Graphics card
 

Got hold of Race Driver Grid for my PC this weekend - all installed okay but when I went to play it I got an error message saying my graphics card (Radeon 9250) didn't support Shader 3 which was needed for the game :thumbdown:.

Now, not being a particularly techy type of bloke when it comes to PC's, does anyone have any suggestions what card is going to allow me to play, and what I can expect to pay for it?

I have a card laying around at home but I don't know if it's suitable - a Matrox Parhelia PH-A8X128......:eh?:

Most modern graphics card should support it. Have you got a PCI-E (normally at the top and white, not to be confused with PCI slots) port or just AGP(normally brown)?

All the fun of running an ATi. Sadly ATi had a period where they were miles behind Nvidia and were still running Shader Model 1 rather then 2 back in the 9xxx days. At the time this didn't matter as Shader 2 was never heavily implemented. I think this was due to AMD's takeover of ATi which slowed the company down. They are just about catching up with Nvidia now though.

Anyway I'm digressing, Grid is an awesome game. A lot of work has been put into the games engine and it needs a good card to display the great job Codemasters have done.

I use a BFG Tech OC Nvidia 8800GTS. My system is about a year and a bit old now but handles the game well. So you can easily play the game on an Nvidia 8800 card, probably even a 8600. Not sure how much they cost now, as the 9xxx series is out, hopefully cheap for you.

Well worth the investment though, the 8xxx series can handle HD so if you ever want a cheap bluray player you can just buy a bluray drive for the machine. And when I said Grid is awesome....... best racing game is years.

A quick look on Ebuyer, you can get an 8600 for around £50 and a 8800 for around £80. I sure hope you have a PCI-e slot as AGP is really antiquated and I'm not sure there is a lot you could do there.

Thanks for the input so far chaps!

Being totally oblivious to these things - how do I tell the difference between AGP and PCI? When I take the side panel off what am I looking for :confused:

Cheers......

Theres a difference between PCI and PCIe

In essence, if your motherboard doesnt support PCIe dont waste your money on upgrading the graphics card - put the money towards a new tower.

AGP is accelerated graphics port. Its just the bus ( slot ) type. Its old technology as previously stated.

It will usually say PCIe in small white letters to the side of the slot if you have it.

If you take the side off your pc and give us the motherboard make and model then we will be able to assist further :thumbsup:

PCI-E Slot (you will always get the little connector thing at the end, whereas you wont on PCI.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...xpress-Bus.jpg

PCI Slot

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-Pci-slots.jpg

AGP Slot (top one)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...1/AGP_slot.jpg

Okay - as soon as I get chance to open things up I'll make some notes on the motherboard. From the pictures above I'm pretty certain it's PCIe as I recall the extra slot being there.

Is the Matrox card I mentioned in my first post of no use to me then?

Thanks again!

No, very doubtful it would be even close to being powerful enough.

Perhaps I'll nick the fan off it then and strap it to my GTB :woot: