Graphics Card advice

Jesper

I've a Compaq Evo with a Mobility Radeon 7500. Is that graphics card worth a curse? I've just got Civilization 4 and the grass is coming up black? Is that a sign that my graphics card is a piece of s**t? Wouldn't mind paying a bit for a good card. Any advice or offers gratefull.
Does it need professioinal instillation?

K.O.Kiki

It's a laptop ==> Not a hope in hell of upgrading GPU.
Sorry, but you'll need a better GPU than a Radeon 7500 -- thought about building a small games PC yet?

Jesper

Nah I'm on night shift at work so I'm going to bring it in to use on games. I've just ordered quake 4 so is there any chance of that working ok?
What options do I have now for my existing laptop?

djmarkus

Civ4 will work with that, get the new civ4 patch and install the omega driver for your gfx card.

Jesper

djmarkus wrote:

Civ4 will work with that, get the new civ4 patch and install the omega driver for your gfx card.

Thanks. Where do I get the patch and driver.
Also my Quake 4 arrived today and the game play is impossible. Its frame to frame etc. Anything I can do for this game?
Is there such a thing as a plug in Graphics Card?

gamer

play the game at 800x600 resolution,no shadows,no aa,medium graphic detail settings,u can switch things like backround details surface textures etc,also try playing in 16bit graphics mode,go to dislay propertys advanced ,at 1 time i had to play games on old monitor, so i played in 640by 720 res with hi details setings,no aa.u probaly have card set to 32bit display ,so i cant play all games at high settings with shadows,anti alias all effects on,,so u have to compromise at bit on advanced graphic settings.

TomCo

Jesper, Quake 4 is a bit sparse when it comes to graphics options - even in the advanced tab.

What you're going to have to do is create an autoexec.cfg file in your /q4base directory. In the file you put commands that you want executed at startup.

My spec is a 2.53 P4, Ti4600 and 768mb ram and I can run it really well at 1280x1024.

My autoexec.cfg file contains -

seta image_usePrecompressedTextures "1"
seta image_useCompression "1"
seta image_downSizeLimit "512"
seta image_ignoreHighQuality "1"
seta image_downSizeBumpLimit "512"
seta image_downSizeSpecularLimit "128"
seta image_downSizeBump "1"
seta image_downSizeSpecular "1"
seta image_downSize "1"
seta image_lodbias "0"
seta image_preload "1"
cm_backFaceCull "1"
seta r_useCachedDynamicModels "1"
seta r_skipBump "0"
seta r_skipPostProcess "0"
seta r_skipSpecular "0"
seta r_skipNewAmbient "0"
seta r_multiSamples "0"
seta r_useFastSkinning "0"
seta r_shadows "1"
seta r_useOptimizedShadows "1"
seta r_useTurboShadow "1"
seta g_projectilelights "1"
seta g_skipParticles "0"
seta g_brassTime "0"
seta g_muzzleFlash "1"
seta g_doublevision "0"
seta g_showPlayerShadow "0"
seta g_skipItemShadowsMP "1"
seta g_skipPlayerShadowsMP "1"
seta image_anisotropy "0"
seta ui_showGun "1"
seta image_filter "GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_NEAREST"
r_orderIndexes "1"
r_useInfiniteFarZ "1"
r_useStateCaching "1"
r_useIndexBuffers "0"
r_useVertexBuffers "1"
r_useTwoSidedStencil "1"
r_useConstantMaterials "1"
r_usePortals "1" 
seta s_maxSoundsPerShader "0"

Use these two links to tweak Q4 for your Pc

http://ucguides.savagehelp.com/Quake4/FPSConfigs.htm
Has some premade configs, you can edit them for your spec.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Quake4_1.html
Has a full list of commands, recomendations, and explainations of what each command does.

You should have no problem getting it to run smoothly now.
Have fun!

Jesper

Thanks guys,
How do I create a autoexe file? looking up that web site but its greek to me

TomCo

You make a new text file, put all that stuff in it.
Rename the file to autoexec.cfg, and put it in

C:\Program Files\id Software\Quake 4\q4base.

Then run the game.

Change the contents of autoexec.cfg as you see fit.

The second link has the info about commands on page 8
http://www.tweakguides.com/Quake4_8.html

gamer

make sure u make backup of original .cfg file just in case u need to go back to original configuration,quake 4 is a very demanding game,like hl2 for any laptop to run.

TerrorFirmer

In fairness Tomco a Geforce Ti is alot better then a mobility 7500.

I'd be surprised if any amount of tweaking with cfg files would give him a nice playable Quake IV experience.

