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upgrading hardware

Started by capn_midnight Oct 19, 2003 at 1:17 PM 4 replies 300+ views
Original Post
capn_midnight
capn_midnight
Okay, I know very little about hardware, especially hardware from 5 years ago. I have a computer that my mother uses. It''s a PII 233, 128MB RAM running Win98, and a generic graphics card. All she wants to do is play The Sims, but currently MY computer is the only one that can play it at a good rate. Would upgrading the gfx card help with the game? The min sys requirements of the game say it should run on a 233. It does, but only just barely, and with a lot of terrible graphics artifacts. For example, when you move the mouse, the cursor leaves ghost images, so it looks like there are 12 different cursors. The only way to know which one is the right one is to move the mouse. It''s that kind of buggy play that I want to remedy. I know the game won''t run any faster, I just want to get rid of the buggy display artifacts, on a minimum budget (I have SOME money to spend on this, but not a lot).
cowsarenotevil
cowsarenotevil
You could probably fix some of the artifacts by updating the video drivers. Also, there''s an option somewhere to disable hardware acceleration (A slider thingy) and it mentions some of the problems you''re having, but that would probably slow it down too much. Depending on whether the motherboard has an AGP slot, you''ll either want an AGP or a PCI video card (assuming, of course, that none of the above suggestions work satisfactorily), and you can probably find a card good enough to play The Sims for under 50$
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Monder
Monder
Take a look inside the case and see if there''s an agp slot (it''ll be brown) or if it''s just got pci slots (they''re white). Then go pick up something like a gf2 or a radeon 7200, they''re cheap and if it''s the gfx card causing it be slow will do the job perfectly.
BradDaBug
BradDaBug
I''d say the slowdown is probably mostly from the slow CPU. I used to have a 380 MHz K6-2 that I played The Sims on, and any time there was more than a couple sims in the house it''d CRAWL, regardless of what the game was currently rendering.

I also had problems with mouse artifacts on the K6-2 machine, but I just put up with them.
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capn_midnight
capn_midnight
from poking around in there before, I seem to only remember PCI slots.

Like I said, it''s not really the lag I''m worried about, mostly. It''s the display artifacts.

I would like to upgrade the processor, but I don''t think the motherboard can handle anything higher than a 266. This machine was apparently (I bought it used for $100 2 years ago) one of the first PII machines, so it really only supports the lower end stuff. And if I''m going to go as far as replacing the motherboard, I might as well buy a new machine, as I''ll have buy pretty much new everything.
Ilici
Ilici
i used to play "The Sims" on a P1 233 mhz 32 mb ram S3 Virge GX 4mb video card - it was quite slow when switching menus and stuff but it worked and in the game it was quite playeble.

You do mean the sims 1 right?

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