I Guess I DO Need a Video Card...

[TRIAIN]

So I built a new system about a month ago:

Gigabyte motherboard with G965 chipset
Core2Duo E6400
1 GB DDR2 800 Memory (getting another gig very soon)
320 GB SATA HD

And threw in a TV tuner, wireless nic, IDE HD, and DRDRW from my old setup.

I thought I would get along fine with Intel's newest onboard graphics... I thought wrong.

In Vista, I was getting about 20 FPS while outdoors with medium settings. In XP I am now getting about 27 FPS with the same settings. Since I hate playing games without maxing out the video settings, I went ahead and bought an EVGA 7600 GT video card.

Anyone have a similar setup, that could let me know what to expect? I am hoping to at least double my FPS...


Oh and if anyone wants to buy 1 GB (2X512) of PC2700 Kingston memory (blue heat spreaders); send me a private message or they're going on 'that really big auction site'...:wink:

[DaWok]

I don't have the same setup, but I have the same graphics card. The 7600GT you have should get your game working on high settings, also seeing that you have a way better setup than mine is for sure. If you're getting poor performance, it's probably Vista because I've seen many topics about WoW running really crappy on it. One more thing, remember that onboard graphics = :thumbsdown:

[Kalos]

"I thought I would get along fine with Intel's newest onboard graphics"

No offence, but who or what gave you that idea? The onboard is designed for the office, mass production, as cheap as chips tech. The lowest of the low, bottom rung, Grade F provision. As a computer can only go as fast as it's slowest part, it wouldn't matter what kind of processor you had, it wouldn't increase in the slightest when the bottleneck that's keeping it from flying forwards is clearly not there.

Onboard has been the worst possible gaming option, for the last fourteen years. Often, it's a good idea to ask the WoW guys what they think of a rig design before you buy it to prevent major booboos like this.

It's slightly hilarious. Buying a top grade processor...to use the cheapest intergrated graphics solution to make the investment a complete waste of time in terms of performance. A four year old 5700 will do a better job than onboard.

Gaming without a video card is like playing basketball without shoes on. Painful, and you're going to get trodden on quite severely.

[moopy]

7600 is a perfectly servicable card, and should be more than equal to running WoW at a decent framerate, as long as you're not looking for 1920xlots and a tonne of FSAA. Should be fine, and run fairly cool, also. The two gigs of system memory will really help things along as well.

[TRIAIN]

"I thought I would get along fine with Intel's newest onboard graphics"

No offence, but who or what gave you that idea? The onboard is designed for the office, mass production, as cheap as chips tech. The lowest of the low, bottom rung, Grade F provision. As a computer can only go as fast as it's slowest part, it wouldn't matter what kind of processor you had, it wouldn't increase in the slightest when the bottleneck that's keeping it from flying forwards is clearly not there.

Onboard has been the worst possible gaming option, for the last fourteen years. Often, it's a good idea to ask the WoW guys what they think of a rig design before you buy it to prevent major booboos like this.

It's slightly hilarious. Buying a top grade processor...to use the cheapest intergrated graphics solution to make the investment a complete waste of time in terms of performance. A four year old 5700 will do a better job than onboard.

Gaming without a video card is like playing basketball without shoes on. Painful, and you're going to get trodden on quite severely.


Well, I wouldn't really consider it a 'major booboo'. It's not like the entire computer should be thrown away and I should sink into months of depression or something...:rolleyes:

I actually did it as more of a test to see exactly what Intel's X3000 was capable of. Obviously, their graphics chip is still a major bottleneck (I have read that drivers will help it improve---suurrre).

My 7600 GT will be here on Monday, so all will be well...

[Kalos]

I suppose it's not broken or anything, it just shows a lack of research or understanding into the target markets of the industry. They're never going to making onboard deliver great gaming graphics, Intel have never been famed for thier prowess in the field of graphics anyhow. More importantly, the buyers of onboard on the whole could care less about gaming; it's not the purpose or designed role of the provision, just a cheap output for office applications and such, with no real 3D power. It's almost like buying twelve gig of ram for a Pentium Two. The twelve gig sure have potential to shine, but that'd being hampered by a pathetically inadequite processor.

It's no big suprise, intergrated of 2006 era gets it's rear handed to it by the dedicated cards of 2002 in the benchies, it's piss poor and pathetic, hence the price and it's widespread utilisation in non-gaming capacity, where it's lack of power doesn't matter.

[TRIAIN]

Oh yeah, now this is better!

All settings maximized in the game AND the display properties, able to play at 1680x1050 --- FPS hovering around 68...

Actually not completely maximized, anisotropic filtering is at 4x, at 8x the FPS is still around 42-44...

[Kalos]

Oh yeah, now this is better!

All settings maximized in the game AND the display properties, able to play at 1680x1050 --- FPS hovering around 68...

Actually not completely maximized, anisotropic filtering is at 4x, at 8x the FPS is still around 42-44...
Awesome, so much of an improvement. You'll notice more difference between using dedicated and intergrated graphics than you would between using a Pentium 4 and a Core Two Duo, a good six years difference in terms of advancement.

That's why I was so amazed, a high powered processor, with a dead end bottom worst performer in toe for graphics. It seemed to be completely pointless, the processor would be chocked all the time, unless you like running Super Pi.

Lesson here: Unless you are planning to buy a Sempron or a Celeron, the low end of the processor market, intergrated mobo graphics are just going to hold you back. For gaming of any kind, dedicated ATI (or AMD, as they bought ATI) or Nvidia card are the way to go.