Yes. An easy example is turning on shadows. Now you can sneak from one shadowed area to another. Now you can see shadows of people standing round the corner.
Yes.
Yes.
I see you run at 1600x900. That’s 1.44 million pixels. 1080p is 44% more. That’s 44% more work for the GPU.
And it makes the game 44% more fun?
Why do I get the impression that some people here are offended by the fact that someone who didn’t spend $300 on a graphics card has the temerity to enjoy computer games?
Another area where a better card enhances game play is through sheer muscle. Your FPS goes up so you can react faster. You don’t rapidly spin right and have the game hitch as it tries to render what’s around you. You can sprint and have the engine keep up drawing the world. When I’m playing Rust, having a longer render distance means I can see a potential threat from further away rather than when it’s too close to hide. Or see a pile of wood off in the distance rather than waste time searching for resources. A larger resolution means more visual information on the screen and less of the world covered by UI elements.
All places where a better card equal better game play.
Not in the least. I used to own a 9800 GTX+. Was a phenomenal card for the money and I paid all of $120 for it at the time. When I upgraded it (Radeon 7950 3GB now – nice but hardly top of the line these days) I happily gave it to an online friend asking about cheap computer builds on another board. I knew that he’d be happy with it as well because it’s a great card. Too bad they don’t make them any longer. Prior to that, I had a really antiquated system and was playing games like Portal on an old AGP card (Radeon HD 3650 with 512MB).
Still, the 9800 GTX+, as good as it was, was inferior to the 7950. Just objectively, the 7950 makes better pictures and handles games better. I wouldn’t crap on anyone for having a low end card and feeling that it;s working for them but I find it puzzling that someone would then insist that it wouldn’t be notably better with a more robust GPU. I’ve been on both sides of the fence – it’s better with a more advanced card (which is why I’m recommending the R7 260 system over the GT 620 system). I have no need to be “offended” by someone having fun on a lower tier card, I just know what the differences are.
Last time I had an AMD card, the driver crashed about every other day. Have used Nvidia ever since.
I have a Geforce 620 GT and a 6-core CPU. Skyrim runs at 1920 × 1080 in Ultra, no problem.
I’d suggest you had some other configuration issue. If nothing else, mine has run trouble free so there’s the value in one-off anecdotes.
It came with the computer off the shelf so either Gateway or Circuit City should have caught any configuration issue. Did try contacting Gateway and AMD customer service but niether one were any help so, after a few weeks of driver crashes, I got fed up and put in a Nvida.
It’s that kind of optimism that keeps us young 
Circuit City had nothing to do with the computer’s configurations and Gateways might make serviceable home office boxes but I wouldn’t trust them further than that. Anyway, the fact that you bought it from Circuit City dates your experience back at least six years ago. Stuff changes.
To be fair, I’ve only needed two cards since that AMD. Had my current box been only available with AMD in my price range, I’d have tried them again and hoped for the best.
Just taking your comment and running. . .
From what she says, when she plays Second Life it’s usually an RP like Naruto where she fights, and even at the lowest settings now it lags so bad it affects her game. She has the AMD now but it’s an older computer and I think that’s why she is griping about it. I am reading that AMD is better. She can’t play Skyrim at all. So I guess from this she gathers that Nvidia is better.
I’m loving all these comments and she’ll be hearing them all today!
There HAS been times when AMD was the crappier card in specs and reliability. They’ve since cleaned up their act considerably and their cards now are very respectable and frequently top rankings for performance vs price. But there’s a lot of hard feelings or bad reputation that has legitimate roots but doesn’t honestly reflect today’s scene.
Because there’s a bajillion people with different systems and different situations, you can find an anecdote for anyone having trouble with this or crashing that or their card catching on fire. But I would read reviews and check comparisons and arrive at a conclusion separate from the one-off stories.
Here’s the Tom’s Hardware review of the card. And it’s not 100% glowing (I’m not a big advocate of the card except for in your price point). Part of their issue at the time was its price relative to other cards in its same class. But if you go to the game performance tests, you can see on the charts how it ranks against the Nvidia GT 640 – a better card than the GT 620 in the Best Buy system. It just blows it away. I trawled several sites trying to find a $600 system with different configurations but they were all carrying the GT 620 (or worse). So it’s really a question of which is best between the two systems unless you start looking for refurbs, open box discounts or stuff like that.
I feel like I can’t post without adding another post after it in this thread
Here’s an alternate system from TigerDirect. It’s another AMD card (Radeon 7730) and has a weaker power supply (300W vs 450W) and slightly slower processor than the NewEgg system. I’d still rank it better than the Best Buy system but below the NewEgg one.
Oops. At some point in this thread I started calling the R7 250 in the NewEgg system a R7 260. Probably because of the GT 620.
95% of what I said remains. The GT 250 is in the same tier as my old 9800 GTX+. It is much better than the GT 260. It is one tier lower than the R7 250 and the R7 260 (where they would not recommend an upgrade since you wouldn’t see a difference). However, some of my links point to information on the R7 260 and I wanted to clear that up. Here is the Tom’s Hardware review of the R7 250 including comparing it to the GT 230
Computers are hard… let’s go shopping! Just not for computers.
I’d say follow Quartz recommendations. Get a cheap, but solid base PC and buy the GPU separately.
I’d also recommend an Nvidia card over AMD. Nvidia’s ecosystem and drivers are, currently, way ahead of AMD. AMD is shaping up, but right now, Nvidia offers the more comprehensive, stable, and up to date ecosystem, IMHO. She;ll be able to stream/record her gameplay super easily if she’s into that and NVidia has an auto optimize button for supported games which is perfect for someone who isn’t into tweaking video settings.
The 750 is a decent card, but I’d recommend waiting until she can afford the 760.
Me too, provided I don’t overdose on hi-def or script heavy mods. That said, I bought this machine 18 months ago. I’ll definitely be replacing the video card this Christmas.
OTOH, Second Life - I have no idea what goes on in that game but when you’re dealing with user created areas it’s pretty much a crapshoot in terms of video quality or performance demands.
This Dell for $650 is rather decent.
It’s basically an update of the machine I bought. Don’t let them upsell you on anything but see if you can’t talk them into applying the 8.1 patch in the factory and also ask them for the reinstallation disks (don’t wait a year, like I did, or they’ll try and charge you $78 bucks for them). I don’t like Dell as a company but I’ve never regretted buying one of their machines.
** Processor**
4th Generation Intel® Core™ i5-4440 Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.3 GHz)
Operating System
Windows 8, 64-bit, English
Memory3
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 1600MHz - 2 DIMMs
Hard Drive4
1TB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive 6.0 Gb/s
Video Card5
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 635 1GB DDR3
Optical Drive
16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW), write to CD/DVD
If there’s any offense, it’s not because of what you play on, but the fact that this thread is about getting someone the best experience they can for the lowest cost, and you are essentially recommending a higher cost, less powerful card because you currently use it.
What you currently use has very little to do with the subject of this thread, and that might have ruffled some feathers.
I game at even lower resolutions than you do, and at framerates that some would think were criminal. I have no problem putting games on the lowest settings–even hacking them to be even lower (which, BTW, you can do with Skyrim to an impressive degree. The OP’s daughter’s current computer can almost certainly play the game. She just might not like the way it looks). But I’m not going to recommend my Intel HD graphics card or 7200 GeForce in this thread.
I kinda like it. Has sort of a WoW cartoonish look to it (especially the buildings).
I’m sure the novelty would wear off in a hurry though