Lagging Problems

[celticfang 14]

See if you can get an Nvidia GeForce GTX420, 1024 (or 1 gig) of video memory.

Breaking it down, a 256mb card wth GTAIV it's like trying to use a DVD in a video cassette machine, it won't work too well. (Having said that I did mange to get it to launch and play at a low fps on a 7600GT, though it was a slideshow.). If you're around the $200 price range and in the US, newegg is your best bet. Go for an ATI Radeon 4870 1GB of video RAM if you don't want to use Nvidia.

[Molten 159]

From what I can gather $200 dollars is way over his budget. Maybe half that by what I am seeing. Yes I know he typed $200 but I think he spoke to his dad since then :) Not sure what to suggest.

Allthough the site he origionally linked doesn't seem that great on prices.

I'm not from US so I will repeat what someone else said.

Take a look at neweg.

And yes 256 MB of video memory (V RAM) is not gonna cut it. 500mb Minimum 1 Gig prefered.

The more you can spend the longer your PC will will continue to run new games in the future.

Edited November 28, 2011 by Molten

[Deactivated Member 0]

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Edited June 20 by tobeymaguire

[Molten 159]

tbh this is a minefield. Not trying to insult you but you don't seem to have much knowledge about gfx cards or how PC's work, and thats ok. It's not against the law not to know these things. I just worry that you might spend your money on a card that still gives you rubbish frame rates or even worse your power supply wont be able to run.

There are a lot of things to take into concideration. It took me a month of research hardware when I built my PC and I'm not exagerating.

Icon' gave you a rough idea of what price range was needed to play gta iv at a decent level and you kept linking $40 cards. Money is not the be all and end all but you tend to get what you pay for. I hope you do find a great deal but you wont find a card at $40 that will play gta iv well.

Trying not to be harsh here but to prevent a situation where you spend your cash and end up with the same frame rates as you have now..

I stronly advice research.

That means teaching yourself the basics of PC graphics cards.... Whatch some you tube stuff, reviews, how to vids, what graphic card etc etc. Read read read and read...

Lets keep it really simple to start with. You need to make sure your power supply can run any new card you install. Work out how much you will spend. We would all like to spend less but really the gfx card is the heart and soul of any gaming pc so you can not skimp in this area. Come to a number you are willing to spend then look for cards in that range. No good saying you want to spend $200 then looking at $40 cards.

What do you actually want from this card ? just to be able to play gta IV ? Cause your current card does that, but you know only too well that it does a poor job at that. Lets avoid your new card only giving a slight improvement and you ending back in same position.

Lastly pay attention to what Icon said, he gives good advice on the whole :)

Sorry if that was all a bit harsh but this thread was going in circles.

[Iconography 1,384]

I took the information I could gather from the links you gave and came up with a card that may work for you. It's $99.99, and the chipset is rock solid from my experience. I used to have the same chipset, but from EVGA rather than Gigabyte. The card is a Gigabyte GTX 260 896MB, with a 448-bit memory interface. It is an old card, probably about five years old now, but it works. It isn't 1GB of VRAM, but it is definitely good enough for GTA. using this card, plus my i7 (I believe I had my i7 at the time), I could play GTA on medium-high settings pretty well. When I had a GTX 260, it worked flawlessly. It ran fine on my 700W power supply, but a 550W or 600W should do it. If you happen to know how many watts your power supply outputs, that will be useful as well. Link: click me. Note that it is double width.

Edited November 28, 2011 by Iconography

[Deactivated Member 0]

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Edited June 20 by tobeymaguire