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I'd like to upgrade my graphics card for Fallout 3. I currently have a Nvidia 6800 GTO with 256MB on a Dell Dimension 8400 circa 2004. My monitor is 1920x1200 and I would dearly love to play at full resolution with all eye candy. Can I play Fallout 3 with the card or will I get a better experience by upgrading? If so so I'm looking for a fast and cool single-slot pcie graphics card with DVI output. What do you recommend?

You can get a 9600GT for $60 after rebate.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814125099

I would suggest:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102770


4850 is a hell of a card that will rip Fallout 3 up and just about anything else you throw at it.

What range are we calling 'mid range'?

some people consider the 9800GTX+, or the 4850 mid range.

4830, 9600GT, 8800GT, 9800GT, and 9800GTX are all cards some consider mid range. 9600GT is about as low as I'd go. 4850 is about as high as I'd go and still call it mid range.

branchingfactor wrote:

I'd like to upgrade my graphics card for Fallout 3. I currently have a Nvidia 6800 GTO with 256MB on a Dell Dimension 8400 circa 2004. My monitor is 1920x1200 and I would dearly love to play at full resolution with all eye candy. Can I play Fallout 3 with the card or will I get a better experience by upgrading? If so so I'm looking for a fast and cool single-slot pcie graphics card with DVI output. What do you recommend?

Give us your reasonable budget so we can recommend a card. There are many midrange choices now.

[quote="morphine"]
Give us your reasonable budget so we can recommend a card. There are many midrange choices now.[/quote]
My budget is entirely relative to my other options. Since my computer is 4 years old, I don't want to spend more than it would cost to purchase a new computer. So my question is: What's the cheapest way that I can get to great Fallout 3 visuals on my computer with a 1920x1200 LCD monitor?

branchingfactor wrote:

morphine wrote:

Give us your reasonable budget so we can recommend a card. There are many midrange choices now.

My budget is entirely relative to my other options. Since my computer is 4 years old, I don't want to spend more than it would cost to purchase a new computer. So my question is: What's the cheapest way that I can get to great Fallout 3 visuals on my computer with a 1920x1200 LCD monitor?

That's a really loaded question, what kind of "new computer" are you thinking? Basically we will asking you again for a dollar amount. $100? $200? $300? More?

PS. BTW please uncheck the "disable BBCode" option underneath the post editor control.

I would get the 4830. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814161260
Should be good for you. But the rest of your system might be bottlenecking it.

Get a 4670 or 9500GT. Both of them are ~$99 and can run Fallout 3 without a problem at 1920x1200.

FYI, I am getting solid 50-80FPS with my signature rig at 1280x1024.

Your probably better off building a $500 box based around a hd 4830 or a 9600 gt. If i wasnt at work posting on my cell phone i would link you up one...

(I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I see this is a related issue, so I'm posting it here).

I got Fallout 3 yesterday and my computer plays most of the game alright, but it slows to a standstill during dialog and while shooting in VATS (not just low FPS, it literally takes minutes to fire and get through the scene). The settings are medium graphics (I'll try low graphics) at 1680x1050. My system has a 7900gs and an Athlon X2 at 3GHz. Do you think my issue is due to underpowered hardware, or is it something else? What hardware are people using to play the game?

That sounds like it's loading. If you're running on only 1GB of RAM, there's your problem.

yea if you only got 1gb of ram then it probably pulling it off your hard drive. You can get 2gb dirt cheap now a days for like $30.

when showing VATS combat it does go into slow mo....I'm hoping that's not what you mean.

I've got 2GB of RAM (I had 4, but I'm loaning 2 to a friend).

I do realize that it's goes in to slow motion, but that shouldn't involve taking (no exaggeration) several minutes to get through (by moving what seems to be at the rate of a frame every couple of seconds).

Any other thoughts? Maybe I've just run in to a weird bug. Should a 7900gs be able to give reasonable frame rates at the settings I have?

*scratches head*

Got me beat there, chief. Granted, with a 7900GS you can't really ask for much in detail level, but even still, at low/medium it ought to get you a playable game.

Give us your full system specs... How does it handle other games? Are you on xp or vista?

Hi everyone! I'm about to buy Fallout 3 but I'm unsure wether my system will run it well. my specs:

PC:
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+.
CPU Speed: 2.21 GHz Performance Rated at 3.50 GHz.
System RAM: 1023 MB.
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional (Build Service Pack 22600).
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT.

Laptop:
CPU: 2 processors running -Intel(R) Core(TM) Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHz.
CPU Speed: 2.19GHz Performance Rated at 5.43GHz.
System RAM: 4.0 GB.
Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition 64-bit.
Video Card: Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family.

