I was wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction for a video card I can get to run Flaming Cliffs 2 for my pc?



I have an AMD Athlon 5000 Dual Core, 4gigs of ram, nvidea geforce 6150 LE built in graphics(most likely this crummy shared graphics is why I can't get the game to run). It has a 300w power supply. I am running Windows 7 32bit home premium edition.



I can barely get LOMAC to run on it too. It will stop responding if there's too many things going on at once. I've installed all the needed patches and still have problems with it. My guess is the graphics card again.

Any help would be appreciated.



I also have a seperate question about Flaming Cliffs 2. I installed it anyway knowing it will not likely run properly. My question is: what is the launcher.exe error all about? Do I need to update the starforce drivers I've read about in the forums or is it something totally different?



Again, any help would be appreciated.

shared graphics??? Plus your PC is Lower end for any Sim.

First, More CPU, RAM, 6gb if you go to win764 bit, 32 will not see or use it. For sims 2gb GPU Memory for smooth graphics, PSU too low to power anything, 850 to 1200W PSU to drive it all... SORRY, You need a new PC!!!

Thanks for the replies. I kind of figured my pc was getting outdated(just want to be sure though). Time to shop for a new one.

Yes, sadly your PSU is not strong enough for any hi-end graphics card...

But as you look, Call OriginPC, Ask for Jamie, he will answer any ? you might have, even if you don't buy from them, Sales and Lab techs confirm what is best for any set up!! Cheers my friend, and good luck., Jim

My GTX 460 runs the game smooth as silk. But you are due for a big upgrade if you only have a 300W PSU.

Thanks again for the replies. Not sure if its worth my while to put any $$$ into this pc. Seems to be getting more outdated by the day. I might be better off building my own and use some of the components from this one(Lightscribe dvd drive, multicard reader, tv tuner), and upgrade the rest. Being on a tight budget where money IS an object, I'm not sure if I want to spend upwards of $1000 on an already built pc.

-Rob

Talonslair, if budget is tight, it's best to build it yourself. Heck, even if you've got money to spare, it's still best to build it yourself.

You know one of the big pluses of SimHQ? You can SET YOUR OWN BUDGET, go shopping, then post your prospect setup, and a lot of people here are willing and knowledgeable enough to help you out. You can take their word, or you can take their word as advice, use it as a springboard for your research, then make your own decision. I take anywhere between 2 weeks and 2 months just to research and decide on a part --- basically, I see what the trend is, research it, then "sell" it to myself.

Also, one reason to "spend just a little more" on a new PC is to future-proof it. What this means is to buy a PC with specs a little higher than what you need them (ie, a little more overhead) so as to be able to "cope" with games coming out 2-3 years down the line.

Now if all of the above makes sense to you, here's a little nudge in the right direction. You will want a decently powerful quad core CPU. Intel i5's and AMD Phenom II x4 comes to mind. You will want a decent, branded motherboard, the spec of which will depend on the CPU you decide to go with. You will most certainly want a powerful videocard. In fact, buy the fastest card you can afford. Two videocards isn't necessary, one powerful one is enough. Good quality DDR2 or DDR3 RAM is next, and look at the 4-6GB range. Whether you go dual-channel or tri-channel will depend on the CPU/motherboard setup you select --- if it supports dual-channel, 4GB or 8GB is the way to go, if it supports tri-channel, 6GB is sweet. Finally, you want to power your new rig with a dependable powersupply. Again, depending on your CPU/mobo/GPU setup, you might get away with 600W, but 650/700/750w might be worth the investment, if nothing but to assure you that you've got enough "juice" for the whole thing.

So again, in order of priority, you will want the fastest GPU, then CPU, then motherboard. I would say GPU decision comes fourth, as it gets the whole thing running, and then RAM comes in last, as it is cheap and easy to replace later on as funds allow.

Hard drives, optical drives, monitors, etc. are secondary items as far as I'm concerned. Sure, you can get faster load times with an SSD, but I see you're on a budget so that's not really an option --- better use the money on a GPU.

Hope that helps, welcome to the forums (though I see you've been lurking for a while), and congratulations on your first posts!

Hey Ice. Great advice. All makes perfect sense. Thank you. I pretty much do the same thing as far as shopping. I spent weeks searching the internet looking for a tv last year until I decided on what I wanted and it payed off. I do that with everything I buy(drives the wife crazy) but I've become quite thrifty.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I do want to future proof my pc. No sense spending money on something I'll have to upgrade in a couple of years, so I will take your advice and go from there. Next is spending countless hours looking for the best deals. No big deal though, I'm used to it.

I'm leaning towards the AMD Phenom II x4(heard good things about AMD). What would be a good starting point to go from there and what to add with it?

Thank you for the warm welcome as well. Yes, I have been lurking around here for awhile(most of the questions I've had have been answered in other posts so there was no need for me to post anything until now) and it looks like I came to the right place.

Regards,
-Rob