14 réponses à ce sujet

[Amethyst Willow]

I have a nvidia GeForce 6200 video card, AGP, 612MB. I was told that this would be ok for playing Dragon Age, but the game is choppy. I have an XP computer, and was told I'd have to have an AGP, and not whatever other kind there is. Do I need something better, or is there something I can do in the card settings?

[RaenImrahl]

Unfortunately, your card is underpowered. It's not fatal, as you can obviously load the game, but you won't have a lot of success at anything but the lowest resolution and graphics settings. A lot also depends on the CPU in your computer-- it's make, the number of cores, and it's operating speed.



As far as what type of graphics card you can run-- it is not limited by Windows XP. XP (or more specifically the Nvidia drivers that run on XP) can support anything out there. What will limit you is the physical configuration of your motherboard. If you have an AGP slot then chances are you don't have the newer, faster PCI-e slot.



So, I suspect, without seeing more specs on your system, that you're trying to run a fairly modern game on a pretty old system. If you provide more system specs, we can try to troubleshoot more-- but I suspect the answer might be the same and not to your liking .



Sorry!



RI

[Moondoggie]

That card is ancient and it's an entry level ancient card made for buisiness not gaming.There are some AGP cards that are capable of running the game. I;m sure Gorath Alpha will check this post out eventually and he might be able to suggest something for you so you are able to play the game. But as the above poster said it depends on your whole set of specs. Sounds like you have an old dusty rig so it may be out of date for playing Dragon Age.

[Gorath Alpha]

Moondoggie wrote...

That card is ancient and it's an entry level ancient card made for buisiness not gaming. ... Sounds like you have an old dusty rig so it may be out of date for playing Dragon Age.

Yes, in fact, when it started out as the very bottom rung part, designed to sell for about $39.95, six years is FOREVER for video graphics.

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/58/index/519461/1#5836577

Amethyst Willow wrote...

I have a nvidia GeForce 6200 video card, AGP, 612MB

Someone
saw you coming and ripped you off.  One of the problems with the 6200
is it's so slow and has such a narrow memory bandwidth that 128 MBs is
all it can handle, so you have wasted money on a lot of unusable RAM
attached to that scam type card you bought. 

. I was told that this would be ok for playing Dragon Age, but the game is choppy.

It is surely MUCH WORSE than merely "choppy".  It isn't "OK" at all.  Someone lied to you.

I
was told I'd have to have an AGP, and not whatever other kind there is.
Do I need something better?

Nothing can be done to make a 6200 into a 6800.  No settings will affect its poor quality.  It must be replaced. 

I haven't verified the situation on AGP video graphics cards' onboard memory.  If it was PCIe, everyone should attempt to buy the HD 4670 card rather than the HD 4650, because in the last few months, none of the HD 4650s for PCIe still have the original GDDR3 RAM on them, all brands having gone to plain DDR.  nVIDIA stopped selling AGP in 2006, with their Geforce 7n00 generation, but there are still a lot of those really atrociously bad FX 5200s for AGP still around.  Stay far away from any of that garbage.

By the exact same token, nothing can ever unmake a notebook with only its onboard Chipset Video chip, such as an HD 4200 or 4250.  It's too slow, too weak, and only Sager (TTBOMK) still makes a laptop that has a removable, replaceable video graphics CARD, although if you buy a Sager with just the Chipset video, it's the same as every other laptop, no video upgrades. 

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 26 janvier 2011 - 12:43 .

[SSV Enterprise]

Whoever told you that a Geforce 6200 was enough to run Dragon Age either had no idea what he was talking about or was lying.  The official minimum is a Geforce 6600, and even that has issues playing the game.

I would recommend you upgrade to a new computer entirely, as the other components of your computer are likely old and weak as well.  But if you don't have enough money for a whole new computer, a graphics card update is possible.  You will indeed need to make sure whatever graphics card you buy uses the AGP interface -- the overwhelming majority of video cards produced today use the PCI-E interface, which is incompatible with AGP.  Here are some options (from the online retailer newegg.com):

Radeon HD 4650

Radeon HD 3650

Note that the first one is faster since it's a year newer (hence the "4000" rather than "3000"), but both would be a major improvement over your piddly Geforce 6200.

