1GB PCI Graphics card slower than 256MB Card

[wiskic10_4]

He AO,

I know this is a comp sec forum (or was at one time ) - but I need a little advice:

So my stepdad has an old Sony Vaio PCV-RS410(UC). It's got a 2.6GHz Pentium 4 (single core), and I've added 1GB RAM. I also slapped a 256MB GeForce FX 5500 PCI card I had in it.

He plays a lot of Microsoft Flight Simulator X (FSX), and the card does alright for the game, but he can't play it on the highest detailed settings - so, like, he can't land a helicopter on the Empire State Building, stuff like that...

I thought I'd get him a better card for an early Christmas after I found that NewEgg still sells PCI video cards - I bought him a VGA JATON|VIDEO-498PCI-TWIN 9400GT 1GB PCI video card.

I got it installed, and the thing runs worse than the 256MB card! I tried different drivers (from the CD, from nVidia and from the Jaton website), updating DirectX, playing with the nVidia panel settings - but nothing - graphics are just slooow!!! And sometimes leaves little short horizontal lines on the screen

But the PSU I had was only 180W (I thought it was a 430W - I work on lots of computers and get mixed-up sometimes :P) - So I went out and dropped $60 on a CoolerMax 500W PSU, thinking maybe it just wasn't getting enough power... but meh - no difference...

So what do you guys think? Should I RMA the card, and just wait until I have $200 to upgrade to a better mobo and CPU and get a PCIe card? Or do you think the card is just defective, and I should try another one? I'm $140 into this thing, and the game runs worse than it did when I set out to "do something nice"...

That's what happens I guess...

Anyway, thanks for anyone who actually read through all this mess. I really appreciate any feedback I could get on the matter. (or maybe just a "tl;dr" :P)

Thanks guys!

[HYBR|D]

Can you get more spec's on this system? Also out of curiosity did you happen to try uninstalling the flight sim, then doing a clean re-install so you would then need to reconfigure the graphics settings within the game.

[nihil]

Hi wiskic10-4,

That is a pretty weird PC! It has a P4 2.6GHz processor and supports DDR, yet doesn't have an AGP slot?................and only 1GB of RAM???

I have just had a look upstairs and the only machines I have that are PCI only (or PCI and ISA!) are Pentium I/133, Pentium I/150 and Pentium II/266 (OK I am ignoring the x86 boxes ). And they all use 72-pin EDO RAM!.

Even my IBM Deskpro PIII/533 has an AGP graphics slot and supports 512MB of PC133 SDR (Windows NT 4.0 era)

A quick Google suggests that the FX5500 is more commonly an AGP card and the 9400GT is PCI-E, so I don't think that a PCI connection is actually "native" to the architecture.

Also the old PCI connection is the slowest at 33MHz I believe?

Actually, I am not really surprised that the FX5500 is faster, as I do recall people complaining back in the day that they had bought a 256MB or 512MB card and it was slower. I am afraid I cannot remember why, but large amounts of video RAM don't seem as useful in gaming as they might be in CAD or graphics manipulation.

Basically, what you have there is NOT a gaming machine, and I wouldn't rate either of those cards as "gaming" kit either.

Time to move on my friend

[IKnowNot]

nihil not surprising there is no AGP slot, the AGP is built-in for the integrated video thus not available for external cards.

How did you install it?
The choice of PCI slot is important. The board has three PCI slots, how many are used? PCI slots are usually shared, one shared with the onboard VGA, which is the one you want to use.
If you have devices, such the modem, which are not being used I would take them out and remove the drivers for them.
Your manual should tell you which PCI slot to use for the video, but should be one most inboard, closest to the processor ( maybe )


With something like this you have to make sure ALL the previous drivers are removed from the system.
I normally would:
remove all video drivers from device manager
restart, reset integrated video in bios
shut down machine, remove old add-in card
restart in VGA mode ( do not let it install drivers for video )
look for ghost devices still lingering and remove them
see this link, finding hidden devices
( do this as administrator, and don't forget to check "Show hidden devices" after you open the device manager from the command prompt )
Also, remove the old integrated video driver and AGP drivers!
note: you can also use third party software, such as Driver Sweeper
but afterwards I would restart and use above method to make sure they were gone )

Shut down and install the new video card.
restart, go into bios and turn off integrated video
( don't forget to move the video cable! )

restart, then install the new drivers. check with System Information and see if there are any conflicts with the new drivers.

Also check to make sure the monitor is properly configured and you are using modes which it supports!

