PWI won't let me change my graphics?

Ashtel - Heavens Tear

Hey, I have a big problem here... somehow, for some reason, my PWI will not let me change the graphic settings. I've tried doing it from Settings (accessed from the launcher) and the only ones I am able to change are Sharpen, V-Sync screen resolution, texture, distance, flowers, and trees. The other bubbles are just not clickable. Same with when I try in-game - I move to best performance, and those stay where they are, which is at nothing at all.

My laptop on ther hand has access to all of these (although there is major lag if I don't keep some of them down, but I suspect that is due to low RAM and only 28MB on the graphics card). This PC, on the other hand, is close to 6 years of age and has a higher RAM memory (518RAM) as well as 60MB on the graphics card. However, the card itself is quite old (NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420).

So my question is, does anyone know/can help me concerning the unavailable graphics setting, or if this is just due to the old graphics card, and if it will be fixed if I buy a newer one?

Thank you.

Julyah - Sanctuary

I'm not sure if the problem occurs because of the old graphics card, but it certainly looks old. Even if you could set it higher I wouldn't trust on that card to be able to run it on higher details.
Care to post what card exactly you have on your laptop (if I understood correctly it has the settings available even though it seems worse than the other card). Might be that the card memory is lowish but instead it uses some of computer's shared memory making it actually more effective than the other card.

Also be sure to upgrade your graphics card drivers.

Ashtel - Heavens Tear

I just ran a check on my laptop, and this is what showed up:

Name: Mobile Intel(R) 945 GM Express Chipset Family
Approx. Memory: 224MB

While on the Settings screen of PWI, it shows up as:

Mobile Intel(R) 945 GM Express Chipset Family (32 MB)
RAM: 1014 MB

(I messed up the numbers a bit in my first post, it seems. I apologize for that.)

Also, I already tried updating the driver on my PC just an hour ago; it didn't seem to do anything at all.

EDIT: In comparison to what shows up on my PC's PWI launcher:

NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420 (60MB)
RAM: 512 MB

darthpanda16

Please see the system requirements here:

http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=174982

I remember correctly, you will need a GeForce 5 and later card if you have nVidia. The Intel 945 GM Express chipset supports pixel and vertex shaders 2.0 BUT, it is software accelerated, and handles it poorly at that, even by

Please consider getting a computer system 4 years of age or younger, to help minimize the compatibility issues you can have if your computer is older (ancient by geek standards). b:pleased

Ashtel - Heavens Tear

Thank you, hopefully a new card will solve the problem.
And I would have gotten a new computer a long time ago, but there is just no money in the household to spare for that (my sister and I are the only ones who actually use this PC) so my parents are still convinced that this PC works just fine. And yes, this thing is ancient. >_<

darthpanda16

I feel your pain, my laptop here at home is 5+ years old, and developing my own games on it is not very fun b:sad

Ashtel - Heavens Tear

>.<
Yeah. My laptop is newer but still can't run PWI or any other game properly, so the other option is to use this PC, which is cluttered with a lot of stuff, mainly my younger sister's who seems to adore downloading pointless things and never deleting them...

But back on topic, the reason why the other graphic options aren't avaliable on the PC is due to the old graphics card, correct? I just want to make sure. What card do you guys suggest(fairly cheap, $100~, since I'll be buying with my own money.) Also, how easy is it to install?

darthpanda16

You said you have a laptop, you can't just upgrade the graphics chip on most laptops, because they are built into the mainboard.

If it was a desktop system, depending on what slots it has internally, you would then have a better chance to upgrade.

Ashtel - Heavens Tear

Yeah, this will be for a desktop. If I can't get it properly, I suppose I can just take it to a professional. I was hoping for an easier way/suggestion/guide to install it yourself, since my parents are beggining to get rather annoyed by this. And since I'm still a minor, not much else I could do. xD

Thanks anyway.

Julyah - Sanctuary

Seeing as 420MX is a really old card I wouldn't go spending a lot of money on the graphics card since sooner or later you're going to have to upgrade the whole machine or else it'll become a bottleneck.
If I remember correctly the MX420 only came in AGP slot so you will want the card that uses the same slot. Also your power supply might not be effective enough to power a brand new state of the art card so I'd settle for a bit more modest card.

Since you already have good experience on NVIDIA cards I see no reason for switching.
GeForce 7600GS card might be a good choice. I'm using 6600 myself and it works quite nicely with PW so you could get one of those too.
Both should be cheap as milk nowadays, problem is they might not sell those everywhere anymore since they're a bit old.

Whatever card you choose to decide be sure it uses the same slot type as your current one (which is AGP I'm pretty sure) but check it before going to the store. You can check it by looking at what kind of slot the card is in and google for AGP slot pictures, then compare them. The other option would be a PCI slot that you can look up for reference. ISA is nearly out of the question already but to be 100% sure you can look it up too.

Installing the card isn't hard. Just unplug the cords, untie a little **** that keeps the card in the case, remove it and put in the new one in reverse order. Then install the drivers. Just remember to be gentle, no need to get rough on hardware

EDIT: Oh it's for a laptop? I wouldn't suggest you going to replace it yourself. Thought it was for the dekstop comp.

