Video Card?

[Lincoln Six Echo]

Hey all, I have NFS PS, as well as several other nfs games on PC. I have a Ati Radeon 9550, 256mb, that works fine, but on PS I can only operate on basic graphic setting, i.e. low res, low details. When I place the settings any higher, the loading times are much longer, & I get tons of jitters. The other details of my computer are as follows: Pentium 4 3.0Ghz w/ HT, 512MB RAM & the 9550. Is the problem the fact that I only have 512mb RAM or is it my video card? Any advice is appreciated, thanx.

[baumaxx1]

Your PC is simply outdated. It's a bottom end.

Mine is:
3.2ghz P4 HT
1.25 gb DDR 400
7600GT

And I can max it to take screenies, but It's only playable on medium. Technology goes quickly.

[KwizzN]

As the previous poster said, your hardware isn't any better. Try comparing it to the minimum requirements:

CPU: CPU 2.8 Ghz of faster for XP, 3.0 for vista
RAM: 512 MB for XP, 1 GB for vista
Video: the 9500 series is the lowest Radeon chipset supported

You're hitting all three minimum req's

[Lincoln Six Echo]

Thanks guys, I knew I had outdated hardware, but I didn't really state my question very well. I was really wondering if I updated my video to something like a Radeon hd 2600, would it be much of a difference in performance with the 512mb. I'm probably not gonna do anything, now knowing that your configuration, baumaxx, is considerably better than mine & you still don't get great performance.

[baumaxx1]

Thanks guys, I knew I had outdated hardware, but I didn't really state my question very well. I was really wondering if I updated my video to something like a Radeon hd 2600, would it be much of a difference in performance with the 512mb. I'm probably not gonna do anything, now knowing that your configuration, baumaxx, is considerably better than mine & you still don't get great performance.

If you did upgrade to the HD2600... it would be bottlenecked by your CPU and ram. Also, a 9550 uses AGP 8x technology, modern cards use PCI-E 16x.
So, the best you can do short of getting a whole new PC is:
another 512mb ram & a x1950. However, that CPU is weak. Mine's a 3.2 Northwood, which is good for gaming, so I have no problems pushing FEAR Cpu to max and GFX to high.... however, a lot happens in a year and a bit...

So, save your cash and get a new rig if you want to do some serious gaming.

[Lincoln Six Echo]

That's exactly what I wanted to know, if it would be bottlenecked. My processor isn't that bad, it's a Northwood 3.06 not much different from yours, but compared to modern core2 duos and quads they are and I understand what you are saying. It can handle up to 2gb, but PC1066 ram is ridiculously expensive, I'm just gonna wait until I can afford to build a good system.
Thanks again for the info.