I have an HP Pavilion Slimline s7700n PC. It’s an alright computer and does most things that I need it to well. Except for Medieval 2, which it plays, but the battle scenes are pretty choppy. I know I need a “low profile” video card, but I cant’ find one and have no idea where exactly to look.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
Currently, I have a NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE (although I can’t find it right now to make sure, I’m pretty sure it’s a 128 MB card)
Windows Vista.
894 MB of Ram (according to the System Info thing).
An AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core Processor 3800+ 2.00 GHz
Your computer only has a single PCI expansion slot. For some reason my “copy paste” function is not working right now, but if you go to newegg.com, go to “video cards,” and along the left hand side click on the “PCI” category, you will find a list of 40 cards. I looked for 128MB and 256MB cards (your game requires 128) and the only one I saw that looked powerful enough as well as appearing “small” ( I don’t really know what a half-size card looks like) was the Geforce 5500 you’ll see on that list.
I think that will run your game better than your current integrated graphics (and will free up some of your RAM as well!) but you will not be able to turn up any graphics features probably.
It’s not that out-there of a request… I’d imagine most electronics box stores should be able to help, though I’d go to a computer store myself. If you want to go online, you just need to go to a site like Tiger Direct (or newegg) and search for “low profile”, then make sure you pick PCI. (I’m a bit surprised it’s not a PCI-X slot, but it really seems to be PCI.)
A low-profile card is going to be a standard video card, only it comes with a smaller metal bracket which you replace the large bracket with.
As for video card specs… I’m not really up on them right now. I’d recommend a cool-running card with a fan on it though… I don’t know if you’ve taken a peek inside, but chances are it’s cramped and hot in the case. My parents have my old low-profile Dell Optiplex GX150, which ran a heat-sinked GeForce MX-440 until it overheated and broke and had to be replaced with a TNT2 with a fan.
None of the box stores around me had a low profile card, nor did any of the local computer stores. I was told by the local shops that very few people carry them because there’s no real demand for them. I had a hard time trying to find one and had to get two off of newegg to get one to fit. Hopefully the OP has more room in his then I did in mine as the heat sink wouldn’t fit in my case at all.