(no subject)

[deckardcanine]

As a fan of Deus Ex, I may have to get the similarly praised Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The trouble is that I've had compatibility issues with some of the last few PC games I acquired -- even one for which my PC seemed to meet all requirements, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (it played only thru the opening dungeon before crashing). For this reason, I'm disinclined to put newer PC games on my wishlist; I'd rather buy them with my own money.

Well, I just looked at the minimum and recommended specs for DE:HR, and I can ascertain most of them easily. The only one I'm not sure of is the graphics, which should be "NVidia GeForce 8000 series or ATI Radeon HD 2000 series or better." OK, computer-savvier friends, how do I find out what I have? Even my hardware manuals don't say anywhere obvious.

Comments

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

Start - Control Panel - Device Manager - Display Adapters should do the trick.

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

The only item under "Display Adapters" is "Intel(R) G33/G31 Express Chipset Family." Do I keep looking, or is that all you need to know it's incompatible?

[stevenroy.livejournal.com]

AKA the "GMA x3100".

Video adapters built into motherboards tend to be relatively wimpy compared to the stand-alone cards. I Googled some benchmarks and found this. Not very encouraging. (It's rumored that some performance features weren't enabled until later driver updates. You can check Intel's website for newer drivers, but there is a limit to how much a driver update will help here!)

The good news is that you can get some good used video cards on eBay. I got my Radeon HD 4350 for under $30 and it's pretty sweet! Maybe you'll have similar luck.

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

Yep, what he said, looks like your only video card is the minimal stuff built into your motherboard. Most recent games will require a video card of some sort. If the new cards are out of your price range, eBay can help you find a used one.

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

I just made an eBay purchase, $47.20 including shipping. My dad worries that it might not be compatible with my hardware, but I doubt it.