Ok, which game should I get to break in the new graphics card?

[jagwire1141]

Alright, Half-Life 2 or TES IV: Oblivion? I enjoyed the hell out of both HL1 and Morrowind and both games have similar reviews. HL2 is only 25 bucks this week at Best Buy and I get the GOTY edition. So which game should I get?

[Moxio]

Oblivion. Nothing better to push your card to its sweet limits.

[CYRiX]

half-life 2, nothing better than to get a vast amount of great modifications.

[MastaGamer]

Buy both since HL2 is so cheap and get the best of both worlds heh.

[Vinny]

Oblivion will definitely push the hell out of your new GPU...

But I'd rather get HL2, the game's simply amazing. It looks great plus physics is a ton of fun (in games anyway).

One thing I don't like about Oblivion is that 99% of the characters in the game look fugly for some strange reason. Their faces are either hideous or just ugly. I know it's a game but still...

[arbiter]

I'm playing HL2 Episode 1. I'm impressed with the HDR lighting. It's sweet for $20.

[GrimNecroWizard]

HL2 because of the bajillion mods. You'll never get bored

[jagwire1141]

alright, I'll go HL2 and then get oblivion for my birthday or something. Also, grimnecrowizard: you have the funniest animated gif I've ever seen.

[MarioColbert]

Hitman: Blood Money looks sweet, if your card is good enough to support 8x Anti-Aliasing, and full filtering of everything.

Doesn't mean that you should play it, though. I hadn't seen Oblivion yet, because I have a full time job now, and stupid Morrowind almost made my Bachelor's not happen. By stupid I mean stupid awesome.

[jagwire1141]

Aright, ordered the EVGA 7600 GT with 256 mb of something and 128 bit of another thing for about $160. It got really good reviews and should run oblivion (traded in the DS for it) on moderate settings.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130283

Have I done well, elitist PC gamers?

[Toireht]

It's a good card for the money...and good job with picking evga, very good brand. You'll be able to play half life 2 just fine and oblivon on medium/high settings, is you board SLI ready?

Also the 256mb of something is video memory, the more memory on the video card the more room it has to store visual resources. Memory is able to be accessed alot faster than the harddrive. The 128bit is the bus speed, which is how fast it can be acccessed.

[jagwire1141]

I'm all for memory and stuff, just so long as it lets me run my games. This bad boy should arrive by monday and I'll have my DS Lite along with a few of the greatest PC games in history. Also, what does Oblivion look like on lowere settings (say if I wanted better performance over looks)?

[Number83]

Go with Oblivion! You can't go wrong with Oblivion.

Also, later on try Doom 3. I think it can be had for $20 or Less.

[Steggy]

oblivion is a great game... make sure to dl tecture mods for it to make the game look even sicker.

[jagwire1141]

Thanks but I already had Doom 3 for the xbox. I sold it before completing it. I thought the hallways were a little boring so I think I'll go with F.E.A.R. (I'm not trying to be sarcastic). Also, in reference to the texture mods, are they the same ones from the Gamspot article recently?

[jagwire1141]

edit: Nvm, now when I try and start the game it closes randomly and gives me the option to send an error report. I assume this is because even at its lowest possible settings, Oblivion pwns the crap out of this stock Dell chipset.

[Moxio]

edit: Nvm, now when I try and start the game it closes randomly and gives me the option to send an error report. I assume this is because even at its lowest possible settings, Oblivion pwns the crap out of this stock Dell chipset.

System specs?

Are drivers installed correctly?

Is the old (if used) graphics accelerator turned off in the Device Manager?

Is the card recognized?

[jagwire1141]

2.8 ghz processor, 1024 mb of ram, adequate HAD space. Idk, I'll update this if I get the same error message with my new card.

[jagwire1141]

Ok, once I get my card (It should be tomorrow surprisingly) do I need to reinstall all the games too?

[Lieutenant Dan]

Games rarely make me go "OH SNAP!!!", but I had to the first time I used an arrow to pin a dude to a wall in HL2.

Craziness.

[jagwire1141]

But Lieutenant Dan's got no legs.

http://www.cinema.com/image_lib/2886_003_thumb.jpg

[Lieutenant Dan]

I was supposed to die out there.

[GrimNecroWizard]

alright, I'll go HL2 and then get oblivion for my birthday or something. Also, grimnecrowizard: you have the funniest animated gif I've ever seen.

Haha, thanks. After you beat HL2 get Hidden Source on the mod page. It's free and is very fun. There's an 90% invisible character who can like climb walls and stuff. It's a lot like predator. Your team has guns trying to hunt it down. Also Battlegrounds source (it's beta still I think but still can download and play for free with other people) is a mod based on the Revolutionary war. Then there's always Counter-Strike Source. Custom maps when you get bored of the normal ones, then you can play surf maps!

[jagwire1141]

Thanks Grim, do you (or anyone else snooping around these parts) know of any must-have oblivion mods patches and other downloadables (besides the requisite horse armor)?

[GrimNecroWizard]

Haven't played Oblivion, but I'll probably get it when it's cheap sometime...I think someone mentioned a mod that makes the graphics better or something on the first page.

[poe]

Only Oblivion mod I've used is BTMod (http://btmod.beider.org/), which is just a UI fix to make the various menus a lot more PC version-friendly. There's an Oblivion Mod Wiki (http://www.tescreens.be/oblivionmodwiki/index.php/Main_Page) that has some more mods listed, but I don't think the game's been out long enough for any major content to come out yet.

