Graphics Card/Video Card - what's the difference?

Gilly B

Gilly B

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Gillian
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I am sure you PC techi's laugh when someone asks a dumb question like this. I have been having problems with shimmering on my lovely Compaq P1220 crt monitor. It was ghosting on text, but I altered the resolution and refresh rate and that has settled down.

The problem I have is I am creating a DVD slideshow through ProShowGold and the preview show on my pc stutters like mad. I have been told it is because i do not have a dedicated 'card' for graphics. Okay, I accept that - but what card do I need to buy. My computer says it has an Intel (R) Pentium (R) D CPU 2.666 Ghz. Under Display Adapters it says Intel 82945G Express Chipset Family.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to buying something to solve my problem.

Thanks - Gillian
 
You have a graphics chip built into the motherboard. A separate graphics card may increase the performance. Depending on the age of your computer, you may either need a PCI express or an AGP type card. Something like this http://pc-wizard-2008.en.softonic.com/ will tell you what slot type you have.

But, how much memory/ram do you have? Increasing this may help and increase the performance of your pooter generally. Perhaps try and update the intel chipset drivers too.
 
Thanks Guys. Walls - I have installed the wizard from the link and taken a screenshot of my PC's main organs. List of hardware:-

Mainboard: Unspecified 775i945GZ
Chipset: Intel i945G/GZ
Processor: Intel Pentium D @ 2666 MHz
Physical Memory: 4096 MB (2x 2048 DDR2-SDRAM)
Video Card: Intel(R) 82945G Express Chipset Family
Hard Disk: MDT (20 GB)
Hard Disk: WDC (320 GB)
Hard Disk: WD (1000 GB)

Does that help you point me in the right direction for buying a card suitable for my PC?

Thanks - Gillian
 
I think that chipset supports PCi express (PCI-e). Go to the mainboard icon on pc wizard, here it should tell you if you have PCI express.
 
oldgit said:
It looks to be one of these:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=775I945GZ

So you can add a graphics card: 1 x AGI Express slot
Click to expand...

Trust Arserock to come up with a cock eyed excuse for a PCI express slot!!

You can put a pci express graphics card in this slot, Some thing like a GeForce 9500 GT 512, would suit you fine. You will need to uninstall the old drivers and install new ones specific for the nvidia (or what ever you choose) card (it will come with them in the box)
On some motherboards you actually need to change a setting in the bios to tell it you are using a dedicated graphics card, (some will realise automatically, not a given on a cheap board though) so that it stops sending the video signal to the onboard vga port and sends it to your shiny new card instead.

Tara
 
I think, although I am really not sure, but AGI express was an early adoption of PCI express. I think it fits PCI-e slot cards.

from the manual here http://SPAM/9y6xss on p10 it gives a list of compatible cards. From this, it looks like you can upgrade to any PCI-e card. (well you can always return it if it doesn't fit!)

If you're going to upgrade to CS4 then as it uses the graphics card, it may be worth in investing in one of the tested cards as there have been a few issues of late.

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb405711&sliceId=2
 
Wow! thanks for all your advice guys. I will digest the information and go from there.

Gillian
 
I don't think that the stuttering will be caused by the graphics card/chip as generally they have nothing to do with the video encoding. What's the recommended spec PC for running the software on ?
 
Video card would certainly have some impact plus the fact that the onboard card will steal some system ram, dedicated video card will help the system all round as it will also lighten the cpu load for video work as well
 
mrgubby said:
I don't think that the stuttering will be caused by the graphics card/chip as generally they have nothing to do with the video encoding. What's the recommended spec PC for running the software on ?
Click to expand...

I don't know? How do I find out the spec PC?

Remember, I don't understand PCs - :shrug:
 
Gilly B said:
I don't know? How do I find out the spec PC?

Remember, I don't understand PCs - :shrug:
Click to expand...

It should have been on the box the software came in . Looking at your PC spec you list 3 Hard disks, any idea what types (SATA / IDE ) they are and where the software is reading writing the info to / from. It could be that the problem is caused by the PC accessing a slow HD and or 'caching' the information on another drive

ppp said:
Video card would certainly have some impact plus the fact that the onboard card will steal some system ram, dedicated video card will help the system all round as it will also lighten the cpu load for video work as well
Click to expand...

The video card only handles the frame buffer for video editing, it will steal some system memory but as the PC has 4Gb that shouldn't be a problem
 
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