-=PCTechTalk=- Re: former black screen topic
- From: Don <dsw32952@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 10:13:34 -0400
If the old machine is an OLD machine it may not be wise to spend a *lot*
of money on a card. Some points to consider:
1. If the monitor is also old and is the square type versus the
widescreen type an older card such as an nVidia FX5200 will be fine
since you don't need the new widescreen capabilities. (My FX 5200 has
no native widescreen resolutions)
2. The less memory your computer has, the more you should have on your
new card. Up to a point. A 256 or 512MB card will likely be fine
unless you do a lot of intense graphics work or work with more than 3 or
4 windows open and actively working at once.
3. Get a card with a native resolution that matches your monitors
native resolution. For example for a 4:3 screen 800x600 or for a 16:9
screen 1600x900 or 1600x1000. If you have to confifure the video card
to use a custom resolution performance may suffer.
4. As a general rule, the older the computer the harder it should be to
justify spending a lot of money for anything to upgrade, update or
repair it. Computers are like cars.... once you start spending money to
keep the working, the more it makes sense to buy a new one since repair
costs can easily exceed the cost of a new one. $350 in repair or
upgrade costs will be buy a very adequate new one for many home users.
5. Item 4 should be more highly and strongly regarded if the computer
is not at least a Pentium 4 or Athlon operating at 2.0GHz or faster.
Technology is advancing so rapidly and software is becoming so bloated
that anything less will soon become a dinosaur for anything more than
the simplest offline uses. My 6 year old Dell with a 3.0 GHz P-3
processor fails to meet requiremnts for some newer games. The main
weakness is its video card.
cristy wrote:
> Thanks Gman,
>
> Any hints on a decent moderately priced vid card for the old computer?
>
> Christy
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
>> From: Gman <gman.pctt@xxxxxxxxx>
>> Sent: May 13, 2009 11:29 PM
>> To: pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: -=PCTechTalk=- Re: former black screen topic
>>
>> Many OEM systems come equipped with onboard graphics, but they are turned
>> off when a separate card is installed. Now that your separate card is no
>> longer in there, the system will go back to relying on the onboard chip for
>> all graphics tasks. Be aware that the onboard chip is nowhere near as
>> powerful or capable as the now defunct separate card that was removed. This
>> means the system may not be able to handle some of the things you used to be
>> able to do with it such as running many windows &/or programs at the same
>> time, running graphically intensive apps like Photoshop anywhere near as
>> well as it could before, play many modern gaming titles, etc.. You can
>> seriously boost the graphics power of the system without spending an arm & a
>> leg these days, but you'll have to decide for yourself whether it's worth
>> doing that or putting the cash towards the planned new system.
>>
>> Peace,
>> Gman
>>
>
>
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