One last thing, you say you upgraded DirectX. XP only supports DirectX 9, which is what the game calls for. Unless you want to try out hacked versions of 10 I would make sure the latest version of 9 is installed.

If that doesn't work, well, ....

[wiskic10_4]

HYBR|D - No, I didn't reinstall the game - but the performance lag is noticeable in other areas of the system too - sometimes there are small horizontal lines on the desktop after boot up or changing resolution. The graphics stress-test (FurMark) proggie I use also runs slower than the 256 card... I tried all the different settings in the game - low to high - it's even choppy on the lowest settings...

nihil - There's a place on the board for an AGP port to be soldered on, but it was not included in this particular setup. I agree - it's time to move on.

IKnowNot - I tried everything that you suggested with the exception of looking for "hidden devices" - but I stayed up until 1am pissing with it to no avail - I've been working on computers for fifteen years, so I know the procedure for properly installing a video card and the usual complications. It is installed fine, and functioning without conflicts or freezing or hanging up - it's just slooow at rendering 3D effects - on any setting. After exhausting every option I could think of or read about, I'm 98% sure it is a hardware issue. I could put it in another computer with better specs just to be sure, but personally, I'm tired of ****ing with it.

I've decided that either (a) the card is defective or (b) the card sucks. Either way, it is going back to NewEgg for credit and the PSU is going back to Altex for cash. I'll just have to build him a new 'puter somewhere down the line, but not before Xmas.

Thank you everyone for your feedback!

[IKnowNot]

Yea, sorry, don't mean to offend: I try not to assume too much when I post, especially since others read it.

But when you get a chance you might want to experiment with that part about finding ghost devices if you never have. You would be surprised how much junk builds up in a system over time.

[romanticcowboy]

2 years ago i got a pny card with a nvidea chipset , it had 1gb of ram it had its on cpu onboard and claimed to be caplible of allowing my computer (2 ghz celeron d 2 gb of ddr ram ,) to play blue rays , i didnt get a chance to try blue rays but it played blue rips with awesome results certainly exceeded my expectations ,i also played fight sim on it no probs they might have a newer generation of the card out ,read the boxes look at the specs look at ati cards too they are starting to release good ones

[wiskic10_4]

2 years ago i got a pny card with a nvidea chipset , it had 1gb of ram it had its on cpu onboard and claimed to be caplible of allowing my computer (2 ghz celeron d 2 gb of ddr ram ,) to play blue rays , i didnt get a chance to try blue rays but it played blue rips with awesome results certainly exceeded my expectations ,i also played fight sim on it no probs they might have a newer generation of the card out ,read the boxes look at the specs look at ati cards too they are starting to release good ones

But was it a PCI card?

At any rate, I've decided that I'm just going to upgrade the system. I don't care to try my luck with another PCI video card. There's just too many good known-to-work-well PCIe cards out there. Besides, a 2.0GHz Pentium w/ 1GB RAM just doesn't "get it" in the gaming world today.

[nihil]

2 years ago i got a pny card with a nvidea chipset , it had 1gb of ram it had its on cpu onboard

Yes, to begin with the graphics boys made their products more capable; presumably to sell to people with lower end and older equipment. Now there seems to be a lot more true integration, and the CPU makers are pushing more work the way of the GPU?

But was it a PCI card?

I doubt it.........AGP dates back to the late 1990's and PCI-e to 2004.

Also, back then, Blue Ray was pretty much home entertainment video, so the requirements were somewhat different?

At any rate, I've decided that I'm just going to upgrade the system. I don't care to try my luck with another PCI video card. There's just too many good known-to-work-well PCIe cards out there. Besides, a 2.0GHz Pentium w/ 1GB RAM just doesn't "get it" in the gaming world today.

I would totally agree with that. The basic specs of that Sony box are office, or entry level home entertainment. Even if you managed to find a PCI card, I bet all you would do is move the bottleneck somewhere else

I think that your last statement is very appropriate! Although FSX is a very old game, it is old in the sense of "long-running", as it has had many upgrades over the years (I can remember it from Windows 3.x days ).

If the worst comes to the worst, I can always send your stepdad my only venture into flight simulators (apart from the blow all aliens to hell shoot-em-ups). My wife actually managed to take the plane off, fly it round the airfield and land it (on the runway)! she wasn't best pleased when I showed her it had automatic take off and landing, and pointed out that the Russian air-force do not normally take off on full re-heat

It is the commercially repackaged version of the flight sim for the Su27 air superiority fighter. What they don't tell you is it would be a great help if you:

1. Were a pilot
2. Had a degree in aeronautical engineering
3. Had fluent written and spoken Russian.

Cheers