Video Card guru needed please

[murron]

I've put this off long enough. Time for me to learn more about video cards.

I've got a game that says I need a minimum requirement of a T&L capable chipset, Radeon 8500 or GeForce2. Considering how little I've ever worried about upgrading my video card, this is Greek to me. My last upgrade was a standard PCI card, 256mb FX 5200.

My new computer has standard the ATI Radeon XPress 200, which I suspect is pretty lame compared to my options out there.

I can't find anything that indicates if my factory shipped card is T&L capable and my game keeps crashing at the loadup screen. I know it isn't my other specs because I more seriously exceed the minimum requirements (2G DDR-RAM, 410G HD space, Dual core x64 AMD processor, running MCE).

I've updated the driver and installed the catalyst, removed all custom content from the game in case that was causing a conflict. Uninstalled the latest expansion pack and reinstalled it. I even exchanged the disk on the off chance there was a mess up on the manufacturing. The game ran perfectly until this latest expansion, which lists a slightly different video card requirement than I've seen on the previous releases. I've made sure all available patches for the game have been installed.

So...can anyone here help me or at least point me in the right direction to figuring this out?

 

[Penguin50388]

I am no video card guru either. My suggestion would be one of two.

1. Go to Radio Shack and ask them if there are any near you.
2. Get a new game.

 

[murron]

I am no video card guru either. My suggestion would be one of two.

1. Go to Radio Shack and ask them if there are any near you.
2. Get a new game.

Very funny, lol. Radio Shack doesn't even give adequate advice about cell phones - why on EARTH would I ask them about my computer?

And I am NOT giving up my game, lol.

 

[Leesy]

I'm not quite shore what you've done from what you said above so to clarify your graphics card is a FX 5200? if this is the case its well within the games specifications from what you were saying about them. So did the problem arise from installing a update for the game or from upgrading the drivers of from upgrading the expansion pack in the game? if it was from updating the drivers try going back to a older version of drivers. If it was from the expansion pack go to the games website and see if they have anynotes about spesific graphics cards or driver versions not working because sometimes for some reason some games have issues with different sets of drivers or graphics cards. the website may also have a patch to fix the problem.

 

[xMinionX]

Full system specs, pls. And the name of the game as well, if you don't mind.

Radeon Xpress 200. That's just the motherboard chipset. Find out the make/model of your graphics card, and we can go from there.

(Good to know I'm not the only one wrestling with a new system)