confused about buying a graphics card

sknyer

sknyer

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Hello Friends,

I intend to buy a graphics card for my home pc which is presently running on the built in card. I required to change it because I wanted to do some video processing works, (Home Video) for which I have already purchased Pinnacle Software. But It is very slow on the present card and losing some frames and in last audio video syncronization gets some complicated issue. So I wish to get some suggestion from experts - Please help.l

My present PC configuration is

Pentium 4 1.86 processon
Motherboard Intel Original 845 G
RAM 256 SD Ram
( DDR RAN Slot is provided but I am not sure whether it is workable) SD Ram is very must costly . I also want to update ram to 500 to 1gb.
Operating softwre is WinXP SP2
Hard Dish 80 gb

My over all capability to expend for above is below 5000 indian rupees

Please suggest me the best graphics card and memory card to upgrade
I have locally enquired wherein some told me radion and some people advised to go other cheap but workable best cards

Thanks

Nyer
 
5000 rupees is roughly £65

I don't think you will have pci express but you will be able to get an AGP card.

Will 5000 rupees get you a top end card out there?
 
Hi

You would be better off getting a new processor, RAM and Motherboard, to go with the graphics card.

The new graphics card will make a difference but not a lot, Pinnacle is quite an intense application, the extra RAM will help, but you are still going to struggle trying to run todays software on a 5 year old PC.

For 12,500 - 15,000 rupees You can get a very good AMD Dual Core, 2GB RAM, Motherboard & Graphics.
 
My advice is to replace your entire system... it's kinda outdated...
Spend the money on the fundamentals..
Something like this, which has on board graphics (so can be upgraded at a later date)
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Motherboard-B...39:1|66:2|65:12|240:1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

Will give you SO much more of a performance increase, than just replacing your GFX board.
The bottleneck is almost certainly with:
1) Your RAM
2) CPU
3) Hard drive (Do you have at least 20gb free? - If not then your disk cannot run optimally!)
4) Only about here does the GFX power come into play.
 
Hello skyner and welcome to the site.
It is a shame that you spent money on video software as there are plenty of free programs that will do a good job..

The reason that your Pinnacle software seems to be running slow is that you do not have a very powerful cpu. A P4 1.86 Ghz cpu will take about 4 to 5 hours to convert a 700 Mb .avi file and burn to cd. You may be able to replace your present cpu with something a little more powerful which will speed things up a bit.

However yuor main reason for the slowness of processing is that Windows XP needs at least 512 MB of memory to work smoothly. So if you are running Xp and a memory intensive program like Pinnacle then this will give you problems. You really need more RAM memory. As you mentioned at least 512 Mb or preferably 1 GB.

You do not say which version of Pinnacle you have but here are the specifications you need for Verion 11,



Minimum System Requirements


  • Windows® XP with SP2 or Windows Vista™ operating system (32 bit Windows Vista recommended)
    • Intel® Pentium® or AMD® Athlon® 1.8 GHz or higher (2.4 GHz recommended)
    • Intel® Pentium® HT or AMD® Athlon® 2.4 GHz or 1.6 GHz Dual core required for Windows Vista
  • 512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended)
  • DirectX® 9 or higher compatible graphics card with 64 MB (128 MB recommended) - 128 MB required on Windows Vista (256 MB ATI® Radeon®9600+ or NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6 or higher recommended)
  • DirectX 9 or higher compatible sound card
  • 1 GB of disk space to install software and 3+ GB to install bonus content
  • DVD-ROM drive to install software
As you can see you do not need a very powerful graphics card. One suitable for XP here in the UK would cost around £35.

Hope this helps.

happywave.gif
 
Hi,

Thanks a lot for your response, actually the pinnacle software is received me with my TV Tuner Card, as you mentioned, I have download torrent version which is not able to install due to certain trojen problem.

Also, software available on web do not support update.

So far as graphic card is concerned, one of my friends who is an hardware engineer also suggested me to go for geforce of low cost i.e which is available in grey market for around Rs.2500 to 3000 which will support enough in video processing. If so, @ Rs.1500/- I can get 1 gb Ram also, thus, my overall cost for upgradatin will not cross 5000/- I think.

Okay, could you please suggest me a high end video program for download, free of cost, y/day I have downlaod, Corel video studio pro x2 (ulead 12) which is working good but it have only the basic things, do not contain any extra contents or third party contents/effects which are unavoidable for a professinal quality video.

Thank you any way.
 
AbsoluteKevster said:
My advice is to replace your entire system... it's kinda outdated...
Spend the money on the fundamentals..
Something like this, which has on board graphics (so can be upgraded at a later date)
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Motherboard-B...39:1|66:2|65:12|240:1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

Will give you SO much more of a performance increase, than just replacing your GFX board.
The bottleneck is almost certainly with:
1) Your RAM
2) CPU
3) Hard drive (Do you have at least 20gb free? - If not then your disk cannot run optimally!)
4) Only about here does the GFX power come into play.
Click to expand...




I cannot believe that I can get a new branded pc at a cost mentioned by you in or around Bombay . I have recently bout 3 pcs of pcs of which the specification is as mentioned hereunder

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Manufacturer LENOVO
System Model 8985AQ5
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 2 GenuineIntel ~1862 Mhz
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 2 GenuineIntel ~1862 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date LENOVO 2OKT42AUS, 19/06/2007
SMBIOS Version 2.4
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)"
User Name
Time Zone India Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 98.52 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 1.20 GB

The above pcs cost me 32000 eight months ago, including monitor + wireless lan card /pc.

Only pcs is 21000/- per pc.
 
Thanks for your link, but wax seems to be okay.


I was using more advanced software during last few years for making wedding videos, advertisements etc.

Thank you,
 
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