Need a video card recommendation

[IxTheSpeedy]

Anybody have a good low profile video card they would recommend?  I've had mixed results with newegg as a number of their cards say low profile but actually aren't.  I've got a small desktop that I'm looking to upgrade the graphics on.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Evaenir]

Well if you don't mind, what is your current card and what do you want to do with your new one? While what I'm going to say is vague, a card that costs around 100-120$ can be a good choice : You should be able to run any game on the market right now, (probably not at high settings, but games nowadays got good graphics even on lower settings) make animation, and other fancy stuff. Now at this price you can't go crazy, but you can still go quite far. (Depending on what you intend to do)

Of course a video card can't do all the job by itself if you do not have enough gig ram. I think there is a good price for ddr3 ram (or ddr2 if your motherboard can't take ddr3) these days. 4 gigs is good, but if you got less than that...I got 3 gigs of ddr2 and I can play Dragon Age 2 with no lag, so...(anyway the video card is more important for intense tasks, while ram is more about multi-tasking, but it's still important for both)

Now if you tell me more about what you plan to run on your pc, I may be a bit more specific. By the way, be sure your power supply can handle the video card, otherwise it can break the processor and/ort the motherboard. (Always aim for a bit more than the minimum requirement asked for the video card, like 500 watts if the minimum is 450)

[IxTheSpeedy]

Here are my gaming needs in one phrase.

"NWN"

I literally don't play any games other than logging into EFU.  That's it.  I don't need much.  Right now i'm playing on a Micro ATX mobo with a dual core Athlon II 2.7 Ghz processor.  3 Gigs of RAM.  I've been playing with this machine for a while since my big ass tower was decided to be too loud for the living room...  I don't actually have a video card in it, it has shared memory...  Hence my problems.  It's a terrible set up so I just need a decent not all that powerful low profile card.

Thanks for responding.  Much appreciated.

[Adhesive]

You might also want to upgrade your RAM to 4 or 6 gigs. NWN's a bit of a resource hog, and you don't want to use all of your memory up while playing. And RAM is dirt cheap, too.

As for the card, check on Newegg. I found a few decent ones like the Radeon HD 6670. Poke around in your price range then cross-reference with Tom's Hardware. You can usually find really good information there, too.

Also, like Evaenir said, double check your power supply. Usually, the power supply will be the first thing replaced when upgrading anything in your computer. Without a decent power supply, the computer's worthless. If you want a quick check up on your computer's specs, go here and download that program. It's great, and quick for showing your computer off, so we know what we're looking at.

[River Walker]

Here are my gaming needs in one phrase.

"NWN"

In that case I would recommend that you only buy a video card that another member of the EfU community can assure you works fully with NWN. I've had more than one video card that works great on other games, but causes all kinds of weird graphical glitches with NWN (light sources that glow through solid walls, terribad frame rates when displaying certain animations, and really, really strange behavior when trying to display NWN's shiny water effect).

My current netbook video card (ATI Mobility Raedon 4200) does a good job with many modern games, but it just chokes on 10 year old NWN unless I have the video settings turned all the way down. Even with that, I typically have around 7 fps in the Mistlocke square, it goes down to 5 when I walk across the bridge (those brazier flames really seem to bog it down), but it jumps back up to 40 once I get to the crossroads.

It seems like your biggest concern should be finding a verified compatible card, because even some of these nice $400 cards can make NWN look like crap.

[Heavyfog]

I'm running NWN (EFU only tbh) on an old Dell Dimension XPS running Windows XP with a single core 3.0Ghz Pentium 4 with 1.5Gb DDR RAM and an Nvidia GeForce FX5500 with 256Mb RAM (as it is an old AGP motherboard). I think this computer is as old as NWN itself and it runs pretty darn good. I don't seem to have lag issues, although some places load a bit slow.  Long story short I don't think a heavy duty video card is required for a good EFU experience.

[River Walker]

Yeah, it's not the size of the ship, it's the motion of the ocean.

[IxTheSpeedy]

Thanks for the feedback folks.  As I open up my case, the main issue I have is that I have a tiny tiny little amount of space NEXT to the slot I'm going to need to install this in.  That and I have a 220W power supply.  This is going to be interesting.  What I really need is a 5 year old video card...

[Evaenir]

You might also want to upgrade your RAM to 4 or 6 gigs. NWN's a bit of a resource hog, and you don't want to use all of your memory up while playing. And RAM is dirt cheap, too.

Add more memory? Really? I ony have 3 gigs, and I kinda play Mistlocke like that me too...
http://www.escapefromundeath.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69124

(It is also mostly going back and forth for the online translator dictionnary...heck, I must improve my english)


Concerning video cards, here are some I found interesting for you on newegg. I stick with Nvidia, since I only had these ones (I 'll only suggest what I know, you know...) I'll let someone else give a few suggestions for radeon cards. I only picked really cheap ones because if you just want to play NWN...well it really doesn't need to be a big card. (I played with less with no problem)

For a very low-end card (512 mb ddr3)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121484

This one's better. At least you got 1 GB of ddr3 memory.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121422

Personally, for 50 bucks, I think this one is nice. You can play NWN and bit more with it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121475

Yeah, I look like an ASUS supporter, but it wasn't my intention. Just picked what I felt like it would do the job for NWN. I think they should run NWN nicely, take a look of internet if you're not sure.

[Caster13]

I used to run NWN on an Radeon 9600 XT with just 128 MB of ram (this was before AMD bought out ATI). Frankly, NWN is a ten year old game. Buying a card that was first released in the mid 00s will run it just fine.

The real trouble you'll run into is the drivers -_-

Whether you're buying an older card or a newer card, finding a driver that'll handle NWN well will likely take a while.

[Adhesive]

Add more memory? Really? I ony have 3 gigs, and I kinda play Mistlocke like that me too...

More RAM is best RAM.

[Eddie Walker]

I think the question that should have really been asked ages back is does your Micro ATX motherboard have a PCIE slot or an AGP slot.

More RAM is best RAM.

I kinda disagree with this, it depends more on the speed and latency of memory for me along side how the various sticks work together.  There is really hardly any point in adding an extra stick of memory if it halves the speed of whatever is already in the system, due to incompatibility issues or simply it running slower then the rest.

Eddie.

[River Walker]

So does anyone have a card / driver combo that works well for NWN + other games? I'd like to know which it is myself.