Upgrade question

[Blackferne]

n'Jessi has a HP Pavilion M8330F found http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6883107514

It has been a good PC for a while but she is wanting to upgrade. Using newegg please recommend upgrades to video card and memory. I just got http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814129185 for my rig which works very well on all games I've played graphics jacked up. Would it work in hers?

Thank you.

[Sir Psyko]

Yes, that card will work. The board has a PCIe x16 slot. Any budget you'd like to keep? Is it Vista x64 or x86? Not really much use in upgrading the RAM if it's 32-bit, you will only gain maybe 256MB due to the hardware addressing limitations... if it's 64-bit, then you can go up to 8GB...

Zotac 460GTX for $120 after MIR... I've got a Gigabyte factory-overclocked version of this GPU and it rocks ToR (average in the 80fps range with graphics maxed).

Team Elite 2x2GB DDR2-800... you'll need 2 kits for 8GB as the board is limited to 2GB modules. ~$90

[Blackferne]

Yes, that card will work. The board has a PCIe x16 slot. Any budget you'd like to keep? Is it Vista x64 or x86? Not really much use in upgrading the RAM if it's 32-bit, you will only gain maybe 256MB due to the hardware addressing limitations... if it's 64-bit, then you can go up to 8GB...

Zotac 460GTX for $120 after MIR... I've got a Gigabyte factory-overclocked version of this GPU and it rocks ToR (average in the 80fps range with graphics maxed).

Team Elite 2x2GB DDR2-800... you'll need 2 kits for 8GB as the board is limited to 2GB modules. ~$90

Actually got the Zotac 440 from fry's for like 60 bucks. The issue now is the Power Supply which we think we have a solution to pending Bulwark's approval tomorrow.

[Bulwark]

upgrade spookieness...
We replaced the powersupply and put int eh new videocard and it all looked great. However, it didn't sound great. In fact, there was no sound at all. Tried the speaker port on the back, tried teh speaker port on the front, and nothing. I plugged in a set of USB headphones and they worked great.
We opened up the case and I checked all the plugs on the board, and they are secure. Very odd.

Blackie, can you check one more thing? Right click on the speaker icon on the taskbar and and select playback devices. Click on each one and hit 'Set Default' and check the sound and see if that makes a difference.

[Sir Psyko]

It's an nForce430 chipset in the system...

Newer nVidia cards with HDMI have audio pass-through capabilities and there is a sound driver as part of the graphics driver, which is likely conflicting with (or completely replacing) the on-board chipset's audio driver.

Try rolling back the audio driver. If that doesn't work, you'll have to get the nForce 430 platform drivers (which by this point are probably considered "Legacy" so not on the main search page).

[Blackferne]

A trip to fry's got a USB soundcard which made Jess happy. We may tinker with it, or not. A lot will depend on what she feels like doing with her PC.

[Furiel]

So to hijack blackies thread for my own nefarious purposes...

I have a Toshiba Sattelite P105-S9339. Vista ultimate 32-bit, 2GB ram, blah blah blah, video memory comes from my shared memory pool, no dedicated memory right on the card. According to the system checker website it will not run ToR, the video card fails due to it lacking dedicated video memory. During the last beta weekend due to my other issues I didn't have time to download and install the client on my laptop to see if it would run.

So my debate with myself, I can upgrade my laptop memory to 4GB for $52. If I upgrade the memory, and go into the memory allocations and dedicate 512K or a full 1 GB strictly to video, do you guys think it will run ToR?

[Sir Psyko]

No. It will not work.

It's not a question of memory amount, it will run on 256 VRAM, but ToR requires Shader 3.0 and the 945 chipset is 2.0.

[Furiel]

No. It will not work.

It's not a question of memory amount, it will run on 256 VRAM, but ToR requires Shader 3.0 and the 945 chipset is 2.0.

You'll have to forgive this bit of noobishness but I'm confused as to how the motherboard chipset would prevent the video card from being able to utilize shader 3.0? I checked the specs on the GeForce Go 7900 GS that it has and according to the nVidia site the card is capable of shader 3.0. I've never encountered a system that the Mobo chipset effected the video unless it was integrated, which in this case it's not so am I missing something here or what?

Mobo chipset link: http://ark.intel.com/products/chipsets/22817
Card link: http://www.nvidia.com/object/go_7_series_techspecs.html and http://www.nvidia.com/page/go_7800gtx.html

[Bulwark]

I think he was assuming it was integrated because of the shared memory.
for $54 its worth upgrading to see if it works in the next round of Beta.

[Sir Psyko]

No. It will not work.

