Tom Posted March 29, 2007 Posted March 29, 2007 I decided to get a PC for the first time in literally years. I bought Europe Universalis 3, and I was sur ethat my PC confortably met all the minimum specs for the game. I have a 3ghz 64 bit sempron, 1gb ram and geforce fx5500 256mb graphics card. When I load it up it's clearly really struggling with the graphics, and when i move the mouse there is a ridiculous lag. The water effects are also very basic. Any ideas whats up? Is my pc not up the job, or is there soemthign else.
gmac Posted March 29, 2007 Posted March 29, 2007 I think you're problem there is the graphics card, it's quite a low end one from what I can see
Tom Posted March 29, 2007 Author Posted March 29, 2007 maybe, but the minimum requirements on the box are 128mb graphics, so even if its low end surely it should still be playable. edit - i'm a bit worried as i just tried to run Halo for the first time on this pc and even that didnt run well. How crap...
Colin Posted March 29, 2007 Posted March 29, 2007 What Pixel Shader version does that card support, as that games needs support of version 2.0.
Bogbas Posted March 29, 2007 Posted March 29, 2007 Yeah but the fx cards are ones that shouldn't have got released. They were too little too late from nvidia if I remember correctly.
Tom Posted March 29, 2007 Author Posted March 29, 2007 well thats just great i hate pc gaming! any idea how much a graphics card that would work is likely to cost? ps thanks for all the help so far!
Bogbas Posted March 29, 2007 Posted March 29, 2007 If you can find some radeon 9800 or later used and with a reasonable price, that would run the game just fine. It doesn't look that graphically intensive to me. Someone who has the game should say something though as I can't be 100% sure... There are only a couple of reasonably fast AGP cards out I think. Nvidia has 7800 (something) and ati has x1950(something) but those are probably a bit too expensive. And pc gaming isn't that bad, you just have to build nearly top spec pc every three years
Mr_Odwin Posted March 30, 2007 Posted March 30, 2007 Have you updated all your drivers? If not, get to it - it'll have a huge impact on performance.
Ginger_Chris Posted March 30, 2007 Posted March 30, 2007 I have no idea why PC games have their minimum graphics card specs measured in Mb. It makes no sense, the generation of the card and and the model number is much more important.
Gizmo Posted March 30, 2007 Posted March 30, 2007 Try this site: http://www.srtest.com It should tell you what it is causing the problem.
Tom Posted March 30, 2007 Author Posted March 30, 2007 thanks guys. I ended up buying a 256mb radeon 9800. currently it just beeps, but i'm sure i'll be able to get it sorted out tomorrow. edit - i think the reason its beeping is that it needs to be connected to the psu. unfortunately the cables on my psu are long enough to connect it without unplugging a hard drive of a dvd drive. Plus, even when i do plug it in there's no beeping, but there is a lot of garbled stuff on screen. This is looking like being one of the most expensive and complicated games i have ever bought!
Bogbas Posted March 31, 2007 Posted March 31, 2007 edit - i think the reason its beeping is that it needs to be connected to the psu. unfortunately the cables on my psu are long enough to connect it without unplugging a hard drive of a dvd drive. Plus, even when i do plug it in there's no beeping, but there is a lot of garbled stuff on screen. Yes it needs to be connected to the PSU. I think that it should display a warning when you boot up that says it isn't connected to the psu when you boot. At least my 9700 did that. As for the garbled stuff, was the card perhaps overclocked? It might be damaged. But the 9700s (neither one were overclocked) I had occasionally booted with a lot of artefacts on the screen, so it might be something else. What kind of psu have you got?
Tom Posted March 31, 2007 Author Posted March 31, 2007 I was worried it was a PSU issue, as it's only 250w (a problem that should have been remedied, but they guy who built my pc 'forgot'). I have experiemtned, by booting on my pc without either dvd drive connected to see if that woudl remove the artefacts, but it hasnt helped. I'll try booting it with simply the master HDD and the graphics card and see if that helps. I don't know what condition the card was in when i got it, as it was second hand from CEX, but I assume that they test the components they sell so maybe it is a power issue. I have to get it sorted tonight, as my 48 hour return from CEX expires tomorrow! edit- it's definitely not a PSU issue, even with just 1 hdd and the card plugged in I still get nothing on screen but atefacts. I'll take the card back today, any suggestions what to get instead? edit mk. 2- I have now gone and spent even more money on a working graphics card, and it works. However, power is definitely an issue as loading up the game cuts out the graphics card. this is just getting ridiculous
Tom Posted April 15, 2007 Author Posted April 15, 2007 Sorry to bump, but still having issues. I know have a more than adequate gfx card and a far more powerfull PSU but i'm still having issues. I think its still a graphics problem, but possibly down to my monitor. When I load up the game it shows 2 low res intro videos, then cut out, with no output to the monitor with a restart the only option. Alternatively if I disconnect my second display i do get the menu screen, but I only get the top corner of it. I cant work out what the problem is - is it possible that its because of the maximum resolution my monitor displays isnt high enough? It's about 8 years old and the highest resolution it displays is 1024x768. Really getting annoyed now, I have spent about £100 on PC upgrades simply to play this game, and it's turning into a personal vendetta now!
gmac Posted April 17, 2007 Posted April 17, 2007 I doubt it would be a problem due to the max resolution of your monitor as that one is fairly standard still. Have you tried a barebones bootup since getting the new PSU and gfx card? I suppose it might also be a driver issue but I'm not too clued up on that
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