PCI Graphics Card.

[Zingba]

I'm heading out tommorow to buy a PCI graphics card, with the main purpous of playing games, although unfortunatly I have heard that PCI are not very good at playing games and all. So I just had two questions:
1. Do you feel that having a PCI slot will hinder my game enough to make it un-enjoyable.
and
2. What would be the best PCI card to buy for gaming, I relise their may be a few opinions on this, but any will do .
Thanks.

[GroundZero3]

1. do you have an AGP slot?

2. What are your system specs?

3. What games are you interested in playing?

[Zingba]

No, I do not have an AGP slot, I run XP, 2.8Ghz and 248mb ram. I was thinking along the Battlefield 2 sort of lines, although I do feel this would be pushing it for a PCI.

[vikeor]

u wont run BF2 or any newer games on a PCI gfx card...

[LaptopExtreme]

PCI's, think you can still find some ATI 9500's and NVidia 5500 (maybe some 5700) cards around. RAM ranging from 64 - 256mb.

[Zingba]

I seen a PCI 6200, is a 6200 any good?

[vikeor]

I seen a PCI 6200, is a 6200 any good?

thats probably PCI-Express... unless there is a 6200 on PCI which i know not of

[Zingba]

I might have made a mistake but check here:
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/sto...ory_oid=-25014

[Zingba]

Actually, I am a bit confused, there is a lot of strange stuff going on in my computer. I was just reading the manual and noticed that fact that there should be a AGP graphics card inside it, but I have opened it up on several occasions and have found what I beleive to be a PCI (white and rather small) and have yet to find any AGP slot, I took a wild guess that the two slots would have been placed beside each other(the AGP and PCI I mean). A bit confused

Quote from my manual:
"A.G.P. (Accelerated Graphics Port)
High Performance Acceloration
ACPI Power Management"

[vikeor]

hmm.. i guess there is a PCI version of the 6200 unless the site is wrong...

AGP slots are usually brown and placed closest to the CPU socket

[Zingba]

The site is of one of the biggest selling stores in U.K, but I suppose that that in no way means it is correct.

CPU Socket....CPU Socket....hmm. I'll open her up again later.

[Zingba]

Just before I open her up again, has anyone got any other advice that I could carry into the battlefield, positioning of the AGP in a little more detail and so on..

[EXreaction]

Well, with the best PCI graphics card you can get(I think it is the FX 5700 LE...don't know about that 6200) you still would have a problem playing BF2...248Mb of ram will be enough...for BF2 you need 1.5Gb for smooth playing...I would say that 512 or 768 would be the minimum...

But ya, find out if you have a AGP slot for sure first.

EDIT: The top slot in this pic is an AGP slot...
http://koti.mbnet.fi/talggari/Harras...ohjaimelle.jpg

The closest to the CPU, and it is set further back from the rear panel than the PCI slots are.

[LaptopExtreme]

Im pretty sure the site is wrong. The 6200 was only AGP or PCIe. Most of these major etailers just copy and paste their specs without looking. It’s normal if they get the specs wrong.

[Zingba]

I'm just about to open her up, but that was another thing, how can I upgrade my RAM, is it a basic buying and installation process?

Edit : Also yeh, LaptopExtreme you are correct, I simply enlarged the image and it instantly said on the front in bold writing "AGP X8".

Another Edit : Yeh, you see that is where I have looked only to find a small white slot, yet it says in the manual that there is a graphics card in an AGP slot, I have neither found the slot or graphics card.

[sm8000]

I'm almost positive there IS a PCI 6200, I'll go looking for it. In the meantime, there are GeForce 5700 and 5500 solutions, and the fastest PCI Radeon was the Xtasy 9100, made by VisionTek. There are 9200 and 9250 PCI cards, but they are slower.

[Zingba]

Thanks for looking, I'll just open it up and give it a REALLY good look for this "so called" graphics card and AGP slot.

[sm8000]

I'm just about to open her up, but that was another thing, how can I upgrade my RAM, is it a basic buying and installation process?

Edit : Also yeh, LaptopExtreme you are correct, I simply enlarged the image and it instantly said on the front in bold writing "AGP X8".

Another Edit : Yeh, you see that is where I have looked only to find a small white slot, yet it says in the manual that there is a graphics card in an AGP slot, I have neither found the slot or graphics card.

Note: Image may not represent actual product Click on that link and look under specifications: "PCI Interface"

http://www.chumbo.com/Info.aspx?id=304966

From what I gather, the 5700 seems to only have 64-bit memory, while the 5500 has 128. But it may be worth it to get the 3DFR55256P (the 6200).

EDIT: That should be the 3DFR6200P.

[Zingba]

I have opened her up and looked to no avail, I persist in the fact that it does say in my manual that I have an AGP slot and graphics card installed yet I have looked everywhere and it does not appear to be there.

[sm8000]

Any onboard or integrated video is usually AGP, so it may have meant that. What kind of board do you have? Do you know the brand and model?