Must I change the Video card on the PC in order for it to run well?
If I do, what's my best option? (I don't wanna buy a super card just for it bottleneckin' due to my PC's poor specs...)
How well do you think it will run on the ol' Notebook? Better than my current PC with an upgraded video card?

Thanks in advance!

Silhouette wrote:

Hi everyone! I'm about to buy Fallout 3 but I'm unsure wether my system will run it well. my specs:

PC:
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+.
CPU Speed: 2.21 GHz Performance Rated at 3.50 GHz.
System RAM: 1023 MB.
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional (Build Service Pack 22600).
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT.

You'll want something around the 9500GT or ATI 46xx series. But first and foremost you need more RAM. 1 additional gigabyte, and it's going to cost you a bit because that machine looks like it uses DDR-1 memory.

morphine wrote:

You'll want something around the 9500GT or ATI 46xx series. But first and foremost you need more RAM. 1 additional gigabyte, and it's going to cost you a bit because that machine looks like it uses DDR-1 memory.

Thanks! Have you got a specific card in mind that would be compatible with my system and optimal, concidering my systems limitations, for Fallout?

So...

Dim8400 = P4 HT, Max 4GB DDR2, 925X chipset and PCIe video.

I'd probably go with HD4670 or HD4830 myself; or what is it, 9800GT now?

Edit: doubt you'll be able to max though

Well, it looks like turing the graphics to low solved my problem... Now I experience none of the freezing and frame rates are fine. I'm still a little surprised that one notch on the graphics settings makes so much difference (especially since medium was what the program reccomended after it checked what my video card was), but you can't argue with reality. On the other hand, it's not so pretty with these settings, so a new graphics card is in order. Because of the posts here, I've got a good idea about what to get. Thanks.

(As for the other specs, here they are in case anyone has other ideas. Windows XP, WDCaviar SE16 640GB hard drive , Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe motherboard (NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI). It handles TF2/Halflife 2 fine at that resolutions with the settings fairly high, and it did ok with Bioshock... I think the quality settings were somewhere in the middle. If specifics would be useful, I can provide them.)

It may be that the graphics card was running out of memory due to the high amount of close-up textures required, which in turn required severe back-and-forth through the bus. Setting the texture quality down probably fixed that.

Or it might be something else entirely unrelated

Hey all!!

I'm also looking for a graphics card. My setup:

Q6600, Abit IP35 Pro, 4GB DDR2, plenty of HD space. Radeon X1550 series, 128mb I believe.

Anyway, got fallout installed last night, and it runs... but it's not fast, and will ruin enjoyment of the game unless I replace the card. Recommendations?? Budget is probably about £100-£150/$200-$300

Welcome to the forums.

acolmiztli wrote:

Hey all!!

I'm also looking for a graphics card. My setup:

Q6600, Abit IP35 Pro, 4GB DDR2, plenty of HD space. Radeon X1550 series, 128mb I believe.

Anyway, got fallout installed last night, and it runs... but it's not fast, and will ruin enjoyment of the game unless I replace the card. Recommendations?? Budget is probably about £100-£150/$200-$300

What monitor and resolution are we talking about here?

acolmiztli wrote:

Hey all!! I'm also looking for a graphics card.

Welcome to the Tech Report!

Radeon HD4850 512 MiB for £123 (including VAT) is a good all-around graphics card.

A factory-overclocked Radeon HD4850 1 GiB model for £132 (including VAT) is an excellent value, and it might even tempt me enough to risk buying another graphics card from TUL.

Thanks

My Monitor is a Hanns G, resolution is 1440x900.

I should say, I use my PC for music production also, so I don't want something that is going to have quirks with programs like Pro Tools and Reaper. The "HIS ATI Radeon HD 4850 IceQ" looks VERY interesting - what do folk think??

That Radeon HD4850 with the IceQ cooler might be quieter than some of the other cards on the list. I haven't seen a comparison review. Any of the Radeon HD4850 cards should do well and work identically with your programs. Some of them come slightly overclocked from 625 MHz to 650 or 675 MHz. The 1 GiB of memory vs. 512 MiB only helps with texture-rich games at higher resolutions.

acolmiztli wrote:

The "HIS ATI Radeon HD 4850 IceQ" looks VERY interesting - what do folk think??

Personally I wouldn;t pay the price premium. I would get something like this Palit it is £40 cheaper with VAT and it has a custom fan meaning it should be better then a reference card for cooling. Admittedly it is only on preorder but if you don't mind waiting a bit longer it should become available.

I dont buy palit cause of the frog lol.