Better Graphics Card (With Pixel Shader 2.0 for The Sims 3)

[Determination]

I need some help finding a graphics card that would be able to play The Sims 3, because mine does not work with it. Can you tell me what kind of graphics cards would work, where I can buy them, and how much they usually cost? (Thank you very much and enjoy your day/evening)

[🍋 Lemonfed 🍋]

pixel shader 2.0 is very old so pretty much any recent gpu should support it.

[Determination]

How much money do gpu's goes for on average? (Screw me am I right? Lol)

[🍋 Lemonfed 🍋]

what's your specs anyway ? if you can't run the sims 3 then I have feeling that your computer might be too old for any decent upgrade.

[tacoshy]

Originally posted by Lemonfed:

what's your specs anyway ? if you can't run the sims 3 then I have feeling that your computer might be too old for any decent upgrade.

I can run Sims 3 on old Graphic cards like the laptop Radeon HD 7620M in 1080p perfectly fine at highest detail. Problem was for my laptop the CPU.

So you should also look into your CPU / other specs. If you intrested in a new GPU then go with at least a GTX 1050 Ti. However it is currently a real bad time to buy GPU's as the prices still are inflated but they'll drop down soon.

[xSOSxHawkens]

If you have a system that lacks SM2.0 then you are on a pre DirectX 9.0c card...

That puts your machine in the Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 era, and likely using AGP still and not PCI-e (most any PCI-e card features SM2.0 (Geforce FX-5K line and up, AMD/ATi 9200 (?) and up)

If you *must* keep your same core system your best bet is to find an AGP version Radeon card of the HD3650, HD3850 or HD4670 catagory. Of those all three are DX 10.1 class cards, all should feature 256 or 512MB Vram, and all should be usable on about any system and psu (though the 3850 will require power). The HD4k card is the newest tech, but the HD3850 is the highest performer with the same number of compute units as the 4670, but a 256bit memory bus over the 4670's 128 bit bus.

Depending on how much work you put into sourcing the GPU it will cost you anywhere from $10 up to 75-80... High end AGP cards cary a price premium to anyone who knows what they are, as they are EOL upgrade parts and people will pay more to keep their old hardware alive. That said, they are also old parts that to manny are useless. I picked up an AGP 3850 at a local commic books store for $15 about a year ago.

In terms of performance, and AGP 3850 will provide the same rough performance as its PCIe counterpart in most all games. I beat Crysis on an AGP 3850 with most settings on high or better @ 1280*1024 back in the day, and also used an AGP 3850 to beat Bioshock and Oblivion, so they are more than capable cards.

As others have mentioned, the CPU might be a limmiting factor aswell. The above poster comments that a laptop with an HD7620m strugled on the CPU front. That GPU would put his machine using an intel 2nd or 3rd gen chip or some type, or perhaps some mobile AMD chip. Either way his CPU would likely be faster than any Pentium 4, and will also be faster than most Athlon 64 x2's.

Assuming you system age from the graphic chip lacking SM2.0 we can conclude that even with proper graphics the game might strugle to play on the CPU or memory front.

Long story short, you might be better off sticking to The Sims 2 until you can afford or scrounge together a better system.

For what its worth, I have built more than a few systems that would play The Sims 3 for free just by asking around to local computer and IT shops and finding ones that had old spare parts. People bring in an old dead system and they toss it in a pile to go to recycling. Ask to take a rumage through the pile. Pull dead systems, test parts, build up from there...

The laptop I used all through highschool was an old Pentium 2 gateway that I called the "frankentop". I built it around 5th grade from the parts of 7 different dead laptops I pulled from a dumpster behind a community college...

Where there is a will, there is a way.

[Determination]

The only problem is the graphics, the rest of it works just fine. (Now anyways)

[76561198399520696]

Originally posted by Determination:

The only problem is the graphics, the rest of it works just fine. (Now anyways)

At what screen resolution fo you play?
I think you should go for Nvidia GTX 1030 or 1050. But at least get a GTX 710.
Also, before buying any graphics, please let us know the cpu (processor) you are using. It can be seen by going to control panel and then Information about your computer (or something like that).

[tacoshy]

Settings -> System -> Info

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Well ym laptop had an A6-4400M APU with the iGPU HD 7520G + Dedictaed HD 7620M 2GB GPU. My CPU load was always at 100% while the GPU was ~80% usage. Lagging hard when building larger buildings as the CPu was heavily bottlenecking.
Even tho it influenced the graphic settings and the FPS it was not bad graphics and fps because of the GPU's but of CPU bottleneck.
Well the HD 7620M was a good mobile card at this time, it is still nothing good compared to desktop GPU's

[xSOSxHawkens]

Originally posted by Determination:

The only problem is the graphics, the rest of it works just fine. (Now anyways)

We need your specs...

Originally posted by InvetorXD:

Originally posted by Determination:

The only problem is the graphics, the rest of it works just fine. (Now anyways)

At what screen resolution fo you play?
I think you should go for Nvidia GTX 1030 or 1050. But at least get a GTX 710.
Also, before buying any graphics, please let us know the cpu (processor) you are using. It can be seen by going to control panel and then Information about your computer (or something like that).

Recomending PCIe cards when his system (at best) is maybe pcie gen 1 but probavly AGP or pci only...

To the best of my knowledge they never made any mass scale non-sm2.0 cards on pcie. They are bassically pre pcie...


As for tha APU. An a6 4400 is still better than most any pentium 4.