shawdreamer Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 recently bought a new pc to act as the main hub and internet pc for the houses network (my son has his own pc and Id rather wonder wherever I feel like with my laptop than plonked infront of the pc) problem is the missus just went and bought sims3 for herself and once installed she attempted to play it, it immediatly spat out the fact that the pc doesnt have adequate graphics to cope with Sim3 (namely something it referes to as "shader model 2" not present).Now I bought this pc simply because my old one that was running a (AGP) ATI Radeon 9800Pro Saphire commited hari kari one day and fried the card in the process, didnt see any reason to upgrade the new pc's graphics so left it running with the onboard gear. what Im after is a relatively cheap AGP card to shove in this one that will cover sim3's requirements just so I can shut her up and avoid her nicking off with my laptop every five minutes. suggestions?......possible spares anyones got?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andaba Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 (edited) I got an ATI x1300, 512mb DDR2 ram somewhere, sitting around. But hell knows if it still works. I could test it if you like? Most AGP cards will struggle to run Sims 3, tbh... Edited July 16, 2009 by andaba Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickydicky Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 You bought a new PC did you say? It won't have an AGP slot then mate, PCI-E is what they have these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawdreamer Posted July 16, 2009 Author Share Posted July 16, 2009 (edited) You bought a new PC did you say? It won't have an AGP slot then mate, PCI-E is what they have these days. ah yes well I suppose the term "new" is a bit misleading, its actually a rebuild using one of my old motherboards, P4 2.8gig cpu and running 1.5gig sdram, tis generally designed for a relatively high spec net and general application pc but baring its lack of a decent graphics card (with shader model 2) its more than sufficient to run her Sims3. pretty sure my Radeon 9800 had shader 3.0 and that was a AGP card and coped just fine with even the most taxing games I used Edited July 16, 2009 by shawdreamer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickydicky Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 Na the 9800s were pile of poo mate What's ya budget? Best AGP card out is the 3850 (ATI Radeon). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawdreamer Posted July 16, 2009 Author Share Posted July 16, 2009 Na the 9800s were pile of poo mate What's ya budget? Best AGP card out is the 3850 (ATI Radeon). cosidering Im only doing this due to the fact she just buys things without consulting me first, budget = cheap as bloody possible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickydicky Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 Try ebay then for a 3850/3650 - they are the only ones that will give ya any sort of power fella Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eetaylog Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 Id go nvidia over ATI as they seem to have better support, but then the whole nvidia vs ATI debate is as old as the hills. I have an nvidia 7600+ which has 512mb RAM (id recommend getting as much memory as possible to take some of the workload off your onboard memory), it does everything i need and happily runs HD content. My only criticism is that it doesnt come with hdmi out, which most cards come with as standard now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simonez Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 AGP defo a 7600GT pci-express, now thats another story! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie74 Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 just becareful with the higher lvl agp cards,, as they tend to need power from the power supply unit rather than the mobo,, i have a 7600gt agp that i cant use as the powersupply couldnt cope,, and i wasnt prepared to replace that and then the mobo,, etc,, if you dont get sorted your welcome to it,,, unless ive binned it already Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eetaylog Posted July 17, 2009 Share Posted July 17, 2009 just becareful with the higher lvl agp cards,, as they tend to need power from the power supply unit rather than the mobo,, i have a 7600gt agp that i cant use as the powersupply couldnt cope,, and i wasnt prepared to replace that and then the mobo,, etc,, if you dont get sorted your welcome to it,,, unless ive binned it already its all the same thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawdreamer Posted July 18, 2009 Author Share Posted July 18, 2009 just becareful with the higher lvl agp cards,, as they tend to need power from the power supply unit rather than the mobo,, i have a 7600gt agp that i cant use as the powersupply couldnt cope,, and i wasnt prepared to replace that and then the mobo,, etc,, if you dont get sorted your welcome to it,,, unless ive binned it already do's it have this ever elusive "shader model 2.0" or higher? oh and.... askin price? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LedVenT Posted July 18, 2009 Share Posted July 18, 2009 pm'ed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawdreamer Posted July 19, 2009 Author Share Posted July 19, 2009 riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...... Ive hit a snag. up until moments ago I assumed this towers Psu was a 300w version, Ive just checked and its infact a 250w! now as far as I can tell, most graphics cards worth a crap or capable of running her sims3 (specially in agp format) require a minimum of 300w?? what are my options?? I aint no pc genius thats for sure, I know the basics and that gets me through so..... 1. I cant just go ahead and swap my towers 250w psu for a 300w psu, will it fry my M/board or cause problems??? 2. is it possible to run another psu as a standalone unit specifically to run the graphics card while leaving the 250w running the rest of the system (might be madness to those in-the-know but personally I aint a clue wether the two psu's would directly interact through the graphics card and go "pop") 3. whole new tower (300w/400w), M/board etc?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidrick Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 You can replace your PSU with another suitable unit of a higher wattage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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