Modifié par SSV Enterprise, 26 janvier 2011 - 12:43 .

[Gorath Alpha]

Actually, the "4000" and the "3000" first digit do not necessarily represent any sizable difference in performance, compared to the difference between the "200" part and another card with a "600" in its name. It does happen that in both 2008 and 2009, AMD did have sizable generational improvements across the entire range, but that isn't always a "given".

The important thing happening with generation changes is the feature set is enriched over time, as new things are added that weren't included before.

[SSV Enterprise]

Well yes, I know that, but since the two cards I posted are both "650s", the most notable difference is age, which thanks to Moore's Law means that newer cards are faster.

[E_MacLeod]

I have been thinking about picking up DA for the PC ever since I heard it was nerfed on the consoles... but my computer is fairly low-end.

Can You Run It? says I should be able to play DA on the lower settings... what say you, kind folks?

Specs according to CYRI... ... ...

• AMD Phenom II X4 840T Processor
• CPU Speed 2.9 GHz
• RAM 5.7 GB
• GPU ATI Radeon HD 4200

Modifié par E_MacLeod, 26 janvier 2011 - 05:52 .

[Moondoggie]

E_MacLeod wrote...

I have been thinking about picking up DA for the PC ever since I heard it was nerfed on the consoles... but my computer is fairly low-end.

Can You Run It? says I should be able to play DA on the lower settings... what say you, kind folks?

Specs according to CYRI... ... ...

• AMD Phenom II X4 840T Processor
• CPU Speed 2.9 GHz
• RAM 5.7 GB
• GPU ATI Radeon HD 4200

If you are lucky maybe. It''ll start sure but from what i've seen from people with that notebook intergrated graphics GPU has not been promising (generally crashing at the configuration screen) I always tell people if they want a notebook for work just buy a simple cheap one and use the money you saved to build a proper gaming desktop. There's a lot of places like PC World and Comet selling "gaming notebooks" and they really can't play games effectively. Alienware do some but they are highly expensive and anyone who knows computers avoids Alienware like the plague because they are a ripoff merchant.

Modifié par Moondoggie, 26 janvier 2011 - 11:01 .

[Gorath Alpha]

Gorath had written ..

Moondoggie wrote...

That card is ancient and it's an entrylevel ancient card made for buisiness not gaming. ... Sounds like you have an old dusty rig so it may be out of date for playing Dragon Age.

Yes, in fact, when it started out as the very bottom rung part, designed to sell for about $39.95, six years is FOREVER for video graphics.

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/58/index/519461/1#5836577

Nothing can be done to make a 6200 into a 6800.  No settings will affect its poor quality.  It must be replaced. 

I haven't verified the situation on AGP video graphics cards' onboard memory.  If it was PCIe, everyone should attempt to buy the HD 4670 card rather than the HD 4650, because in the last few months, none of the HD 4650s for PCIe still have the original GDDR3 RAM on them, all brands having gone to plain DDR.  nVIDIA stopped selling AGP in 2006, with their Geforce 7n00 generation, but there are still a lot of those really atrociously bad FX 5200s for AGP still around.  Stay far away from any of that garbage.

By the exact same token, nothing can ever unmake a notebook with only its onboard Chipset Video chip, such as an HD 4200 or 4250.  It's too slow, too weak, and only Sager (TTBOMK) still makes a laptop that has a removable, replaceable video graphics CARD, although if you buy a Sager with just the Chipset video, it's the same as every other laptop, no video upgrades. 

Alienware is now a Dell brand, which hasn't caused a reduction in price, only in quality. If you have the kind of money Alienware costs, get Sager!

Second, SR Labs is just wrong too often to waste time on.  For that kind of automatic thing, if you insist on remaining uncertain what your PC is all about, go to the Game-o-Meter at YouGamers. 

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/58/index/500036/2#5859728

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 28 janvier 2011 - 04:11 .

[Icedfate]

I have ATI radeon 4550 with 1 gigabyte of RAM ..."can you run it" says I am halfway between the minimum and the recommended requirements and I should be able to run the game with this card but I get "failed to detect a supported video card" when I try to launch the game

[Moondoggie]

Icedfate wrote...