It's not a question of memory amount, it will run on 256 VRAM, but ToR requires Shader 3.0 and the 945 chipset is 2.0.

You'll have to forgive this bit of noobishness but I'm confused as to how the motherboard chipset would prevent the video card from being able to utilize shader 3.0? I checked the specs on the GeForce Go 7900 GS that it has and according to the nVidia site the card is capable of shader 3.0. I've never encountered a system that the Mobo chipset effected the video unless it was integrated, which in this case it's not so am I missing something here or what?

Mobo chipset link: http://ark.intel.com/products/chipsets/22817
Card link: http://www.nvidia.com/object/go_7_series_techspecs.html and http://www.nvidia.com/page/go_7800gtx.html

Ah, the Google-fu failed to tell me the system had that video adapter in it... bad Google!

That GPU should work, though it will likely be on lowest graphics settings to get decent FPS.

According to the specs of the GPU, the 256MB VRAM is dedicated,but it has the ability to dynamically allocate system RAM to the video (TurboCache)... Is there an option in the BIOS to increase the VRAM to 512?

The specs are exactly what the minimum requirements listed are, so I think that system should work as it is, but if you can allocate more VRAM to the GPU, then I'd definitely go for 4GB. Actually, I'd go for 4GB either way

[Furiel]

No. It will not work.

It's not a question of memory amount, it will run on 256 VRAM, but ToR requires Shader 3.0 and the 945 chipset is 2.0.

You'll have to forgive this bit of noobishness but I'm confused as to how the motherboard chipset would prevent the video card from being able to utilize shader 3.0? I checked the specs on the GeForce Go 7900 GS that it has and according to the nVidia site the card is capable of shader 3.0. I've never encountered a system that the Mobo chipset effected the video unless it was integrated, which in this case it's not so am I missing something here or what?

Mobo chipset link: http://ark.intel.com/products/chipsets/22817
Card link: http://www.nvidia.com/object/go_7_series_techspecs.html and http://www.nvidia.com/page/go_7800gtx.html

Ah, the Google-fu failed to tell me the system had that video adapter in it... bad Google!

That GPU should work, though it will likely be on lowest graphics settings to get decent FPS.

According to the specs of the GPU, the 256MB VRAM is dedicated,but it has the ability to dynamically allocate system RAM to the video (TurboCache)... Is there an option in the BIOS to increase the VRAM to 512?

The specs are exactly what the minimum requirements listed are, so I think that system should work as it is, but if you can allocate more VRAM to the GPU, then I'd definitely go for 4GB. Actually, I'd go for 4GB either way

Nothing in the BIOS to increase the VRAM, but you are correct, there is 256MB dedicated plus another 767MB shared already allocated for a full GB of the available memory already in set. Which is probably why it boots so slow too, since half the available memory is at least partially allocated to video.

Time to go buy more RAM - thanks SirP. Hopefully if I order today it'll be in before the next Beta weekend so I can give my laptop some run and see how it works.

[Sir Psyko]

Newegg typically will have the stuff to you in 3 days... so long as you order today, or early tomorrow, it should be there in time. And they have a G-Skill 4GB kit for $45 shipped.

Not sure what kind of stores you have there (like a MicroCenter or Fry's type place), but there might be some decent deals locally, though a MIR might be required.

The next test weekend is Thanksgiving, so you have a week

[Furiel]

Order placed and estimated arrival date is Wed of next week so I should have it in time for beta weekend. Huzzah!!

[Gandolfini]

It may be a bit late to add to the conversation but my MacBook Pro 13 runs TOR with decent settings and the display has 64 MB dedicated and 1632 MB shared memory.

[Happyclam]

It may be a bit late to add to the conversation but my MacBook Pro 13 runs TOR with decent settings and the display has 64 MB dedicated and 1632 MB shared memory.

Sorry, but you lost all credibility when you said 'Mac'.

[Gandolfini]

It may be a bit late to add to the conversation but my MacBook Pro 13 runs TOR with decent settings and the display has 64 MB dedicated and 1632 MB shared memory.

Sorry, but you lost all credibility when you said 'Mac'.

It makes a great Windows laptop. I boot into OSX about once a month to update.

[Cuspar]

What full specs does that Pro have Gando? And are you running Parallels, or Boot Camp?

[Gandolfini]

What full specs does that Pro have Gando? And are you running Parallels, or Boot Camp?

I'm using Boot Camp. I suspect the game would suck under Parallels if it would run at all.

It is the base MacBook Pro 13 (2.3 GHz i5, 4GB RAM) from early 2011 with a Seagate Momentus hard drive.