EDIT: I should learn to read. xD
For the desktop it shouldn't be that much of an issue.

Ashtel - Heavens Tear

Alright Julyah, thank you for that. I'm hoping to get my new card in a few days, depending on how fast I can find it, so I'll be keeping that in mind.

darthpanda16

This link might help, and you can research online.

http://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgrading/install-video-card-agp.htm

When opening a computer case and working on your system, MAKE SURE you ground yourself by having your elbow touching the metal case while working inside it, or have a static bracelet on. Of course, have the PC OFF and UNPLUGGED.

Ashtel - Heavens Tear

Yeah haha, don't want to suffer any injuries doing this. >.>
Thanks for the link.

Ashtel - Heavens Tear

I just looked up my card's slot and such, and it's located in the PCI slot. Unfortunately, none of the stores I went to had that - closest I got was to PCI-E. Upgrading the computer is completely out of the question to...

Does anyone know of a good PCI graphics card that can support PWI'x max graphics, or should I just give up completely?

darthpanda16

Check out

www.newegg.com

www.tigerdirect.com

www.zipzoomfly.com

and see if you can find anything.

Ashtel - Heavens Tear

I have found absolutely nothing, unfortunately.
Is there a chance that my computer will have an AGP slot, or will I only know this if I open it up and search for it?

Julyah - Sanctuary

Some slightly newer cards come in both PCI and AGP versions, so be on lookout for those.
The easiest way of finding out if you have AGP or not is to open the case; you need to open it anyways if you install the card, but you can also type in google your motherboard model and check the details there.
Also there's a good diagnostics program called "SiSoft Sandra" that can tell you a lot of stuff about your computer. From there you should be able to see if your computer has AGP slot.

I just googled a bit and it seems there's an NVIDIA FX5500 PCI card that should run PW pretty nicely. Not sure if it's too powerful for your power supply. If it is then you might experience power failures or even fail to start the computer.
Full name of the card in question is: BFG Technologies Geforce FX5500 256MB PCI Graphics Card
And apparently it comes in AGP (if not even PCI-E) version as well so be sure to get the right one if you're going to get it.
Here's a product page: http://www.nextag.com/BFG-Technologies-Geforce-FX5500-77092082/reviews-html

You could look at the amount of power your power supply can offer and post it here so we'd know better what to recommend. It should read in the back of your computer on a sticker that tells you all the power supply details. The number we'd need is followed by (W)atts mark if you're not sure what to look for.

Ashtel - Heavens Tear

Thank you for all the advice given... I'll be sure to check the power supply, as well as the slots as soon as tomorrow, hopefully.

On the other hand, due to my wonderful research skills (okay, so maybe I asked around my IT class...) I've managed to find a well-known store that not only sells computer parts, but also makes motherboards to run better than the ones in major stores for a cheaper price... which seems to have appealed to my parents, so right now, they are considering buying a whole new computer all together.

I am hoping for that, but if not, I'm also very thankful for all the help you guys have given me. My parents are supposed to decide soon (I hate being a minor sometimes) so I'll check those out in the post above mine, but in the meantime hope for a brand new computer all together.

-pushes dusty seven year old PC under the rug-

Julyah - Sanctuary

Just remember that if your parents are going to say it's expensive and are going to settle for some older or a bit more modest machine you're not entirely doomed. If you like playing MMORPG's like Perfect World they often tend to run on a bit older machines than for example those FPS games.
Also remember to tell them that don't want a machine with integrated video card. Those with a separate video card are easier to upgrade and in the end become cheaper since you can upgrade them one by one.

That store you mentioned sounds like a nice place so if you're going there then be sure to ask the people there some recommendations for gaming machine. It really sounds like they know what they're doing.

Ashtel - Heavens Tear

Yeah, I'm not looking for a new state-of-the-art computer, but just something that can handle games like PWI better than my old currently does. I'm looking through a list of computers right now and most I find do have integrated cards - thank you for that, by the way, I was considering one of those ones - and I was just wondering what are your opinion on good cards for Radeon? The only one they have is integrated Radeon 2100, and from what I've seen on the internet it is not exactly recommended.

Edit: I've found a good system that comes with a prepackaged Windows Vista operating system, with the follow features:

Processor Type - AMD Athlon X2 5050e Dual-Core Processor
Processor Speed - 2.60GHz
RAM 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 - SDRAM
Hard Drive Speed/Capacity - 320GB 7200RPM SATA
Optical Drives - SuperMulti DVD Burner With LightScribe
Graphics - ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics

And I was just wondering how good this will be to play PWI and other MMORPGs while supporting their graphics.

Julyah - Sanctuary

That machine should be more than adequate to run PW. I have no troubles with PW and yours seem to top mine on memory and processor department.
Can't say much about that video card but I just googled it a bit and people seem to think it's good card when it comes to integrated ones.

Just as a sidenote that there seems to be a lot of people here who can't run PW cause of Windows Vista.
Personally I would steer clear of Vista and go for Windows 7 when it's released. Vista isn't going to last that long.