Really imo there's no point playing a game if you have to tweak it to the stage it looks like crap.....maybe with RTS in some cases, but definately not with FPS.

TomCo

gamer wrote:

make sure u make backup of original .cfg file just in case u need to go back to original configuration,quake 4 is a very demanding game,like hl2 for any laptop to run.

The autoexec.cfg file is not there by default, so you wont be overwriting anything. HL2 isnt really that demanding on graphics hardware, Ive run it very well on an MX440.

MobileInfantry wrote:

In fairness Tomco a Geforce Ti is alot better then a mobility 7500.

I'd be surprised if any amount of tweaking with cfg files would give him a nice playable Quake IV experience.

Really imo there's no point playing a game if you have to tweak it to the stage it looks like crap.....maybe with RTS in some cases, but definately not with FPS.

Agreed, but Im runnning it smoothly at 1280x1024 with shadows and high quality special effects. Im sure you could take a hit on these and get it running ok on his spec. I can get a screenshot if you want, it looks exactly the same as it does without tweaks.

I do agree that you shouldn't have to do things like this to get an FPS running well, and thats why Im upgrading

Im still interested to see if Jesper got it running.

Jesper

Right I tried that.
When starting the game (just now) I got a waring saying something like "display options incorrect... reverting to safe options".
I simply just coppied and pasted the above bit into an exec file. where did I go wrong. Being vague I know but this is all new to me

TomCo

Not the most technical answer but try removing some of the commands and running it. By trial and error you should finds the ones causing the problems.
Ill take a better look at it tomorrow.

Try this one first though.

image_useCache 1
image_cacheMegs 196
image_cacheMinK 3072
r_multiSamples 0
image_anisotropy 1
image_filter GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_NEAREST
cm_backFaceCull 1
com_purgeAll 1
r_orderIndexes 1
r_usePortals 1
r_useOptimizedShadows 1
r_useShadowCulling 1
r_useLightCulling 3
r_useCulling 2
r_useInfiniteFarZ 1
r_useStateCaching 1
r_useIndexBuffers 0
r_useVertexBuffers 1
r_useCachedDynamicModels 1
r_useTwoSidedStencil 1
r_useTurboShadow 1
r_useShadowProjectedCull 1
r_useConstantMaterials 1
image_usePrecompressedTextures 1
image_useNormalCompression 0
image_preload 1
image_downSizeLimit 512
image_downSize 1
image_downSizeBumpLimit 512
image_downSizeBump 1
image_downSizeSpecularLimit 512
image_downSizeSpecular 1

gamer

go to display settings advanced/ knock off vsync ,should give u more frames per second.

Doodee

Your dealing with a Direct X 7 Card there.
The mobility 7500 is basically the Original Radeon. So its comparible to a Geforce 2 GTS.
Its almost a Decade Old!

Had to refurbish an Compaq EVO 30N (or something) which had the same graphics chip.
Running Quake 4 isn't the best option. Even with everything turned down low your still gonna find it sluggish when theres alot of action, thats simply cause the chip is not a GPU (AFAIR) and so alot of information needs to be processed by the CPU aswell. Those laptops also use PC2100 Ram, which is the slowest Ram available in DDR.

If you are still gonna try and run new games on it, get hte omega drivers and make sure to change everything for performance. Turn off any pixel shading or any new bell and whistle features.

From what i remember, Evil Genius and BattleField will run on that machine, the latter needs alot of tweaking though.

Why not consider an upgrade? Dell outlet or An Acer (Have a Ferrari 4000 Myself) would set ya back less than u think.

gamer

try 640 by 800 res, 16bit graphics settings /in display propertys ,rightclik screen.

TomCo

Changing your desktop res WILL NOT improve gaming performance.

gamer

theres no harm in trying, if u wanna play q4 ,u need a laptop with a latest graphics at least 128meg vram, or maybe u cud bring in a small shuttle pc,plug it in 2 a monitor at work?

TerrorFirmer

Doodee wrote:

From what i remember, Evil Genius and BattleField will run on that machine, the latter needs alot of tweaking though.
.

I assume you are talking about Battlefield 1942? Because Battlefield 2 wouldn't even start up on a Geforce 256/2/3/4 series cards, or any of the 7000 series in a fit, and Battlefield 1942 runs on a 7500 fine.

I think this guy should either get a new machine or just stop flogging a dead horse, what's the point in playing Quake IV if it's going to look like it came out 5 years ago.

And again, the Geforce ti is simply light years ahead of the 7500. Even though its quite old at this stage it still runs alot of the newer games pretty well as long as they don't require shader 3 support, example being quake 4 as you say yourself. The 7500 however runs any new games, if it does at all, like a dog....