Graphics Card

  • Thread starter Thread starter elziko
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elziko

I have just bought a very cheap computer for a family member. It comes with
an Intel 82845G gaphics card built into the motherboard.

However, I have an old Voodoo 3 2000 AGP card lying around... is it worth
putting this in? Am I right in thinking that the Intel graphics controller
will use system RAM? It only has 256Mb.

TIA
 
elziko said:
I have just bought a very cheap computer for a family member. It comes with
an Intel 82845G gaphics card built into the motherboard.

However, I have an old Voodoo 3 2000 AGP card lying around... is it worth
putting this in? Am I right in thinking that the Intel graphics controller
will use system RAM? It only has 256Mb.

TIA
Click to expand...

you can see watch the bios messages to see how much system ram the
on-board video uses...it's not likely to use too much .
(there is usually a bios setting to choose how much ram is assigned to
video)
if the machine works ok as it is...i would not worry about it.
but if you are a gamer...you may prefer to use the Voodoo 3
 
elziko said:
I have just bought a very cheap computer for a family member. It
comes with an Intel 82845G gaphics card built into the motherboard.

However, I have an old Voodoo 3 2000 AGP card lying around... is it
worth putting this in? Am I right in thinking that the Intel graphics
controller will use system RAM? It only has 256Mb.

TIA
Click to expand...

So this computer has onboard graphics card and empty AGP slot?
 
I have just bought a very cheap computer for a family member. It comes with
an Intel 82845G gaphics card built into the motherboard.

However, I have an old Voodoo 3 2000 AGP card lying around... is it worth
putting this in? Am I right in thinking that the Intel graphics controller
will use system RAM? It only has 256Mb.

TIA
Click to expand...

Does it have an AGP slot?

Is the memory DDR or PC133? For typical 2D uses it won't
matter much performancewise with DDR system memory though
with only 256MB in the box it will help to keep it all as
system memory by using the video card. Even better to add
at least another 256MB of memory.

If the memory is PC133, definitely use the video card.
 
elziko said:
I have just bought a very cheap computer for a family member. It comes with
an Intel 82845G gaphics card built into the motherboard.

However, I have an old Voodoo 3 2000 AGP card lying around... is it worth
putting this in? Am I right in thinking that the Intel graphics controller
will use system RAM? It only has 256Mb.
Click to expand...

Hi,

Yes, the in-built video controller is using your system RAM.

If you do graphics intensive stuff then your are probably losing a fair
chunk of your RAM to the video sub-system. Depending on which OS you are
running, 256MB might be a bit marginal anyway, so you don't want to lose
any.

I did a similar thing recently, i.e. got an older PC with integrated
graphics (Intel 815 chipset in my case).
I did some tests using Memtest86, running them with an AGP card
installed and without (i.e. using the in-built graphics controller), and
Memtest86 reported memory access as being 17% slower with the built-in
option.
Hence I am using a separate AGP card.
The card I am using is quite old so the cost isn't an issue as I could
probably only sell it for a pound or two anyway, so the performance
benefit seemed worth having. My machine is working as a server, so the
actual graphics performance is not an issue and so the old 4MB nVidia
card is fine.

So, it might be worth considering using a separate graphics card. I
don't know how the Voodoo card performs though, so that may or may not
be a good substitute.
 
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