New to game/site....sys requirement issue

Snuffed04 · September 8, 2012

Hello guys. New to the forum....new to pc gaming in general actually. Ive been gaming on Xbox Live since its inception, but never got into pc games as i never had a rig that could run more than solitaire! Anyways, i was messing around on youtube as my wife posted here first ever video, one thing lead to another, and ive ended up here after watchin 2 hrs of amazing GTAIV lcpdfr gameplay. I remember playing Police Quest back in the day and have been waiting for something to come close, and here it is! Problem is, im not sure if i can run it. I just started playing some pc games off rental from Gamefly the last couple days, and they have all run fine. I was in another thread where someone was asking for some help in downloading the mod, and Tom H had posted a link to the site where you can check if your rig meets requirements. Well, i passed easily for recommended settings in all categories except for the video card, where it said i failed because the Video RAM required is 512mb, and its saying i only have 64mb. Yet when i check the same for Armed Assault, it shows me as having 1.7 GB in Video RAM category. Whats with that? Is there anything i can do to be able to run this, or am i sunk? Any help would be greatly appreciated as im new to all of this, and didnt even realize mods like this existed!

Thanks in advance gentlemen, and hopefully im not fried competely, as i was plannign on buying the game tom.

Faracus · September 8, 2012

Press the Win key + R then type in dxdiag and hit enter. This will give you some information on your computer. Post the following information:

Operating System

Processor

Memory

Now click on the Display Tab:

Name

Approx. Total Memory

Mine is:

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium

Processor: Intel Core i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67 GHz (8CPUs) ~2.7GHz

Memory: 6144MB RAM

Now click on the Display Tab:

Name: ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series

Approx. Total Memory: 3824MB

Snuffed04 · September 8, 2012

Ok, the first one is the laptop i just bought, which is also the one i failed the test with. The second is my old desktop, which passed.

LAPTOP

Operating System: Win 7 Premium

Processor: Intel Core i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20 GHz (8 CPUs) ~ 2.2GHz

Memory: 6144MB RAM

Now click on the Display Tab:

Name: Intel HD Graphics Family

Approx. Total Memory: 1696MB

DESKTOP

Operating System: Win 7 Premium

Processor: AMD Athlon II X2 235e (2 CPUs) ~2.7GHz

Memory: 6144MB RAM

Now click on the Display Tab:

Name: Nvidia GeForce210

Approx. Total Memory: 3282MB

So the laptop failed cause of the video card RAM....i guess im stuck there huh? The desktop passed directly between "minimum" and "Recommended", with the CPU the only category failing the recommneded settings. From what i can tell on google, there are no easy solutions for upgrading my laptop card....would i be correct with that? Any suggestions?

So i can at least play the game on my desktop, but i wonder how well will it play? I have the tower hooked up to a 42" Hitachi, so hopefully it will look ok, tho thats not really a worry anyways, i just want a fun game. The really frustrating fact now is that the laptop i was gonna buy had one of the Radeon cards that i read elsewhere would work well, but when i ordered it from BestBuy, it took them a week to tell me they were no longer stocking it. So i ended up with the one i currently have that was on sale at Costco. Thing is i wasnt planning on playing any games on it, but here i am!

Well, i thank you Faracus for getting me this far, and any help/suggestions further would be great.

Edited September 8, 2012 by Snuffed04

magua10 · September 8, 2012

Hey,unfortunately the same thing with the laptop happened to me. If I were you I would just up grade your video card for your desktop. My desktop has about the same settings but I upgraded the video card and the game runs good. You can't run extremly high graphics though.

Faracus · September 8, 2012

laptops are not really built to be upgraded, it's all solder on parts, usually all u can upgrade is HDD and RAM. Your video card should work with things on Low settings.

Also be advised, you can have the best computer ever and still have problems, GTA IV was a bad port to the PC. Rather than making it on PC them changing it for consoles, they made it for consoles than changed it for PS, and did a shit job at it.

Snuffed04 · September 8, 2012

Ya i figured i was outed as far as the laptop goes. That figures.

As far as upgrading the card in my desktop, are there any recommendations on cards that will work fairly well, but that are priced decently too? Understand i dont know what would be considered "decently priced" either. Also needs to have a HDMI output on it as well so it can hook up to my TV, tho i am going to get a monitor shortly so worse case ill just have to wait till then. Thx

chevymanusa · September 8, 2012

So i ended up with the one i currently have that was on sale at Costco.

Normally you can return a pc/laptop to Costco within 90 days for a full refund. I would recommended considering that as an option.

Presently they do not have any decent systems on their site with a dedicated graphics card. On occasion they will have one with a decent dedicated graphics card, normally they will only offer these on their site and not in store.

Just an FYI, good luck with your current setups and so forth.