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Worthingtons
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Pride Park,Derby
Jan 2002
time: 05:28
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My Girlfriend has recently inherited my Old Computer.
It's got Onboard graphics (**** ones) that take 8mb of the RAM, and there is only 128mb Ram on it anyway. She's told me she wants TV on it.
I've seen a good ATI graphics card at just over £20 with 32MB graphics and TV OUT. So I presume this can be used to watch TV easy enough, but is there anyway i disable the onboard graphics prefferably so that she can get that 8mb of Ram back
Also, having seen a special deal on DDR Ram, I'm tempted to double my RAM from 512 to 1mb , does anything think an average gamer would really need 1mb, and also can i mix and match memory speeds or does it all have to run at the same.
Cheers
Matt
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Worthingtons
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Pride Park,Derby
Jan 2002
time: 05:28
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Cheers for that, could you also answer me something else...
I'm trying to figure out what the ports/slots are on the Motherboard
At the top there are 3 memory slots
Then there looks to be 4 PCI (Cream coloured) slots
and there is an isolated one at the bottom, it's quite long (double the length of the PCI's) and is dark (probably black) coloured. Anyone have any idea what this slot is? AGP perhaps?
Cheers
Matt
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Wraith
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Austin, Texas, USA
Aug 1999
time: 23:28
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--"It's got Onboard graphics "
Be careful, then. From the sounds of things, you don't have an AGP slot (it'd be the one closest to the CPU). If this is true, make sure you're getting a PCI video card. They're getting hard to find these days.
That particular graphics card may not be what you're looking for, either. You need TV in, not TV out.
--"does anything think an average gamer would really need 1mb,"
You sound like the old Bill Gates and his "no one will ever need more than 640K of RAM"
But assuming you meant 1 gig, then probably not at this point. 512 should be plenty.
You can mix and match speeds, btw, but they'll all run at the speed of the slowest, so it's not really a good idea.
Wraith
"Very Educational!"
-- Kintaro Oe ("Golden Boy")
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Cruddy
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All equipment that can receive TV signals - even video recorders - need an expensive license in the UK. It's to pay for the BBC - the Brisish Broadcasting Company, who never run adverts (except for their own products). Only exception is equipment with an internal battery compartment like a handheld LCD job.
As you may have guessed, I don't have a TV.
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Cruddy
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Having read Happauge's website, I must agree that the onboard graphics must support DirectDraw. If they don't, an additional graphics card that does is required.
As a suitable 32Mb card would cost about £10 or less, I wouldn't consider it a huge burden. Rothy might disagree.
And to Rothy's additional question about reclaiming the 8Mb of memory the graphics used - PCI graphics cards typically need a shadow portion of the system memory. I fiddle about with these settings but it doesn't make a great deal of difference, to be honest.
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Cruddy
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Just wanted to add, on the SATA/SCSI3 debate - at least we both agree that a fast hard disk is desirable, even if all it does is make Windows boot faster.
The problem is that Serial ATA is one step beyond vapourware on this side of the Atlantics, wheras SCSI-3 can be got secondhand pretty cheap. You can mail order SATA drives and controllers but it's not on the high street yet.
Also, there is no way I am ever going to buy first generation of a new technology, no matter how good the specification is. Sell me something that's been around for a few years and where the pitfalls are known. I am not an unpaid beta-tester.
Finally, the improvement in the performance of Civ3 (which does chuck files on and off the hard disk every time you open an advisor screen) is partly due to how slow and unreliable my old hard disk was.
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Worthingtons
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Pride Park,Derby
Jan 2002
time: 05:28
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Thanks for all the information guys. I went out and bought a Happauge TV adapter card as Cruddy Suggested, a basic card, and the onboard graphics seem to work alright. Quite happy with the results and i might even get one for my own PC, although i want to wait till I can pick up digital TV and get all the free channels, that'd be ace.
One problem with my gf's PC however is that i cant get the damn thing bright enough... it's just too dark even when i turn the brightness on the monitor to 100%!!
Cheers
Matt
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Cruddy
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I have this problem with my monitor as well, HOWEVER by using the Settings/Display/Advanced options I can boost the gamma output. This boosts my Windows brightness but doesn't help with DOS or non DirectX games...
If you don't have a set of drivers for that onboard graphics set (and, more to the point, a set of utilities to go with them) you won't see the option - windows does not let you play with brightness settings, that is down to the gfx card manufacturers to sort out the software themselves.
In other words - if you can't find a set of utils to adjust it with from the onboard gfx supplier, you will need that extra graphics card anyway. I make do with a TNT2 - it can't do regular DirectX games very well but it's fine for everything else.
EDIT: Either that or a new monitor. NAH, that's a dumb idea. Maplins are doing a digital card for about £80 - but as noted above, I give new tech a few years to get reliable before I buy.
Last edited by Cruddy on 14-05-2003 at 23:10
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Worthingtons
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Pride Park,Derby
Jan 2002
time: 05:28
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Cheers again Cruddy.
We use the taxes to pay for the Refugees running from your tanks.... we like to give them enough of an allowance so that they can probably buy a tank themselves :/
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07-05-2003 21:23
cable for free 
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