je_saist

*drops the foam clue bat and pads over to Neko Ali and starts braiding pink ribbons in the Ali tail*

*pulls out the Big Foam ClueBat (tm) and SWIPES at the Sackñata*

Um. No.

ATi literature says the Radeon 7000 supports DirectX 7.

That was the reason behind the naming scheme (back then). The Radeon 7x00 series supported DirectX 7, the Radeon 8x00 Series supported DirectX 8, and the Radeon 9x00 series supported DirectX 9.

ATi abandoned this marketing plan though as various Radeon 9x00 cards, the 9000, 9100, 9100 IGP, 9200, and 9250, were actually Radeon 8500 remixes. They did this because the Radeon 8500 series of cards was actually a better match, performance and feature wise, to Nvidia's GeforceFX entries, than the more powerful cards based off the Radeon 9700 architecture.

He's focusing on the twin statement, suggesting that Statesman and Tyrant are brothers from the same mother from the same dimension, instead of having been born in separate dimensions.

(psst, stuff that makes you think about Triumph Server, not just the game in general... although Triumph does have perhaps the highest number of players who will rant about ED)

More drama than you probably want to know about, and stuff that probably shouldn't be talked about on these forums.

*does a double spit-take*

Um. The Radeon 7000 was simply a clock speed bump of the original Radeon graphics card from 2000 : http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=88&pgno=1

It only manages DirectX 7 adherence, and if I'm right in saying, didn't even properly support OpenGL 1.1. When AMD began it's OpenGL rewrite in 2006, the original Radeon's and the 7000 / 7500 followups had long been out of production. So they'll still only use the really bad OpenGL driver.

Because it's so old and doesn't even support the version of OpenGL the game was originally built against (Open 1.4), it was never supported and was outside minimum requirements.

***

The very big problem here is that the Radeon 7000 was only a PCI or AGP release, which indicates your friend is going to have to upgrade more than just his graphics card. There's a recent thread... um, here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=198343

The poster in that thread has a Geforce 6800 GT card and was looking for AGP upgrades. Well, for starters, the first thing you might notice is that AGP varients of today's low-end graphics card, like the RadeonHD 4670 mentioned in that thread, carry a heavy price penalty. The original price of the AGP 4670 is $125. The PCIe version is $65. A little more than half the cost.

That's also presuming that your friend has an AGP slot that can handle a modern card. If he's running an AGP Radeon 7000 on a system that he got back when the 7000 was new, chances are his AGP slot is only going to be a 1x or 2x slot, and thus physically incompatible with the cards available now.

If your friend is using the PCI version, he's going to be in an even worse situation.

The best PCI card on the market is the 9500 GT 1gb which will set him back $85: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814187084

But you'll still pay a premium over the PCIe version, which costs just $55 : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814187034

And it will actually be really, really, really, slow, because the PCI bus is really slow.

***

Based on the information given in the original post it's a fair shot your friend isn't just looking at a new graphics card. He's looking at buying a complete new computer.

Wrong.

First, you are not the first doom and gloom poster to come in after the changes to AE. We've gotten more than a little tired of troll after troll trying to bring back power leveling and getting rewards for no risk.

The Game Changed. Get Over It.

And... this has exactly what to do with your current position in the game now? You come back into the forums, leave a massive flame-bait post, then hide behind oh I played in Beta and I made a supergroup and it didn't go under. I think there's a very fair argument to be made based on your first post that no, you don't know how to team. You don't know where to go looking for global channels.

And if your first post in this thread is an indication of what you are like in the game, you've probably gotten tossed on ignore lists left and right and PEOPLE DO NOT WANT TO PLAY WITH YOU. We've had the devil's time trying to explain this to other players. If you whine, moan, complain, or just be a plain out jerk, people will avoid playing with you. I think it's a safe bet that a large number of people on the servers your play on have already tossed you on ignore and have warned their coalies and sgmates.

You sure don't display this in your first post in this thread.

... Bull Manure. It's pretty much impossible for any one avatar in the game to have every possible badge. This really sounds like you are padding your resume for how you position yourself.

Again, I think it's more likely given your behavior that nobody wants to play with you. It's not that the players aren't there. It's that they've had enough of you.

not really.

I have systems with both DR-DOS and MS-DOS.

As to why I have them? Why not?

I use all systems, ranging from DOS, to NT6, to Linux kernel based distributions to BSD distributions. Apple's are about the only thing I don't have, unless you want to count a PowerPC Mac-Mini that's running Debian.

As far as Linux goes, well, it passed anything Microsoft could offer back in 2003 with Mepis, and, well, Windows 7 is still just Vista SP2 with a new UI... so it's still *censored*. Just drop by the tech support forums and look at all of the people having massive issues with Microsoft's latest effort.

***

Anyways, to counter something you did say, it's not just because people didn't want to spend $30 as you say to pay out for a 64bit version of Windows. For the most part vendors such as Dell, HP, Gateway, Lenevo, Samsung, Sony, Acer, Asus, and insert your favorite vendor here, didn't ever actually offer 64bit Windows Xp or 64bit Windows Vista to consumers. Sometimes you could find it as a special option or a checkbox, but for the most part unless you were specifically searching for computers with a 64bit OS, you weren't going to be buying one with a 64bit OS.

Then there is the dearth of software outside of the *nix world that is actually compiled to take advantage of the performance increases or additional memory usage capabilities that 64bit computing offers. Yes, high profile programs from Adobe did come in 64bit versions, but they were exceptions.

