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[BojTrek]

Why does Star Wars:Empire At War (demo) show no spaceships (except a slight outline), planets are choppy squares, stutter, and just look like complete crap?

Here are the requirements for Star Wars: Empire At War

PC Processor Type Intel® Pentium® III processor, AMD Athlon™ processor PC Processor Speed 1GHz
PC Operating System Windows 2000, Windows XP
PC System Memory 256MB RAM
PC Video 32MB DirectX 9.0c-compatible hardware-transform-capable and lighting-capable video card
PC Sound Card PCI or onboard DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card
PC Modem 56.6 Kbps
PC Additional Requirements Internet service required to access online features

I have a PC with AMD Athlon 64 processor, 1 GIG of RAM and 128MB video cardthis:

http://www.visiontek.com/9200_se.html

Is there a way to tell a PC to use the graphics card at full potential? I am not great with PC's, I am OK but I thought by loading the video card (AGP) it would run games great??? Thanks in advance!

 

[methodman]

that video card is pretty bad; so you need to lower the graphics in the options menu.

 

[BojTrek]

I knew it was a cheaper video card (and slower because of AGP) from Best Buy... I really don't play video games on the PC, but this one looks possibly fun against a buddy of mine...

Any suggestions for a cheaper but effective video card for my PC?

Would you go with a PCI Express video card since this PC can accept it?

 

[Dr_Cogent]

I knew it was a cheaper video card (and slower because of AGP) from Best Buy... I really don't play video games on the PC, but this one looks possibly fun against a buddy of mine...

Any suggestions for a cheaper but effective video card for my PC?

Would you go with a PCI Express video card since this PC can accept it?

Are there mobos with both a 16X PCI Express slot and a AGP slot?

I'm so out of touch with the latest PCs.

 

[BojTrek]

mobos? What is that?

 

[DarienA]

mobos? What is that?

mobos=abbreviation for motherboard.

 

[Dr_Cogent]

I am pretty sure you can't buy an AGP card if you have a PCI Express motherboard.

Scratch that. There are such mobos.

 

[ghostmind]

PROBLEM SOLVED

 

[Dr_Cogent]

The thing is, you don't know for sure if its the video card causing the stuttering or not. When you find that you see its stuttering, check to see if the HD is getting hit. If it is, you may need more memory since it may be paging to disk.

Set all the video settings to crap, if the problem persists, it's most likely not your video card.

 

[Marathon]

I think I saw an add on TV for this game at the gym last night.

It had major framerate problems.

 

[siege]

It's fine for me in the space battles, but land battles chug pretty badly. Doesn't really look all that great either.

 

[Dr_Cogent]

It's fine for me in the space battles, but land battles chug pretty badly. Doesn't really look all that great either.

You're probably CPU or memory bound at this point as long as your video card settings aren't set too high.

 

[p01ar]

It worked fine for me, I thought it was awesome. I can't wait for the full game.

 

[ChennehCis]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2003/03/06/strike_force/page6.html

9200 was an entry level card in 2003. If you're looking to purchase a new video card, at least go for a 9800 pro (which can at least run semi-recent games like Half Life 2 at 800x600 with no enhancements) I'd personally recommend ATI X800/Geforce6800 series if you still want to stick with your motherboard.

 

[BojTrek]

Good find... Thanks!

I knew it was a lower entry video card, and all I really do on the PC is internet and video transfer/editing. So it was good enough...

But if it is almost 3 years old, it is out of date... and to even play Star Wars: Empire At War, I will need to upgrade.

If I load a 256MB PCI-Express card... do you think there will be much tweaking necessary or do I just load it into the PC and load the CDROM?

I might be able to spend $200... so I need to start looking... any sites or stores you recommend for good prices?

 

[Aruarian Reflection]

It worked fine for me, I thought it was awesome. I can't wait for the full game.

Same, I ran it on my laptop at 1920 x 1200 resolution with all graphics effects cranked to max. It looks pretty good. How it plays is another story, but the cinematic mode is pretty awesome.

 

[FlyinJ]

I'm almost positive it has to do with the fact that you only have 256 megs of system RAM. That's ridiculously low for today's games.

1 gig is pretty much the minimum.

 

[BojTrek]

I have a laptop here at work and it runs fine with this...

ATI Mobility RADEON 7500 AGP
Internal DAC 400mhz
32MB

 

[BojTrek]

I'm almost positive it has to do with the fact that you only have 256 megs of system RAM. That's ridiculously low for today's games.

1 gig is pretty much the minimum.

No... I have 1 GIG of RAM on the PC...

The video card is 256MB...

Which of these would you recommend?

http://www.compusa.com/products/products.asp?N=200105+4294966325+502408&Ne=502405

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

No problems running this on my system. No stuttering at all. I do think plenty of RAM helps, I've got 1 Gig.

 

[ChennehCis]

http://microcenter.com/byos/byos_single_product_results.phtml?product_id=217999#rebate

50 dollar rebate, 5.99 shipping. Comes to about $205 shipped for the one of the highest end AGP card you can get.

Apparently people have also said you can get this card for 189.99 at a brick and mortar Microcenter, but I don't live near one but if you do maybe you could pick one up (Store locations here: http://microcenter.com/at_the_stores/index.html )