[Darkknight]

Whats up and merry christmas,
Just a small question, i have a computer with an ATI Radeon Xpress 200 card. And i bought Neverwinter Nights about two weaks ago. I was wondering if this card runs games ok or if i should upgrade. This question was brought up because i noticed that one of my programs calle Pro Engineer, which is a cad program, runs a little slow sometimes.
-Julian

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Are you sure it is a removable video card? I have been building a few new computers using the Intel D101GGCL motherboard that has the ATI Radion Xpress 200 chipset built into the motherboard. It's very nice for a cheap build intel MBcomputer i can sell easily. You can set it for up to 128 MB of shared memory on the intel MB.

Heres how the chipset shapes up compared to thee Nvidia Nforce 4 motherboard chipset.
http://www.digit-lif...fe-chipset.html

Heres the usual Intel MB i use.
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813121309

SRX660

[SRX660]

Are you sure it is a removable video card? I have been building a few new computers using the Intel D101GGCL motherboard that has the ATI Radion Xpress 200 chipset built into the motherboard. It's very nice for a cheap build intel MBcomputer i can sell easily. You can set it for up to 128 MB of shared memory on the intel MB.

Heres how the chipset shapes up compared to thee Nvidia Nforce 4 motherboard chipset.
http://www.digit-lif...fe-chipset.html

Heres the usual Intel MB i use.
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813121309

SRX660

[Darkknight]

I don't think its removable, i was just wondering if i had to upgrade. I'm pretty sure i'm going to have to go with something better because both neverwinter nights 2 and my cad program are running a bit slow. As you can see i'm a bit of a noob when it comes to video cards.

[SRX660]

Ok, your chipset is called on-board video. Since you have toe ATI 200 chipset on the Mb you probably also have a PCI-E 16X video card slot.

Here is a picture of a ATI Xpress 200 motherboard that has a PCI-E card slot. Does your have this kind of slot?

http://www.newegg.co.....erboard - OEM

If it does then you can buy a good video card and install it. At the same time you will disable the on-board video in the BIOS so the computer will use your new video card for the monitor display. You will need to install the drivers for the video card.

Heres a good video card i would use in ATI chipset computer.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814195029

It also may not be your video that is causing the slowdown in a CAD program. Many times it is the amount of memory you have in the computer that causes this. I run 1 gig of memory in all my computers nowadays.

SRX660

[Darkknight]

I'm 90% sure it has the slot. My old computer died so I now have an emachine with 1 Gig of memory and 200 gigs of disk space it duel core pentium d processor. Would installing a new card void my warranty?

[SRX660]

No, installing a video card properly should not void your warranty. It is just a matter of getting into your BIOS, usually by hitting the "Delete" key while the computer is booting up, then navigating to where you can change the video from being on-board to the PCI (AGP) slot. You can navigate around in the BIOS with the "arrow keys" on your keyboard and use the "enter" key to open each section It is not hard to do and just requires you to think about what you are doing. Once you have changed the settings you will exit out of everything, by usually hitting the "Esc" key and the computer will ask you if you want to "Save your settings". You will type in a "Y" (meaning YES)and then exit the BIOS. You may have to hold the ON button IN to turn the computer off as it may try booting back into windows.

Now you will take the side cover screws and cover off and to where you can install the video card you bought into the computer. Heres a tutorial on installing a video card.

http://www.directron...howtovideo.html

Please read it carefully to understand what you are going to do. Ask any questions you want here as no question is a dumb one. Its better to ask beforehand so you will understand what you are doing better when you try to do something.

After you get your video card installed you will button everything back up and restart the computer. You will get a very ugly 16 color video and will then use the cdrom included with the video card to install the video drivers on your computer, then restart the computer again and you will be set with the new video card.

SRX660

[Darkknight]

Thanks man this has really helped, I ordered the Card that you recommended, i just have to wait for it to get here. Once again thanks for the help.

-Julian