Help needed with nVidia GeForce 6100

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I just got a new computer, and this is the graphics card that came with it. (nVidia GeForce 6100)
I checked, and it said the memory size of the card was 256mb, and I can't even run World of Warcraft without massive choppiness. And my old computer had some 128mb video card, and WoW ran almost fine. What's up with that? Can anyone help me out?

[ShyguyXPC]

your video is onboard graphics, & uses MUCH MUCH Slower system RAM, add in the fact that the Geforce 6100 chip isn't all that great for gaming, maybe for much older games, & usually better than much of Intels Onboard graphics, but its still pretty bad.

if you can install a Dedicated Video Card, that will improve things quite a bit... even something like a basic Geforce 6200, 7300, or 8400/8500 series card will be better than that onboard video.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

It just makes sense in my mind that a 256mb onboard card would do better than a 128mb card thats not attached. Plus I have double the ram on this new comp. Oh well, thanks for the answer.

[pullmyfoot]

Ram on the card makes no difference. You only need as much as your graphics processor can use. Generally the faster ones need more (or if you are running some ginormous resolution). But sometimes manufactures put more ram onto a card to make it seem better than it really is since most people (like yourself) are misteken (no offence), and think the ram is what makes the card fast.

[ShyguyXPC]

he's right, Huge amounts of RAM make no difference, if the chip isn't fast enough or powerful enough, you can slap 10GB's or RAM on it & it won't make a dang difference.

also the supposed 256MB of onboard is dependent on how much system RAM you have, that 256MB is the MAX you can use.

the only real advantage to large amounts of RAM, is for Frame Buffer, or to store larger amounts of data to be processed, if the chip isn't all that fast, there's no point to the larger amount of RAM, as the data is bottlenecked sitting there...

look at it this way, assume there's only a dozen cars or so on the highway, & can ONLY drive the speed limit, whats the point of turning the 2 Lanes both ways into a 4 Lane one? only reason to increase the Room (amount of RAM), is if the current roadway is saturated with cars, by increasing the amount of lanes, you can increase the amount of cars in one direction passing a given point an hour...

not the best analogy, but its better than nothing...

The faster the card is, then you can benefit from more RAM, since more can be buffered before processing, with out sitting there for an eternity.

even if more RAM did make sense, as I mentioned its using slower System RAM... dedicated video RAM in general Runs FAR faster than System RAM, also the memory bus is wider (this is where the Highway multi lane analogy can come into play), system Memory runs in general on a 64-bit Bus (128-bit if running Dual Channel, though its still 64-bit, just 2 sticks running simultaneously in 128-bit), where as most regular gaming video cards run on a dedicated 128-bit bus at least, most good cards are 256-bit, & some high end ones even higher yet. coupled with the faster clock speeds of the RAM... can really make the difference (really basic Budget cards & most low profile cards run on a Slow 64-bit bus hindering performance greatly, despite many of them stuffed with large amounts of RAM).


by the way, what card were you using before?

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I don't know know much about comps, so thank you guys alot. Looks like I have to go buy that $200 vid card again. At least I have a better processor now. And no offence taken pullmyfoot =). And I also come out of this more educated about computers, so thank you guys for that as well.

[ShyguyXPC]

actually you don't have to spend $200 for a decent vid card upgrade, depending on your gaming needs, you can get away with a $50-100 model, or $150, or IF you want to spend $200 you can do that too...

but depending on what kind of Power Supply you currently have in the system, that may need to be upgraded as well, $50 for a decent PSU, & $50-100 for a good (budget/mid grade) gaming vid card.

[endrien]

A prime example of this is my old 1gb card that could not play world of warcraft on the lowest settings without lag...

[ShyguyXPC]

exactly.

also I should of added, recently at beginning of summer I found out how bad the onboard 6100 is with many games...

long story short, I was previously running an AMD Athlon XP 3000+ Mobile CPU (2.2GHz), 512MB DDR333, & 2x 10GB HDD's (one the boot drive the other a data drive, both were slow old PATA-33 drives), and running an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB card.

my brother was home on leave for 2+ weeks from Iraq, was a surprise & I wanted to get my 2nd PC updated so we could play online some before he went back (never happened thanks to a buddy of his that was around 24/7, & barely gave family time to spend with him )

but I had been collecting parts for almost 9 months to upgrade this 2nd system, & finally buckled down & grabbed some new RAM & HDD... put it all together, & specs were AMD Athlon 64 X2 BE 2400+ (2.3GHz Low Voltage Dual core), 2GB DDR2-800 (4x512MB), 60GB PATA-100 HDD, and a Geforce 6100 Mobo...

as I had it setup, I was using most amount of RAM I could, & could not believe how bad the thing was compared to my 128MB 9700 Pro, it was getting half the frame rates my old card got... even though the GPU was based on the newer Geforce 6xxx series chips, with better feature support than the 1.5 generations older Radeon 9700 series (I say 1.5 because the 9800 series was an incremental upgrade from the 9700 series)... and this was at same settings I had before with the games, when I cranked some older games to max settings, the frame rate lag was even worse...

suffice it to say, I was in a rush to find a replacement card, as I had no extra PCI-Express cards to put into it, luckily I was at Best Buy & grabbed the last Clearanced ATI Radeon HD2600 Pro they had on the shelf ($60 after taxes), though it was overkill with 512MB of RAM, I installed it & DAMN, my performance in those games jumped a good 300-400% at least...

even able to run some "newer" games like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 1 at fully maxed settings & the monitors max resolution of 1024x768 at acceptable framerates, 20-25fps...

needless to say, the card was a hell of a lot faster than the onboard was, even if the card was 256MB instead I would of seen little to no drop in performance of what I'm getting now. and still would of had same performance increase over the onboard.

[pullmyfoot]

You can go get yourself a nice ATI HD4850, which is one of the fastest cards on the market at the moment.. All for below $200. Below $170 actually