New game needs pixel shader 1.1?

blue powder

I recently installed Lego Star Wars II, and it tells me that to play this game I need the pixel shader 1.1 or greater. A bit of research tells me that I need to buy a new driver, which i a massive pain in the ass. I also got some conflicting advice saying it was possible to update my drivers?

I'm not sure how to check which drivers I have, I think I have a nvidia of some sort, but I can't help but think it's fucking old haha. Could someone perhaps tell me how to check out which drivers I own? I went to the nvidia website and apparantly I can update the drivers there, will this work?

Thanks again and in advance for all of your priceless advice.

Cryogen

Start -> Run -> dxdiag

Go to the graphics tab, the version of drivers will be listed.

You can get new drivers from the nvidia site.

It is also hilarious that this thread comes shortly after your .bin burning thread is solved, but i'm sure thats a coincidence eh.

edit : it is possible your graphics card simply isnt capable of the task

blue powder

Haha, I wasn't sure if anyone was going to be smart ass enough to point that out. I've learnt that when in this forum these sorts of thing are insinuated but never directly addressed haha.

Thanks Cryogen, I'll see how this works out.

Daedalus

You don't buy drivers. They're just on the hardware manufacturer's web site.

You probably need a new graphics card. How old is your graphics card? What model is it?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess GeForce 4 MX SomeNumber, right? If so, you're fucked. GF4MX doesn't do pixel shaders, at all.

hell, shader model 1.1 is what, six years old now?

blue powder

Well... Fuck. Yeah you're right, Dae, I have the GeForce 4 MX 420. So what the fuck, how do I run this game? I guess I need to buy a new graphics card? What would you recomend, what are prices and stuff?

Magus`

Get a GeForce 6800 AGP.

MechMantis

I, myself, would avoid PCI-E.

A: They're a tad more expensive
B: They're only better in ULTRA-HIGH-HOLY-SHIT-UBER Graphics. Only slightly, too.

AGP works well, I'm running on an ancient board with an AGP4x, and am quite capable of running Oblivion in relatively-high detail mode. (ATI X1650 Pro, Athlon XP 2000, with 1 gig of memory)

The main bottleneck on me not running it on, say, 1024x768 is really the processor and 4x slot vs 8x slot.

blue powder

Oh my god, I have no ieda what any of that means, Mantis. This is why I need help, I have absolutely no knowledge on this stuff. So I guess go for the GeForce 6800 AGP? Will this essentially run all games these days?

Daedalus

MechMantis wrote: »

I, myself, would avoid PCI-E.

A: They're a tad more expensive
B: They're only better in ULTRA-HIGH-HOLY-SHIT-UBER Graphics. Only slightly, too.

AGP works well, I'm running on an ancient board with an AGP4x, and am quite capable of running Oblivion in relatively-high detail mode. (ATI X1650 Pro, Athlon XP 2000, with 1 gig of memory)

The main bottleneck on me not running it on, say, 1024x768 is really the processor and 4x slot vs 8x slot.

What the shit? Neither of your points are true. Is it "let's trick warez-d00d into wasting his money day" or something?

Anyway. What card you want to get depends on what slots you have in your motherboard to put such cards in. Given that you have a GF4MX, that means you have either (hopefully) an AGP slot or (worst case) nothing but shitty slow-ass PCI slots. Download CPU-Z and run it, look under the Graphics tab and it should tell you. Or open the case and look at the slots.

We also need to know how much money you're looking to spend. $200 buys a very different card than $100 which buys a very different card than $50.

Magus`

Yeah, if you have only PCI you're plain fucked. You'll need a new motherboard. Seriously. Pixel Shader 1.1 is.. so very old.

blue powder

Well, I mean ideally I'd rather spend as little as possible as I only play very few games on the computer, you know? I'd probably look at buying that "the force unleashed" game when it comes out, which looks like it needs a lot of power to be run. But other than that I only play games such as star wars ones and counter strike haha.

As a side note, I didn't actually downlaod that game, I swapped with my friend for my jedi apprentice cd's. I didn't know his was some fucking thai land copy or something haha.

Feral

blue powder, have you considered just buying a used PS2, Xbox or Gamecube (if you don't have one already)?

You seem like the kind of person who just wants to play games and not have to dick around with technical stuff. A console might be better suited for you, and Lego Star Wars II is available for $20 for all of the last-generation consoles.

blue powder

Yeah man, I have, but I own a Wii and only then for select games like zelda. I prefer the controls on the computer for these kinds of games. But thanks for the suggesiton, I'm really picky about that.

I'm willing to get this shit sorted out, if I buy the stuff my dad is more than capable of puting the drives in etc. He's actually away right now so I can't ask for his advice.

