new video card and memory

[knitro]

Ok, I'm not a computer genius here. but i just upgraded my video card to a Nvidia Geforece FX5500 and memory up to 1G and my graphics are better, i can see fingers people!, but the game is a little choppier than before and i can still only invite 2 people over for parties, what can i do to improve my gameplay? i also have a 3.0 GHZ processor with pent 4.

[sara_dippity]

Did you update your drivers?

[witch]

Knitro, don't know if it's relevant to your video card but mine seems pretty close to yours, I have GeForce 5700 and have been having big probs with nvidia graphics drivers.

The latest driver from the nvidia site craps my system - conficts with the OS maybe? The next to last driver craps my sims game, choppy and low quality as you comment. The video driver, 3rd-to-last release, works. If you have already put the latest video drivers in, try rolling back to older versions.

I also have 1Gb RAM and an Athlon 64 Series 2000, which benchmarks at around 3Mhtz. (Edit: 2.30am in the morning & I was worried how to spell megahertz. I have a 3 Gigahertz machine of course! End edit). I don't know if the 64 bit nature of the chip affects how video drivers work.

[knitro]

Well, folks, thanks for your help, but i did discover one thing on my part, I was playing this at a dorm with 8 playable sims and the dorm had 14 peeps on it, plus i had two stuck sims from some other lot there, so i deleted them, that helped, i have lowered my quality a bit, med texture, no shadows or reflections, and it was ok.  Then low and behold i went and played in a normal lot, with 6 sims on it tried to throw a party and WOW, i can have 8 people. and the graphis were fine, my suspicion is that it wasn't as good cuz of the dorm.  but maybe its supposed to be better at the dorm, that was my assumption, and thus prompted me to write the thread. thoughts?

[JenW]

Oh yeah, dorms really put a strain on your system. Even with the furniture and dormies hiding it's definately slower than my single-family houses. Turning off UI transparency also helps, I think, and I keep it off all the time now. I never found it particularly useful anyway.

Jen

[cabelle]

I received some unexpected birthday money was thinking of upgrading my graphics card & increase my ram but I'm not very computer savvy. I have a Nvidia Geforce MX 4 "integrated" card with 64 mb ram (I think it's the 460) and 512 mb ram in my computer. I was considering the same card as Knitro (the Geforce 5500) and increase the ram to 1 gig. Currently I've been dealing with lack of the special event movies, "chunky" hands and 2 invites to parties. Would be nice to upgrade.

The question I have is should I buy the card & ram from Newegg and attempt to install it myself or purchase it from the Comp USA in my area? It would be somewhat cheaper from Newegg (about a $50 difference) but Comp USA will install hardware I purchase from them in my computer for free. I'm inclined to go the Comp USA route because I don't want to screw up my computer. What would you advise?

[witch]

Cabelle, have you opened up your PC and changed any hardware before? Video cards are not difficult and there are tutorials online. Here's one for starters: Online tutorial.

Doing it yourself may invalidate a warranty, check it out. The main thing is to take your time and look carefully at how the old card is plugged in. Either use an anti-static strap or leave the power cord plugged in and the main power switch at the wall turned off. That will make sure the PC is grounded.

Make sure the new card is firmly seated all along the connecting plug, supporting the motherboard underneath if possible, try not to put your fingers on any circuitry, hold things by the edges if you can.

[cabelle]

Thanks for the reply & the link to the tutorial. I've been too chicken to open up the PC for fear that I'll do something dumb, break it and freak. I should bite the bullet and at least see what's inside. The process seems pretty straightforward except I'm wondering if the "integrated" term in my Geforce MX 4 card means that it's one of those troublesome graphics cards that is integrated as part of the motherboard and not it's own card. Am I correct on that? I could be mistaken, this is uncharted territory for me. But I have heard that even the integrated cards can be disabled so I could probably learn how to do that too.

But thanks again for the input, tomorrow I'm going to take a look at the inside of the PC, read the tutorial you kindly linked and look for more info I might need. But I'll have to be patient first and help out in my daughter's class tomorrow morning. So I better get to bed for now, 20 "busy" 7 year olds can be quite taxing on the nerves even with a full nights sleep. I sure appreciate you helping this technologically challenged individual.

[witch]

Cabelle, good on ya for having a look. That's all I did the first time. It might pay for you to open up the box and just check that you have an AGP slot if you have an older board with an integrated video card. My old motherboard didn't. Bissela, a poster on MikeInside forums did a really good google search on how to recognise different video slots, hang on I'll see if I can find a link...

Yup, here it is: Bissela's pics for video card slots Try the 10th post down, don't know how to link exactly.

Bissela is at Uni learning to be a computer assembler amongst other things & is very knowledgeable.

PS. There are heaps of tutorials, find one that seems easy to you, that one I linked to was just the very first one on the list.