graphics card help

This is my first time posting on this forum and I would appreciate any help that can be given to me.

My computer uses an integrated graphics card and I would like to start playing more games on my computer rather than relying on my playstation 2. Are integrated graphics cards ok or am I in serious need of an upgrade. I tried playing Star Wars:KOTOR and I went through the game with only a small amount of trouble with the graphics and gameplay after I turned down the options for the game display such as grass and shadowing. Sometimes if a lot is going on in the game, some of the characters will freeze up. Please help if anyone can.

 

most integrated graphics (Intel) are horrible. The nForce chipset has better graphics but still they are not as good as standard card.

 

hi metal snake
how about posting some system specs including the make and model of your motherboard this would help us advise you on possible upgrades

 

system specs:

sony vaio
Intel pentium 4 processor 2.66 ghz
windows xp home edition
504mb of ram
Intel 82845 g/gl/ge/pe/gv graphics controler

 

right now, your onboard intel graphics chipset has about as much power as your PS2... which is an insult to a computer

it might get you around older games, and some newere games with minimal settings... but if you want performance and eye candy, you'd be better off upgrading.

I'm pretty sure your system has an AGP slot (if you give us hte Vaio model # we can check for sure). If you can scroung up around $100, you can get an ATi Radeon 9600. It's a good card for the price, and will assure you better performance than any console. for $140 you can upgrade to a 9600xt which is a step above the 9600.

also, you actually have 512MB RAM, but its shared with the video card, which at the moment seemed to be sucking up 8MB from it and reporting 504MB, so when you disable onboard graphics and use an AGP card, you wont have to share anymore.

 

model number: pcv-rs411

 

sorry man, according to the specifications from sony, you only have 3 PCI slots for expansion. They mention nothing of an AGP slot... which limits you to PCI video cards.

I'm not sure how the integrated 845GV graphics chipset would compare to a PCI video card... but i'd imagine you really wouldnt get much gain.

here are you computer specs: http://www.docs.sony.com/release/specs/PCVRS411_mksp.pdf

you may want to look for a review of PCI video cards to see if there might be any performance gain.