Recently I purchased a new graphics card (64mb Radeon 7500 PCI card) and it doesn’t seem to be running as fast as I hoped. For example I only get about 20 fps on Counter-Strike, DOD, and Firearms. I’ve never installed a new graphics card before, could anyone give me advice on how to optimize it? BTW, my computer is about 2 years old, do I need to install any new drivers for it? I’ve installed some vcard drivers, but not anything else. Thanks for the help.
You always want to install drivers for new hardware, look on the web site of the manufacturer for the latest drivers for your graphics card.
How fast is your CPU, something in you system besides your new graphics card might be limiting your FPS.
What is the frame rate supposed to be?
Try switching off anti-aliasing. It’s can cause a big performance hit.
Well, I downloaded the latest drivers for my vcard yesterday.
>My processor is 766mhz.
>The fps in HL mods i expected were 60-99fps but I got 20fps.
>I’ll check in to anti-aliasing.
Just 5 mins ago:
I started up my computer and the screen was all chopped up and you couldn’t make out a word, so I had to restart in safe mode. In safe mode it constantly locked up, so I removed the card and defaulted to my old one and everything seemed to work.
I may just give up and keep using my old crappy card it’s only 5.5mb vcard but’s frame rate is almost the same as the 64mb card… ugggg, kicks computer.
I must admit I did buy the cheapest priced card with the most bells and whistles I could find. Could anyone suggest a good brand name for graphics cards or more specificall a good 32mb+ pci card under 100$?
Thanks again.
It sounds like you have a defective card. I’d get it replaced under warranty, a new one should work better. Another possibility is that your system simply can’t power the card (motherboard problem), in which case you’re out of luck. As for other options, your only choices are nVidia’s Geforce2/4 MX series, which are significantly slower than what you got. You simply can’t buy decent PCI videocards anymore.
Some tips to increase Counter-Strike performance:
-Lower the resolution, 1024x768 or so should be fine on a decent card
-Bring down the console (~) and enter ati_npatch 0. This will disable ATI’s Truform technology, which will increase your framerates.
-In the console, set cl_corpsestay 10 . This will make corpses stay on the ground for only 10 seconds, which can increase framerates in cases when you have a lot of corpses lying around.
And remember, always run the latest set of drivers. Good luck!
Graphics performance is strongly coupled to CPU speed and a 766 Mhz unit is currently at the pokey end of the spectrum. Also you might want to update your directx to the latest version.
I dunno, I have a GF4 4200ti running on my P3 850 and it smokes every game with everything fully maxed out. Except Morrowind. ITs the only game so far that slows it down.
ATI Radeon 7000 64MB DDR PCI Video Card
Some suggestions on maxing your card performance. BTW why did you get the PCI version vs the AGP?
My computer is 2 years old and it was one of those bargain $499 computers then. So, my computer is one of those without AGP capability 
.
I wouldn’t be suprised if my motherboard couldn’t handle it, but I’m going to exchange the card today and I’ll try all the suggestions you all have given. Thanks for the help.
Umm… if the MB is proprietary, old or featureless enough to be sans AGP I would suspect that there are potentially some inherent bandwith limitation issues related to the MB hardware. I think an inexpensive motherboard upgrade, then getting an AGP version of the card might make more sense in the long run. Out of curiousity is there an onboard video chip/system you are defeating on the MB in order to get the PCI card to install on this system