ATI Radeon 9250- I wanna tweak it. help?

[link590o]

I pretty much just bought a brand new PCI ATI Radeon 9250 graphics card and installed it, and it's working ok. HOWEVER! I would like to see if I can tweak it and get a bit of a boost of performance.

As you may know, games like Call of Duty 2 are big on graphics. Which is partly why it is so amazingly awesome. However it is those same graphics that are causing me some grief. I've had to turn my resolution to 800x600 instead of my max 1280x1024 just so that it would run without extreme lag.

May I'm asking a bit much of my card by asking it to run everything at its top setting. However, I have managed to get other games to respond well. And I've grown very accustomed to messing around with the Catalyst.

Is there any way that I can overcome the few shortcomings by tweaking it a little?

If so, how do I tweak it?

(By the way, assume that I know nothing about tweaking stuff like this because I've never tried.)

 

[MetalX]

A 9250 is quite a terrible card, especially the PCI version. No matter how much tweaking you do, CoD2 will never run happily on that card.

 

[link590o]

But you're already wrong on that last part. I CAN run COD2 on relatively high settings, just low resolution and it runs very smoothly with a good frame rate. The 9250 isn't TERRIBLE. It's just not as good as anything out on the market like the PCI express or AGP slot cards. I could only use a PCI because this piece of **** Dell 2400 only has PCI slots. Considering what it delivers though, it's not too bad. Certainly better than the onboard cluster **** they threw onto the motherboard.

I know that the easy solution is just to buy a new computer with better specs. But I can't get a new one for another year and a half. Don't have the money, and the parents are douchebags. I'm sure you know the drill.

That's why I was wondering if tweaking would bring me any benefits. I don't want to wait for a year and a half just to get a new computer.

 

[link590o]

Here's a sample of the graphics I can achieve at 1280x1024 resolution. Although it lags the games when there's LOTS of gunfire, it runs.

 

[zipperman]

Make sure your Hardware acceleration is maximum.
Is your video card and motherboard capable of and set to 8x
in Catalyst options ?
Do a Dxdiag Display test and driver approval,
Are all items enabled and working properly ?
Direct Draw,Direct 3d and AGP Texture ?
Do you have dx9c ? If so theres a patch available now,it wont change version but will explain its reason.Try Microsoft dirext x search.
Check the games video options,is your size you want listed and set ?
Do this first before playing.

 

[beef_jerky4104]

A 9250 is quite a terrible card, especially the PCI version. No matter how much tweaking you do, CoD2 will never run happily on that card.

I used to have the AGP version of that video card. After owning that card, I swore to never ever buy low end anymore. Still I don't have the budget to go for high end. Always buy mid range.

Oh yeah, that card isn't good. Its decent on source games. You can try to use optimized Omega Drivers.

www.omegadrivers.net

 

[link590o]

I was forced into buying low end....It was pretty sad. For years I had to deal with this piece of crap video card that they built onto the motherboard. And it said online that this model of Dell was specifically designed not to be upgraded. And here I was trying to play video games. But I found out that as long as it is PCI then it should work. But now that games have better graphics...well....yeah.

Until I get a better comp, then I'm stuck with the Radeon 9250. And for crying out load, stop telling me it sucks. I already know that.

I've already gone as far as possible in terms of upgrading the catalyst, and messing with the settings, and I already have the latest directx driver. Everything on my computer is awesome except for my processor and my video card. Celeron and a Radeon 9250 barely lets me play any good games at all.

Until I get a new one, is there ANYTHING short of overclocking that I can do in order to get better performance out of it? I refuse to overclock at all because my computer already gets pretty hot.

 

[Billy213]

I have the 9250 agp atm and its not THAT bad...

i play BF2 with it with no lag with all the settings that i can on medium it even plays well online. and it doesn't bother me about having the crappy graphics because this is the most up to date card in my house

 

[CMH]

Okay, we know that the 9250 is crap. I own an AGP version, and it was a good reason for me to stop playing games for awhile.

Nothing you can do to make the 9250 NOT crap.

You can make it slightly better, but don't expect it to play at a higher resolution. You can get it to be slightly smoother at 800x600, but thats about it. Especially for a PCI version, which is alot worse off than the AGP version due to the reduced bandwidth. The reason you can't get high end GPUs on PCI is because its useless: you just can't get enough data in there to make any difference.

Like you said yourself, the best thing to do is buy a new comp. Get a job and save up for one.

If you're not old enough to hold a job, you shouldn't be playing that many games.

 

[link590o]

I cannot fugging wait until I can get a new computer. I went onto ibuypower.com and built an uber awesome computer for around 560 bucks. thats a nice tower, cooling unit, power source, AMD processor, nvidia geforce 7300 graphics card, a gig of ram, and 3-7 days shipping all for 560 bucks. it doesn't have an OS, but I can just install mine. If and when vista is available at a price that I might actually care for, I MIGHT go for it.

Seriously though. If any of you are looking to buy an amazing new computer, GO TO THAT SITE.

They let you customize it from the ground up.
My friend in california bough a computer from them four frickin years ago and he hasn't even had to upgrade yet. Those things are built to last.

 

[CMH]

I must say that site looks decent, but remember: you only get what you pay for.

But if you're still a kid, you'd probably won't be able to afford any decent computer on your own.

p.s. I know a guy who's still using his P3 system happily, and have rejected offers for a free P4 upgrade. Upgrading doesn't mean your comp is crap, just means you need more computing power.

 

[link590o]

Let me leave it at I'm old enough to know what I'm buying, why I'm buying it, and whether or not it'll be worth it. And I understand your point. HOWEVER!

I am under the impression that if you are going to buy a computer, you want to keep it for maybe 4-5 years because, after that amount of time, your computer tends to get obsolete and outdated..

stupid...planned obsolescence crap...

Moving along. Because of the idea of keeping a computer for maybe 4-5 years, I was impressed that my friend hasn't had to buy a new computer or upgrade anything. Typically by now, there would be much more efficient and improved technology which would make your computer, in comparison to others, a steaming pile of junk.

Obviously nobody HAS to go with the 4 or 5 years rule. I do just because it'll help me keep up with the technology. Core Duo and all those other new processors that are coming out have my mouth watering. Not all of the cores may be working efficiently on some of the models, but it's definitely a step forward.

With that in mind, buying a computer from Ibuypower.com seems to be a very good idea because it is all cheap, you can choose what you want it to come with, and it'll have some of the better and more recent technology available to let you keep in touch with the world. Having a computer that will outlast college seems, to me, a very very good deal.

I hope I've quelled the argument sufficiently.