gonna want at least a GeForce 6600GT, preferably more.

[TheRegulat0r]

Don't get too caught up in the memory sizes on the graphics cards. There are many 128mb cards that beat the pants off of 256mb cards due to other factors.

Some nice cards for your system, all huge upgrades on an x300 would be any of these. It all depends on how much you want to spend.

6600 GT ($200): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814143027

X800 XL ($250)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814125186

6800 GT ($300)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150102

You could get a $500 card, but your CPU (or most any CPU) would probably bottleneck it pretty badly even at 1600x1200, so its a waste of money imo. I'd go with a 6800 GT. Just make sure you get an AGP version, not PCI-E, assuming you're on AGP, which you didn't specify.

[spy587]

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You could get a $500 card, but your CPU (or most any CPU) would probably bottleneck it pretty badly even at 1600x1200, so its a waste of money imo. I'd go with a 6800 GT. Just make sure you get an AGP version, not PCI-E, assuming you're on AGP, which you didn't specify.

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I loved your post until this paragraph. Everything in this paragraph is untrue. In games, the CPU is almost never the bottleneck; however, in today's games you only really need a good $150 Video Card to run at almost top settings.(you still won't play in 2048x1XXX) Also, if your mobo has a PCI Express slot, buy a PCI Express card. They are signifigantly better than AGP. Depending on how much you want to spend, I wouldn't buy a 6800GT. If you are willing to spend $400ish, buy a 7800GT; otherwise, buy a 6600GT or an X800 for slightly under 150.