Upgrading from intel 82845g Graphics controller?

[Cletus77]

I have Compaq Presario 2002 home edition, 504 RAM, 2.4GHz, pentium 4, i dont know what else can help, but is there anyway possible to get a new video card such as Nvidia (dying to play WoW)

 

[Cletus77]

also money is an issue, and I live in a small town, so if i CAN upgrade, the card will have to be from walmart or radio shack (both with very poor selections)

 

[vnf4ultra]

Edited: Refer to next post...v

 

[vnf4ultra]

The 845g chipset can support an agp slot, so if you have one you can get an agp card. Walmart usually has a agp 9550 card, and a fx5500 card. Radioshack might be able to order you a card in though, so that might be a good option.
Probably consider a 6600gt card in agp, it's a good midrange card.
What's your budget?

 

[Cletus77]

no more then $100, and im basically buying this to play WoW...i dont plan on playing half life 2, doom 3, etc
seperate question, can 504 RAM work well with WoW?

 

[vnf4ultra]

800 MHz or higher CPU, 256 MB or more of RAM, 32 MB 3D graphics card with hardware transform and lighting, such as GeForce 2 or better, DirectX® 9.0c or above

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/faq/technology.html

500mb of ram should be enough to run well.

Consider cards like an ati 9600pro, 9600xt,or nvidia 6200(if you can find one under $100)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814153012


Here's a benchmark, you can compare some cards on it.
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050705/vga-charts-pcie-02.html#3d_mark_2005

 

[Cletus77]

would this do "PNY GeForce FX 5500 128MB AGP Graphic Card" is at walmart website, and around $60

 

[vnf4ultra]

It should run it, just not terribly fast. 20-30 frames per second I saw somewhere. Usually it's good to have 30+(prefer 40+) to have it be smooth.

Walmart has cards in store that are not on their website, so you might have to check the store sometime.

A 9550 would be better than a 5500.

Do you have any circuit city, best buy, or any other electronics/computers stores you could go to?

Are you sure you have an agp slot?
Like this.

click for larger view.

 

[Cletus77]

We have no other big stores, I have never opened up my computer before, figured they all had the one AGP slot

 

[vnf4ultra]

figured they all had the one AGP slot

Yeah, a person would think that, but acutally many(if not most) pc's sold in chain stores(especially the low to mid range units)have no graphics upgrade slot.

If you really don't want to open your pc, you could try a program like cpu-z. Click under mainboard and see what it says for graphics interface.
http://www.cpuid.org/cpuz.php

 

[Cletus77]

I ran cpu-z..and under graphics interface its all grey, guess that means im screwed