[jagwire1141]

Roofles, the card just showed up today so I busted open the ol' dell and lo an behold there's no PCI-E slot. This was in direct contradiction to what I had been told when I bought the computer so I decided to give Dell tech support a call. Apparently I'm not allowed to add graphics cards unless I want to solder it to the motherboard ("How about I solder it to your lying head Dell!") I asked the guy/girl/Androgynous Indian if the great Dell overlords would kindly let one little peon install a graphics card that he paid nearly $200 for but the council of Dell Elder's (affectionately known as "Dellders") refused my bequest and I'm left out in the cold. Alas, fear not my bretheren, the guy/girl/Androgynous Indian assured me that Oblivion would run on my integrated graphics chip. I then held the phone to the graphics chip so the guy/girl/Androgynous Indian could whisper his magic blessing upon the piece of shit and get it to run Oblivion. Lord knows I hadn't tried it already. Luckily I'm left with a few hundred dollars worth of games that I'll never get to use.

[GrimNecroWizard]

Roofles, the card just showed up today so I busted open the ol' dell and lo an behold there's no PCI-E slot. This was in direct contradiction to what I had been told when I bought the computer so I decided to give Dell tech support a call. Apparently I'm not allowed to add graphics cards unless I want to solder it to the motherboard ("How about I solder it to your lying head Dell!") I asked the guy/girl/Androgynous Indian if the great Dell overlords would kindly let one little peon install a graphics card that he paid nearly $200 for but the council of Dell Elder's (affectionately known as "Dellders") refused my bequest and I'm left out in the cold. Alas, fear not my bretheren, the guy/girl/Androgynous Indian assured me that Oblivion would run on my integrated graphics chip. I then held the phone to the graphics chip so the guy/girl/Androgynous Indian could whisper his magic blessing upon the piece of shit and get it to run Oblivion. Lord knows I hadn't tried it already. Luckily I'm left with a few hundred dollars worth of games that I'll never get to use.

Damn, that sucks. If I were you, I'd definatly save up $5=$10 a week and get a new PC...There are so many great games. Whenever you're thinking about buying a console game just put that money in your new PC fund. But that's just me and I don't wanna tell you what to do with your money.

Good luck though, I hope you can play some games at least!

[jagwire1141]

Yea, it handles AOE III with some terrible graphics and horrible slowdowns. IDK if I should hang on to my games though. The next computer I'll get will be for graduation and that certainly won't handle oblivion and HL2 then probably the next computer I get will be a toy for finishing law school. By then the games will be $10 a pop and "TES VI: We're Shit Out of Names" (voiced by Patrick Stewart) will come out and I'll play it then. Oh well, maybe I'll stick to console until I get more money. Sorry to dissapoint thee, oh elitist PC gamers. P.S.: I'm NEVER buying a Dell again. Their machines and service are deplorable.

[supadupacheap]

Roofles, the card just showed up today so I busted open the ol' dell and lo an behold there's no PCI-E slot. This was in direct contradiction to what I had been told when I bought the computer so I decided to give Dell tech support a call. Apparently I'm not allowed to add graphics cards unless I want to solder it to the motherboard ("How about I solder it to your lying head Dell!") I asked the guy/girl/Androgynous Indian if the great Dell overlords would kindly let one little peon install a graphics card that he paid nearly $200 for but the council of Dell Elder's (affectionately known as "Dellders") refused my bequest and I'm left out in the cold. Alas, fear not my bretheren, the guy/girl/Androgynous Indian assured me that Oblivion would run on my integrated graphics chip. I then held the phone to the graphics chip so the guy/girl/Androgynous Indian could whisper his magic blessing upon the piece of shit and get it to run Oblivion. Lord knows I hadn't tried it already. Luckily I'm left with a few hundred dollars worth of games that I'll never get to use.
That sucks so damn bad I dont even know how to respond. I would suggest you sell off that Dell for whatever cash you can get for it and build your own rig. For $500 ($200 of which is the card which youve got settled already) total you could build something thatd beat the crap outta that Dell. Theres going to be some serious price drops when Conroe comes out in a month so you can get a very nice last gen chip for a song if you are in the market around July 23rd.;)
If you want any help, let us know. Us PC geeks round here love planning a new build almost as much as using it. Feel free to PM as well if needed.

P.S. That BS about it will work on your IGChip is crap. It will but you are missing so much of the experence, youre better off not playing it now but waiting until you get a better PSU.

[jagwire1141]

I'd really love to sell this hunk of shit and get a respectable computer but I almost feel raped by the whole experience. It's exasperating and I don't want to go through the whole thing again. Thanks for the offer though and if I do go down that road I'll definitely ask you guys for advice. Also, anyone willing to fan the flames of hatred for dell is welcome to come into this thread and post stories. I'd like to know that I'm not the only one that Dell sodomized.

[jagwire1141]

Alright, my dad's interest seemed more piqued that I first imagined when I mentioned a new PC. The one we opened up today won't start, D'oh. Can someone point me in the right direction of where to start with a new machine?

[GrimNecroWizard]

If you know how, definatly build it yourself. I have a Dell and it works great, but I have heard that their customer service sucks from others...It all depends on your money. I'd get an Alienware >_>