Companies like NCSoft and Paragon Studios have to take a look at the realistic market for their product and whose going to buy it. Baselining Going Rogue against the old versions of Nvidia's and ATi's high-end cards means that people buying computers when Going Rogue comes out will more than likely be able to enjoy the upgrades.

He's planning for Ultra Mode in Going Rogue Katie, and his system is so far behind the curve of what we know Going Rogue to require there's no realistic upgrade-path for him on an AGP bus.

(well, at least I think that's why he's looking at upgrades)

That would require a 64bit Operating System though.

And lets face it, the majority of players out there are not running 64bit Operating Systems.

If you have the disk that came with the motherboard it would probably be easier to load the disk up and see if it has specific drivers for your motherboard.

There also is another issue that could be at hand.

Depending on how your previous motherboard fried, it is possible that it has done a number on your hard-drives connecting cable, or might have generated errors on the hard-drive itself.

You can somewhat check this by clicking on start, clicking on the little white box just above the start button, and typing in CMD

Hit enter and this should bring up the command terminal.

In the command terminal type in : chkdsk /f /r

Hit enter, and it will probably say something about volume is unmountable. Hit Y for, Yes, you want to schedule a scan on the next reboot, and restart the computer.

Now, unless you've got really fast eyes you probably won't be able to see the results of the test. You can, however, check it later with these instructions: http://forums.techarena.in/windows-x...ort/866643.htm / http://www.vistax64.com/software/978...ile-vista.html

If you've got bad sectors, plan on buying a new hard-drive.

question: did you re-install your operating system when you switched to a new motherboard?

Even if your using the exact same motherboard, with the same exact same processor, you'll still need to reinstall your Operating System. What's probably happened is Microsoft is using the default generic drivers on the backend now since the hardware has changed, rather than using the accelerated drivers for your northbridge and storage solution.

Em. Bolded the last one. This is actually a very common misconception by people who buy / rent Windows based computers. (seriously, read the licensing agreement. You can't actually buy Microsoft software.) Microsoft's Windows Update program only updates Microsoft produced software, and sometimes it doesn't even update all of that. You'd actually have to pay out for a premium service to get updates for things like Microsoft Office products through Windows Update.

While Microsoft does offer some driver updates through it's Windows Update System, most of these driver updates tend to be months old, if not years old in some cases. So no, simply running Windows Update won't actually keep your Windows System up to date.

By the same token, running a vendors update platform, say an updater from the likes of Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenevo, and so on, generally isn't any better. Case in point is an Asus F3k laptop that I've got. The laptop was advertised as coming with an updater program that would keep all my driver files updated and all my system components updated... and... it didn't. While shipping with a RadeonHD 2600, the only graphics driver provided by Asus in their updater... was a pre-release driver that didn't actually support OpenGL... and the driver still in Asus's support section? A driver from 2007/10/31.

So, just because a vendor tells you that yes, we'll keep your system updated as a package deal... does not mean that they'll actually do it. One of the downsides to using a Windows system is that there still is no answer to apt or rpm repositories for vendors to allow you to pull updated versions of their software from. You'll still have to manually install most updates if you use Windows.

***

Okay, now back onto your original problem.

This really sounds like a software issue of some kind.

Here's the latest Nvidia driver for the 8400, if the link works correctly.

That is a bit depressing.

Honestly, you are going to be better off not spending the money on getting new components for your system and saving up till you can afford a better base platform.

Could be either, and I need some more information to answer this question.

First: Are you using a CRT monitor or an LCD panel?

Second: Do you know what the maximum resolution of your monitor is?

Third: What connection type are you using? A 15pin VGA cable with the socket input colored Blue? A 24pin DVI cable with the socket input colored white? An HDMI cable? A DisplayPort Cable? An NSTC TV input using a Yellow colored cable?

Forth: Who made your graphics card? : ATi, Nvidia, Intel, Matrox, SiS, Via?

Fifth: Have you run any system updates recently? Used Windows Update? Switched Operating Systems?

Short version, no. While the RadeonHD cards do actually have an onboard Intel azalia compatible chip / circuitry, it's only exposed to your speaker system through HDMI / DisplayPort. So if you aren't using a receiver with an HDMI input to feed your speaker set-up, you'll need to use another sound card.

I also have some more bad news for you. The Radeon 4670 isn't actually going to be that much more powerful than the 6800 GS on an AGP bus. A little while back I had picked up two of the RadeonHD 4650 cards... which I eventually sold off because, A: They didn't actually have a crossfire hardware bridge as advertised, which was desperately needed, and B: A single card coupled with a Core2 @ 2.3 atop my D975XBx motherboard was running about 90% of the rendering power of a Radeon x1900 AIW or Geforce 7900 GT KO (factory overclocked edition). While the slightly faster RadeonHD 4670 is going to be a bit faster... the AGP bus is going to be a bit of an issue.

The system that I'm typing this on right now is running Crossfired RadeonHD 4850's on Windows Xp. I also ran the aforementioned HD 4650's on Windows Xp. So yes, they do work.

Okay. Budget of $125. You don't mention the memory, but I'm betting DDR2.

I could pick up A Socket AM2 motherboard from Asus for $60: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131391

And a 3ghz Socket AM2 Athlon64 for also around $60: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103772

That puts you close to the $120 mark...

but if you can scrounge up another $65 you could get the PCIE version of the 4670: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102854

Overall, it would probably be a lot more powerful than the computer you currently have, presuming you could use the system memory from before.