Where do I go from here?

[ffutures]

Smivs works - but I think I'm going to get myself a graphics card anyway, Grifs did look VERY nice. 1gb PCIe x16 sound OK?

[Norby]

No card today what is not ok imho. Choose anything from this list over my HD4000 which can do 60 FPS with many Griff ships nearby (I set it to use 256MB video ram). Some $20 card can do the same.

[Capt. Reynolds]

This link from a thread in Outworld has a pretty good rundown on what's hot or not in recent cards. It's American, but a quick search on ebay for the card type wherever you may be should give you some good ideas of price.

[cim]

In that list, incidentally, my card is on the fourth row from bottom, and runs 1.77.1 at a solid 60 FPS. I very much doubt you'll be able to buy anything anywhere near slow that nowadays, even accidentally.

[Zireael]

I'm running Griff's plus Respray plus Z-Groovy Cobra Variety pack plus Povray Planets plus Zygo's asteroids and nebulas plus a boatload of other OXPs on a Intel HD3000 and not getting any significant slowdowns, FPS hovering between 45 and 60.

[ffutures]

I'm running Griff's plus Respray plus Z-Groovy Cobra Variety pack plus Povray Planets plus Zygo's asteroids and nebulas plus a boatload of other OXPs on a Intel HD3000 and not getting any significant slowdowns, FPS hovering between 45 and 60.

This computer has Intel HD4600 integrated and it seems to stutter a little with Griffs loaded - maybe it's a Windows problem rather than graphics card, I've really no idea. But given you can get a fair assortment of 1gb cards around the £20 mark I might as well give it a try - at the very least it'll free some memory, if it's a disaster I can sell the card on ebay or something.

[Diziet Sma]

This computer has Intel HD4600 integrated and it seems to stutter a little with Griffs loaded - maybe it's a Windows problem rather than graphics card,

I'd say it's an "integrated" problem.. an integrated graphics chip is never going to perform as well as a dedicated card, because the integrated chip has to "borrow" from the main system memory to do its' work. Not only does this memory usually run slower than dedicated graphics memory, but the hardware itself is (naturally) set up to be rather miserly about sharing what it has.. I'd be very surprised if the chip has access to more than 256MB.

[ffutures]

This computer has Intel HD4600 integrated and it seems to stutter a little with Griffs loaded - maybe it's a Windows problem rather than graphics card,

I'd say it's an "integrated" problem.. an integrated graphics chip is never going to perform as well as a dedicated card, because the integrated chip has to "borrow" from the main system memory to do its' work. Not only does this memory usually run slower than dedicated graphics memory, but the hardware itself is (naturally) set up to be rather miserly about sharing what it has.. I'd be very surprised if the chip has access to more than 256MB.

Pretty much my thoughts. I'm just waiting to hear back from the manufacturer on the exact specification of the PCIe slot - it's x16, but I'm not sure if it's 2.0 or a later version - but once I know I'll be buying a card.

[ffutures]

What I'd forgotten is that this PC has a low noise low power consumption PSU, it turns out that a graphics card will push it so much that the manufacturer recommends replacing it. Which means I'd be paying at least 40-50 pounds or more to get the speed boost, really can't convince myself it's worth it since I don't currently play any other games.

Meanwhile I've added Distant Suns and System_Demux, both of which are very pretty, think I may leave it there for now. And possibly allocate more RAM to graphics if I can figure out the configuration.