I have ATI radeon 4550 with 1 gigabyte of RAM ..."can you run it" says I am halfway between the minimum and the recommended requirements and I should be able to run the game with this card but I get "failed to detect a supported video card" when I try to launch the game

Can you run it? Is not very reliable. 75% of the time they get it completely wrong. http://www.yougamers...meometer/10345/ is a much better bet if you want to work out where your computer stands with certain games.

The card itself is an entry level part and isn't particularly very good for gaming especially with more modern games and you may well be below requirements.

[Icedfate]

actually my card is ATI Radeon HD 4550. dunno if that makes a difference. I know I bought a low end card, I built my comp 6 months ago and I dunno why I went cheap on the most important piece for gaming....

anyway, I figured it out, I just had to update the drivers

[Moondoggie]

HD 4550 is the name of the card there is no non HD one so no it doesn't really make a difference. I think it's easy to make mistakes with cards without real gaming experience it's not always simple to pick the correct part for the job. If you do have problems running games on it i think a HD5670 might be right up your alley. It's a budget part so it's not that expensive and for games like DA:O it delivers pretty decent performence. It's also DX11 enabled so you can use DX11 mode when DA2 comes out. Though it might not perform too good at that but in DX9 and DX10 mode it'll be a great budget part.



Anyways good to see you got the thing working and i hope you enjoy your game. ^^

[Gorath Alpha]

Icedfate wrote...

actually my card is ATI Radeon HD 4550. dunno if that makes a difference. I know I bought a low end card, I built my comp 6 months ago and I dunno why I went cheap on the most important piece for gaming....
anyway, I figured it out, I just had to update the drivers

One comment with the same information added to a relatively current message thread was enough:

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/58/index/500036/2#5859728

As to the game's configuration utility picking any quality settings other than "Low" for a 4350 / 4550, then it is also broken.

With the screen resolution set to Low, and the image quality settings also Low, the card may not be bogging down constantly, which is what should be expected from Low End video.  The value is very poor at that end of the spectrum, still costing close to as much as a Mainline card, while having less than half of the performance (HD 4550 vs. the HD 4670 when both were new, two years ago). 

The gap between the year-old HD 5450 and the HD 5670 is a lot more than just DOUBLED performance, and there is a budget / borderline card named the HD 5570 that effectively replaced the HD 4670, and ranks between the 5450 and 5670. 

www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php

Because of delays at the two foundries AMD uses for both CPUs and GPUs, as well as their new APUs**, the replacements for the HD 5450, 5570, and 5670 are all delayed.  Only the HD 5830, 5850, and 5870 have been replaced so far, by the HD 6n00 versions. 

www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php

** AMD's Fusion APUs have caught my attention as the most promising solution to a problem that I see in Gamers' tech forums such as this one all of the time.  Various mobile types of computing devices are the ones with the special cachet lately.  Laptops have the right high status, while the much more useful desktops are frowned down upon, erroneously. 

Constant new arrivals in the game forums complain that their "brand new" PCs won't play the games, and we find it's because they did not pay attention to System Requirements, having decided that "Newness" was what counted, rather than quality.  A smaller proportion of laptops than 5% of the total are being sold with game-capable graphics in them, and the percentage has been falling for many years. 

AMD is combining multi-core CPUs with two levels of totally integrated graphics.  The basic Fusion APUs will have the equivalent of their least powerful discrete graphics card, the HD 5450, which has been way out in front of both Intel and nVIDIA's onboard Chipset video chips.  The latest Intel processor generation, Sandy Bridge, also has integrated video, although it's only the usual choices of Very Low Quality versus Ordinary Low Quality (there are two versions).  They can match the bottom-most HD 5450 cards for raw core speed now, with the better of the two video additions. 

They cannot match the low current drain afforded by the base Fusion APU designs, so laptops with AMD's processors should have superior battery operating life.  Fusion also offers a higher level graphics in selected Fusion processors, although I don't believe the NDAs have expired on any engineering samples of those sent out for review / preview.  The announcements from AMD claimed that at least the HD 5570 card's performance was involved.

Gorath

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 31 janvier 2011 - 04:33 .