Hardware Question

Toladin

Hello, I have been playing LOTRO on a 2001 Dell 8000 series computer for about 6 months now... This computer is very basic (40g hard drive, 768 MB RAM, no idea on graphics gard, but again very basic) and ran the game great on Low settings - very minimal lag and good frame rate.

Now.. yesterday I bought a brand new HP - 640G Hard Drive, 3G Ram - Nvida GeForce 6100 128mg Graphics card etc...

I am not very computer savvy but it was a huge upgrade from my old computer -

Needless to say , I was dissapointed when I got home and installed the game, and it still reccomended I run everything on Low - I've tried to increse the overall graphics to med/high, and the frame rate goes way down, and the gameplay is very choppy.

My question is, is this primarily due to the graphics card being average?  Would a better card significantly increase my graphics and "prettiness" of the world?  I feel like i am missing out on a lot with the graphics constantly on low..

Any info would be appreciated. TY

Charlizd

it would not hurt to change the graphics card but i ran the game on High settings on an AMD 2800+ 2ghz  1 gig of ram with a Radeon 9550 128mb graphics card with minimal lag or stutter only in big instance boss fights did i get lag so i am unsure of why it is like that for you i wish i could help more but am totally baffled sorry.

Darth_Pete

 

Originally posted by Toladin


Hello, I have been playing LOTRO on a 2001 Dell 8000 series computer for about 6 months now... This computer is very basic (40g hard drive, 768 MB RAM, no idea on graphics gard, but again very basic) and ran the game great on Low settings - very minimal lag and good frame rate.
Now.. yesterday I bought a brand new HP - 640G Hard Drive, 3G Ram - Nvida GeForce 6100 128mg Graphics card etc...
I am not very computer savvy but it was a huge upgrade from my old computer -
Needless to say , I was dissapointed when I got home and installed the game, and it still reccomended I run everything on Low - I've tried to increse the overall graphics to med/high, and the frame rate goes way down, and the gameplay is very choppy.
My question is, is this primarily due to the graphics card being average?  Would a better card significantly increase my graphics and "prettiness" of the world?  I feel like i am missing out on a lot with the graphics constantly on low..
Any info would be appreciated. TY

 

Yes! Your GFX card is bad just bad..  Integrated GFX cards usually are very weak. What kind of prosessor did you have ? You have more than enough RAM to run LOTRO.

You should find out if you have PCI-E slot on that PC and buy atleast Nvidia 9600GT or radeon 3850.

 

KevinR

I think the geforce 6100 is a intregrated graphics chipset on the motherboard. It came out about 2005 so its getting on a bit compared to newer graphics cards. I would check your motherboard manual and see if you can add a dedicated card. You may also need to check the computer power supply, It needs to be around 450 Watts to supply power to the newer cards.

Not sure what model HP you have just purchased and what CPU is fitted but it sounds like it may be a office model. OK for 2D work but poor for 3D and games. If you have Vista as your OS you may want to try running Windows Experience Index which will rate your cpu, memory, graphics and harddisk, giving it a score out of 5.9

Jaxom92

Yes, I agree with the rest of the folks and say you need to get a dedicated GPU in that sucker. I'd recommend an Nvidia 8800 GTX, GT, or GTS. Granted, the 9600 GT is in the next family, but the 8800s won't do you wrong. Shop around and see what you might want for whatever your price range is, but if you stick to an 8800 you shouldn't have any trouble.

That said, I tend to be Nvidia biased because ATI (AMD) has taken so long to get their crap together and compete. The Radeon 3850 ought to do you well too. It sounds like you just want your game to look good and aren't too picky about brand and specifics.

AckbarNL

ask them to install a geforce 8800 or 9600 not anything lower , it sould do some wonders.

8hammer8

While it may be nice to have the kind of money necessary to purchase an 8800 GTX (or any of the cards in the family), for some people it is just not feasable or practical to spend $250-300+ for a GFX card.

To the OP, if you have the money, by all means listen to them and get something in the 8800 family.  However, if you are more like me (I bought an HP with an intergrated 6150 card on it originally) and money is kind of tight, I bought an 8600 GT for $80 and it is great.  I can run the game on ULTRA HIGH out in the countryside with everything turned up.  It did lag going into Bree and other major hubs, so all I did was a little custom tweaking and voila very good graphics and no lag except in the Moors for PvMP.

It took me about 20 minutes to install it myself (I was double and triple checking everything before I started).  Also, you have to make sure your PSU (power supply unit) is strong enough for the card.  I had to by a new PSU because it was only like 350w, and the card uses more juice so I purchased a 650w (over kill, but if I want to add other stuff later I am set).

Anyways, good luck and yes the graphics card makes a HUGE difference in how yu see the game.  Often you will just walk around just to look at how cool things look.  At least I did.