Dell with onboard graphics card

dubmick

Anyone know if I can upgrade my graphics card?

I've a vague recollection of someone in the Dell sales team telling me I couldn't.

Don't play games much but I downloaded the new Sensible Soccer demo and it wouldn't work because I 'only' had an on board graphics card. Pisser!

subway

dells with onboard graphics usually come without an agp slot,
so unlesss you quote the dell model number i cant be more help than that

zilog_jones

You need to find out if it's got either (i) an AGP slot or (ii) if it's a newer PC a 16x PCI-Express slot. If you don't have one of those your graphics upgrade options will be pretty slim - you can still get a graphics card for connection by other means, but it won't be a great improvement - a lot of more recent games still won't work on it.

dubmick

think it's a 2400 (3.02ghz P4, Gig ram, 120 gig hd)

Bought it about 3 years ago

subway

we have a 2400 in the front room and its pci only.
no agp/pci-e

youll be wanting a new pc for the games im afraid.

dubmick

jaysus, thats a pain.

Sure, I can still play Football Manager 2006

Thanks for the help anyway.

zilog_jones

See, this is why Dells are shíte! I have yet to see a basic-spec Compaq/HP system that doesn't have an AGP or 16x PCI-E slot outside of the small form-factor ones.

KamiKazi

i have heard that it is possible to get graphics cards that slot into your PCMCIA slot.

dont hold me to this, ive never seen one

snappieT

KamiKazi wrote:

i have heard that it is possible to get graphics cards that slot into your PCMCIA slot.

dont hold me to this, ive never seen one

Well that won't really help you on a desktop, and it wouldn't be any better than a standard PCI card.

Ruu_Old

Remember to check the specs in future, OP. It depends what other games you want to play but you might be able to get away with using a regular PCI graphics card instead of PCI-e but probably wont be able to keep up for long.

TerrorFirmer

Best option is a PCI 6200 in this case. Works on all new games to date - bf2, fear, oblivion, quake 4 - but at pretty crappy settings.

And can you actually get laptop cards that slot into pcmcia? I've never heard of that before...

Anti

HavoK wrote:

Best option is a PCI 6200 in this case. Works on all new games to date - bf2, fear, oblivion, quake 4 - but at pretty crappy settings.

And can you actually get laptop cards that slot into pcmcia? I've never heard of that before...

yes this is possible for pcmcia, but not the new smaller sized one. no idea where to get one though

Gurgle

dubmick wrote:

Anyone know if I can upgrade my graphics card?

First check if you have an AGP slot.
If not, its still possible to get a PCI card that would play sensible soccer anyway, and most reasonably new games.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=304713

Bit pricey though at €96, the AGP version of the same card is only €53.

Theres also a risk that the PSU in your Dell won't be able to cope with the extra power this card will want.

KamiKazi

snappieT wrote:

Well that won't really help you on a desktop, and it wouldn't be any better than a standard PCI card.

sorry, i assumed it was a laptop coz it had onboard graphics, ooops:o

Gosh

Gurgle wrote:

Theres also a risk that the PSU in your Dell won't be able to cope with the extra power this card will want.

I've replaced the onboard graphics on 2 Dell PCs and never had any problem with the PSU. It's easy enough just have to disable the on-board controller in device manager with the PCI card installed (+ drivers etc) and then reboot - when you reboot go into BIOS setup and see if you have to change the graphics setting from on-board to something else (depends on the Dell model).

projectmayhem

zilog_jones wrote:

See, this is why Dells are shíte! I have yet to see a basic-spec Compaq/HP system that doesn't have an AGP or 16x PCI-E slot outside of the small form-factor ones.

last year, i had some money and no time, so i bought an €800 compaq (i'd normally just build my own PC, but time etc.) with an athlon64 and ATi chipset. slowly i just stuck new bits in (PCI gpu, ram etc.) and i've got myself a fine gaming machine. the only issue with it is the compaq logo IMO

skywalker_208

I was in the same position and bought this: https://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=304713

has run everything i play so far.. Medal oh honor , WOW, COD.. only thing i had problems with was Fear ....