So will I be able to run shit like the force unleashed and lego star wars on a card for like 100 bucks max?

Magus`

Lego Star Wars? Probably?

Force Unleashed? 100 dollars? Sure.. in about 20 years, when the stuff that costs 2,000 dollars now is much more reasonably priced.

You really aren't very into technology at all, are you?

blue powder

Hahaha wow, i'm fucked huh. Well, what do you recomend I buy for running the majority of games? I don't mid if I have to put them on low or medium, just when I can't play them at all is when I get pissed off.

Magus`

If you want to enjoy all the newer games at a decent resolution and whatnot, get a X360. You will not be able to play anything released recently on your rig without a lot of very expensive upgrades.

Hell, not even upgrades, you'd need to build an entirely new rig. You're.. several generations behind. X360 is much cheaper and will get most of the same games.

blue powder

Man, this blows. I really dislike the controls on consoles like the xbox 360. Technically right now, all I need to have a god damn pixel shader 1.1 or higher to play lego star wars haha. Is it not possible to get this on the graphics card I currently have?

Magus`

There are programs that can 'emulate' PS1.1 (and above) but like any emulation expect things to run slooooooowly (and very buggy, at that). If you just want Pixel Shader support get a 6800 AGP (hopefully you have an AGP slot). It's much faster than what you have now, but like I said.. there is no way you'll play anything recent with your PC. Ever. The end.

blue powder

Okay, well thanks for all your advice guys, I'll give it a go!

blue powder

Wait up, is this the driver you were refering to?

http://www.amazon.com/Albatron-NVIDIA-GeForce-128MB-Video/dp/B000W75R72/ref=sr_1_2/103-1648991-9620623?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1190856883&sr=8-2

This is assuming i have the AGP slot, yeah?

Magus`

VIDEO CARD. Driver is a software thing. And yes, it is.

blue powder

Damn it, I suck at this. Okay, cool, I just used CPU-Z and apparantly I have an "AGP version 2.0". So I may just get the 6800 for now. Thanks for your patience, Magus'.

blue powder

I just phoned up a computer store and the guy told me that the 6800 was out of date and recomended me the 7300 GT for $125. Is this a good buy?

Daedalus

blue powder wrote: »

I just phoned up a computer store and the guy told me that the 6800 was out of date and recomended me the 7300 GT for $125. Is this a good buy?

They are full of shit. The 6800 (despite being old) is better than the 7300, first of all, and second, the 7300 is worth like $60, tops.

Don't buy graphics cards from computer stores; there's a huge markup for no good reason. Buy them online at sites like http://www.newegg.com/ or something.

edit: you can get a 7600GS from newegg for like $88, which is a bit better than the 6800 but costs a bit more.

Make sure whatever you're getting is AGP and not PCI-Express.

Hewn

I really don't think you're going to get a lot back for your investment in this video card, given the state of things. Unless your goal is to play old PC games?

Personally, I'd tuck any money aside at this point until there was enough for a respectable new system. You wouldn't even need to invest in anything top of the line, but $500 in new parts would go a long way for you now. $125 put away is a good start on that goal.

Scosglen

You're kind of trying to have your cake and eat it too here. You have a very old budget video card, which is a good indication that the rest of your computer is probably a total heap of shit. It might be fine for counterstrike or warcraft 3 or whatever, but if you want to play anything new, you run into serious insurmountable hardware inadequacies.

If you really just want to play Lego Starwars, you should just buy a cheap videocard that support ps 1.1 like you've been suggested.

If you want to play newer games, like most anything released in the past several years, or god forbid are looking forward to a game that hasn't been released yet, upgrading your computer piece-meal is just a waste of time and money. For that you need to get an entirely new system. You might be able to recycle the case if it isn't some proprietary dell design or something.

You should really probably get an XBOX360 instead.

blue powder

Okay neat, thanks a lot for all of your advice, I can't help but feel I should just buy a whole new computer with my dad in the near future. So what would I be looking at spending on a new machine? Would I custom build or just buy the tower in one piece?

I'd use it for games and uni work, and my dad would use it for administration and music etc.

Ruckus

blue powder wrote: »

Okay neat, thanks a lot for all of your advice, I can't help but feel I should just buy a whole new computer with my dad in the near future. So what would I be looking at spending on a new machine? Would I custom build or just buy the tower in one piece?

I'd use it for games and uni work, and my dad would use it for administration and music etc.

Personally, I won't build a computer for myself or someone else if it costs less than $1000 in parts.

But you can probably get away with $600.

blue powder

Well, thanks a lot for all of your advice, I'll work something out and make some decisions later on down the track.