[Samm]

Nice work Audioboy

That card looks fine. My only concern was that theres no reviews for it on newegg but the Jaton 32MB model with the identical chipset, has got good reviews - all from people with older systems, which is encouraging.

Also, as you pointed out, the motherboard manufacturers appear to have been in cahoots with nVidia when it came to the video testing, so I guess nVidia chipset would probably be the best one to go for.

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I noticed that card is 64mb. Do you think they do it in 128mb? It's just that a friend of mine was saying that 64mb is quite a low spec now for a graphics card and reccommended I go for 128mb.

[dogbiscuit]

I noticed that card is 64mb. Do you think they do it in 128mb? It's just that a friend of mine was saying that 64mb is quite a low spec now for a graphics card and reccommended I go for 128mb.

[audioboy]

how much graphics memory was on your original card? I think you said it had 32. check the specs on your fifa game, I think it wanted 64 megs.

there are plenty of PCI cards available with 128 megs onboard ram, if you scan to the later pages in the list link I provided. potential problem is the chipset starts being newer on those cards. in theory it shouldnt matter, but in theory your AGP card should have worked too!

if you want to start looking at a card to do higher end graphics, I would lean toward a new mobo- which essentially means a whole new system for you.
given that you have an AGP card, you could build a newer system with decent specs for $500-600 US. just something to think about.

[dogbiscuit]

Ok.. I thought about it. The 64mb card it is then!

[dogbiscuit]

I've have tried to find that card on a brittish site so that I can buy it but I can't find an exact match. Here is a link to the site I normally buy from.
http://www.ebuyer.co...rice&show=stock

I think I might have found something almost the same. I don't suppose you could do me a huge favour and just have a wee look at it to let me know if this is the right thing I'm looking at. It's the top 2 I'm checking out. Are they the same card but just different manufacturer?
Also I found 3 on ebay.

http://search.ebay.c...QfsopZ1QQfsooZ1

Your help is very much appreciated

[Samm]

The ebuyer ones look OK, but see what audioboy reckons.
Ebay is a bit more unpredictable in terms of accurate info re. the card specs etc. Theres also no guarantee the card won't be faulty, so make sure you pick someone with a good rating if you decide to buy from there.

Personally, although Ebuyer is a great site & I use it a lot myself, there RMA & support services are pretty bad, like a lot of sites I guess. They have no contact phone number any more, if I remember correctly, and even when they did, you had to queue for ages to get through.

This is normally only an issue if a product is DOA but in your case, you may need to return it, simply because it doesn't work in your system. This can be a problem with these sites as they will charge you an administration fee as well as the return postage etc.

If you can, I recommend buying one from a local computer store. At least this way, you should be able to swap it easily for a different one, if theres a problem. You also have the advantage of being able to talk to the vendor in person - if they say the card will work, you have a much better chance of a refund or exchange if it doesn't.

If local supplier isn't an option, then ebuyer is as good as any. You will just have to hope the card is OK & if it isn't, sell it on. Not worth returning an item of this price as you will lose too much in postage costs & fees & have to wait for upto 30 days to receive the refund/replacement.

[audioboy]

you have got to love the voice of experience with that!
I would also suggest local store if possible, just like samm said, returns are easier, and sales guy should help confirm card will be ok.

the inno card on ebuyer looks the most compatible.
the third card on ebay, from the picture of the card looks to be AGP.
the other 2 ebay cards would likely be ok. the first one might be worth trying out if you can get it really cheap. I get the feeling its a working card, but if its cheap enuf (and fails), your only out a few quid.
(quid, right? I still get a little confused on the british monetary terms. not looking to start anything! )

the seller on the first card posted a link to nvidia, which would be a good place to check specifics of a card.

[dogbiscuit]

Ok dudes, I have bought the Inno card off ebuyer. Unfortunately this town is very crap for shopping so getting a card from a shop isn't really possible for me, although I agree that it would have been a good plan. So I will just have to keep my fingers, toes and.. well cross everything in the hope it will be ok. Thank you both lots for helping me choose another card. And yes Audioboy, it is quid.
After all we've been through together I would feel more comfortable calling you 'audio' now!

[audioboy]

by all means dog!
friendly types will usually shorten it down, and im cool with that.
I was hopin I had used quid correctly, figured its your slang for pound, like we call a dollar a buck.
definitely let us know how it works!

oh yeah, when you get the card, remember to go back into BIOS and re-enable the primary graphics adaptor to PCI.

[dogbiscuit]

[dogbiscuit]

The new card did the trick! I got it the other day and it seems to work fine. Fifa works without all those graphic glitches (hoorah!) and my other games are also working now. Thanks for all your kind help Audio and Samm.
Can I interest either of you in a graphics card?!!

[audioboy]

I am so happy to hear its working! it took a while, but we finally got it sorted. this is one of the longest threads Ive been involved in, and really wanted to have it come out well.

dog, thanx for hanging in there as we went thru every possible setting check and fix there was. really do appreciate it when someone keeps at it, and doesnt give up. you didnt even get cranky on us when we went off on the language tangent- cheers!

as for the AGP card, ebay it have a friend do it if you dont ebay, or maybe a used computer shop...

let us know if you need anything dog, as you can see, we like to help!

[Samm]

Nice one Dog! We got there in the end. Like Audioboy said, if you ever need any advice with anything else, just let us know.

[dogbiscuit]

Cool. Well I was thinking about maybe getting more RAM. Fifa is definately playable now but I reckon if I was to get more RAM it might run even more smoothly. Occasionally it's a little jerky, but not much. It says 128mb RAM is the minimum requirement. I have 256. I think having more RAM would benefit me also as I do a lot of sound recording on my pc which uses a lot of resources.
Is getting more RAM as straight forward as it looks? Do I just buy a chip and slot it in next to the RAM thats already there? Whats a good amount of RAM to have and how much should I pay?

[audioboy]

lol, youve got the upgrade bug.
yes, more ram good. more ram very good. more ram =cheapest and most effective upgrade!
your running XP, which takes up 128 of ram by itself. going to 512 will help quite a bit. if you can go higher than that, great.

samm, you wonderful, helpful, hopefully-not-still-plotting-your-revenge-on-me, kind, person you...you have the book for his board, what ram does it take?