Memory and Drives ... an impromptu primer

I'm leaving it strictly alone, Set!!!


I fI open the damn thing, the hamsters will get out!

And - I have cats...

Can't yer doctor prescribe something fer that . . . ask yer pharmacist, maybe there's a salve or sumpin' . . .

Grrrrrrrrrrrr.....

Ok - seriously. You CAN add to cpu - is that expensive?

Would that make my puter faster/more able to cope with things like the Flight simulator?


At present - it is not able to do 3d and such - could I make it able to do so, or did I just get a too weak puter???

You probably need a better graphics card. The Central Processing Unit will control the speed at which data is processed, but the quality of your graphics and 3D is more likely to be affected by the quality of your video card. That is a basic "pop-out, pop-in" operation for someone with sufficient skill, and it doesn't require that much. A high-powered video card for gaming will be rated by it's bit processing capacity--16, 32 or 64 bits, and by it's "on-board" memory--get lotsa megs.

Your CPU would not be added to, it would be replaced, if that were necessary. Do you know what the speed of your CPU is now? As in, how many megahertz or gigahertz?

How do I find that out?

This is gettin' embarrassing - mantra - I am an intelligent human being - I AM an intelligent human being - I am an intelligent human being...

In Windows, point to the lower left corner to Start, and then follow this routine:


Start >
Programs >
Accessories >
System Tools >
System Information > (shows a little stylized PC with a big "I" in the middle)
System Summary (top left-hand corner)

When you click on System Summary, on the right will be a columnar listing of the hardware descriptions and the OS (Operating System--i.e., probably some version of Windows). About at the top of the middle of that columnar listing you will see "Processor" . . . and in there somewhere, most likely at the end of the line describing it will be a value expressed as Mhz (possibly as Ghz, although i doubt it)--for example, mine reads 1196 Mhz, which means 1,196,000,000 herz, or roughly, 1.2 Gigaherz. That is the speed of your coprocessor array.

On the upper left, on the second line below the words "System Summary" is a rubric "Components" with a box containing a "plus sign." Click on the plus sign for a drop down, and then click on the word "display." That will tell you what your video card is.

Ok - it isn't quite what you said but here is a readout:

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name COMPUTER
System Manufacturer SiS
System Model 730S
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 7 Stepping 1 AuthenticAMD ~1294 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 062710, 15/07/1997
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)"
User Name COMPUTER\User
Time Zone Cen. Australia Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 119.37 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 785.40 MB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

Aha!!!

Name SiS 630/730
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_1039&DEV_6300&SUBSYS_63001039&REV_31\4&349B7D1E&0&0010
Adapter Type SiS 730, SiS compatible
Adapter Description SiS 630/730
Adapter RAM 16.00 MB (16,777,216 bytes)
Installed Drivers sis630v.dll
Driver Version 6.13.10.2090
INF File oem11.inf (SiS630 section)
Color Planes 1
Color Table Entries 4294967296
Resolution 1024 x 768 x 75 hertz
Bits/Pixel 32
Memory Address 0xC0000000-0xC7FFFFFF
Memory Address 0xCFEE0000-0xCFEFFFFF
I/O Port 0x0000BC00-0x0000BC7F
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF
I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB
I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\sis630p.sys (6.13.10.2090, 160.75 KB (164,608 bytes), 23/01/2003 6:12 PM)

The Intel Corporation created a mathmatics co-processor which it named an 8086. It was the CPU of the original PC's. Modern CPU's have an array of these co-processors--so where you read "x86" it is saying that your CPU is based on an array of more than one of these 8086 co-processors (or rather, the sophisticated, integrated descendant of that bit of crucial hardware). At the end of the line it says 1294 Mhz, or, roughly 1.3 gigaherz. That is a respectable speed for your CPU, and will support your gaming. Now we need to know what your graphics card looks like.


Edit: DOH ! ! ! Intel called it's co-processor the 8087, and 8086 is the term IBM used when they shamelessly ripped them off. For which they eventually lost a major lawsuit which lasted about 12 or 15 years, and had to pay mucho dinaro to Intel.

By the By, AMD is not Intel Corporation, but a respectable competitor with a good product.

Which is a decent resolution and 32 bits per pixel will give you good graphics resolution.



Not good for high-speed gaming. My own video card, which was not gaming dedicated, has only a 16-bit per pixel resolution, but i've got 32 Megs of RAM onboard that card, so i can get better refresh rates from the game engine. (By game engine i mean the program which makes your game go, and by refresh rates i mean that the larger memory stores more data to be downloaded to the display, as for example when you manoeuvre your airplane in flight simulation--everything runs more smoothly and doesn't hang up or freeze.)

I really would like to go out and get a killer gaming video card, i just have a case of the shorts right now. Your card has respectable resolution, and a good bit/pixel rating, but it's onboard RAM sucks for gaming. It's good for almost everything else, but it's gonna make a mess out of movement in a video game, it is likely to "hang up" or "freeze."

Aaaaaah - thankee - so - what sort of beast ought I to be looking for? What speccies?


(If you can bear to go on with this!!!! I AM an intelligent human being....I AM an intelligent human being....)

Well, if you wanted to drop the bucks, a 64-bit video card with about 2 or 3 gigs of onboard RAM would probably rattle your windows. But it wouldn't be cheap. Got any geek friends? Right next to the big "we've got it all" (bullsh*t) at "low, low prices" (more and stinkier bullsh*t) computer store in Columbus, around the corner in the seedy little strip mall, is a shop that will sell you the component parts of a computer, you pays your money and you takes your chances, for about two thirds or even half the price of the national chain store. Your local neighborhood geek should know of such a place. Decent computers are designed so that you can pull cards out of the machine (always disconnect the power cord before you even so much as breathe heavily on your box) and replace them with different, and one hopes, better cards. Your neighborhood geek can do this easily. Put on some nice cologne, unbutton a few buttons, flash him a little boob and play all flustered, etc.

Don't get less than 32 Megs on your video card, and go with 32 or 64 bit. The more megs you can afford, the better.

Ah - my geek buddy is the son of one of my friends - and he is starting up a mobile service - but, in the shop where he currently works - when not playing in his band and getting stoned - my customer card reads "Patrick's mum's best friend"!!! Lol.

I get a lot free when the boss ain't round - and I might just ask Paddy to get me what he thinks best, based on this convo, and pay him in his own business role. He'll be more than fair.

I want the best nVidia card money can buy . . . unfortunately, i don't have any money . . . and saddly, there are no licquor stores in Ohio . . .

Lol - I don't play enough games to warrant the best...what sort of price are we talking, BTW?

Their price comparison page for 128 Meg cards (the gigabyte cards are priced well out of your range or mine) shows a range of $145 to $301 USD. They ain't cheap. The $165 to $190 USD range would probably represent the optimum performance to affordability solution. The problem is that now it would be hard to find a card with less memory for less money. If you could find a 64 meg card, at 32-bits, that would be ideal. You might have to go with a now out of stock item, though, although i'm sure the manufacturers warranty would still kick in normally.

Yer a prince, Set!!!