Memory or Graphics Card ??

Ok guys i need someone who plays FM and is really into computers to help give some advice. I am running Vist Home basic on a Dell Inspiron 1520 32bit laptop with 1.5 unmatched (512mb +1gb ) mem cards. Last years game ran ok, bur was a bit laggy on the match engine at times if im honest,, i had to upgrade and put in the 1 gig mem card last year as with the 1 gig standard RAM the game crash half way throuigh the season.

This years game seems a bit slow also ,, sometimes when i click to advance to the next day it will hang for a few secs before processing. Saving can sometimes take ages also,,, BUT it is the 3 d match engine that is problem,,, at first when i first start to play its really smooth with no probs ,,but after game been on an hour it starts to get really laggy,,,also if i hit the windows key and go back to the desktop with game still running in the tray,,,all my normal pc fuctions seem really slow as well ,,

It will cost me around 60/ 70 quid to upgrade to 4gig RAM ( which have been planning to do for while) ,, but do you guys think it is the memory that is the issue or the graphics card??

If Graphics i dont get why it would play fine at first or why it would affect the pc when i temporarilly jump out the game back to desktop... dont want to waste 70 quid either so,,,any ideas

I'd say go for the ram upgrade anyway as what you've got isn't much by todays standards and using an unmatch pair is never a good idea. You dont say how many leagues and on what detail your running so it might be that you've got too many leagues going for the amount of ram you have. I would also upgrade your direct x and graphics card drivers. You'll get the graphics card drivers from the manufacturer of your card and as for direct x you can get that from the microsoft website. Upgrading the graphics card on a laptop is a bit more complex than doing it on a desktop so you might just have to live with the card you've got unless you want to invest in a new laptop!

I would also search google for something called game booster which is a free program that will stop all the not needed stuff you have on your computer from running which will free up some more memory.

If you havent already done so install the latest patch but if you got your game through steam you wont need to download this as its done automatically.

Finally, if you have a virus scanner make sure that you get it setup so that it ignores any folders that fm needs to use because if it runs a scan when the game is running then it can sometimes slow things down.

My leagues are same as i always run Scot Prem, Eng fm championship , Brazil prem, Argentina Prem, France Prem, Spain prem , Italy seria A, Germany Prem, and Dutch 1st. I looked in device mgr to see what graphics card i have and under diplay adapters it has,, Mobile Intel ® 965 Express chipset family ,,, in the Directx tool it lists same name under display with these details also

Manufacturer - Intel corp

Chip type- intel ® 965 Express chipset family

DAC TYPE - INTERNAL

APPROX TOTAL MEMORY - 358MB

Current display mode 120x 800 32bit 60Hz

Monitor generic PnP Monitor

ALL Directx features enabled

Main Driver Version is 7:14:0010.1272

date 02/07/2007

WHQL Logo'd - yes

DDI Version 9Ex

dont know what most of that means or where i would go to get an update ,, in device mgr i right clicked on the driver and clicked update from net,,,which came back with im up to date,,but everyone on hear says you have to go to manufacturer website ?? so that Dell? Intel ??

will look at your other suggestions also and the virus protection rules ,, never thought of that cheers

Your graphics card driver are probably well out of date. One other thing to try is this.

click start then run and in the box type msconfig. When this load click on startup and have a look at what is loaded at windows startup and then deselect the stuff you really dont need.

For drivers for your graphics card look here http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-022768.htm

32bit vista cant make much use of more than 3gig of ram (3.12gig I think is the maximum it can use) so dont go above that, there isnt much point.

The graphics card appears to be an integrated one which draws on the system RAM and on the system CPU, rather than being an independant card - this is probably the source of most of your problems.

I might as well put this in this thread and hope for some replies instead of making another thread..

My game is running very slowly too, just using the English leagues down to BSN/S. My laptop is old and I was thinking about buying some extra RAM, but would an extra 1GB improve speed by a noticeable amount for the price it would cost (£30?)?

I will be getting a new laptop in a few months when I can afford it but I can't cope with the speed it's at currently, which is only getting worse now i'm in my 3rd season on my career, so is it worth buying the RAM or not? Are there any other cheap ways of improving the speed as well?

http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/innovation/jsp/SUPPORTSECTION/discontinuedProductPage.do?PRODUCT_ID=122807&DISC_MODEL=1&service=UK

That's my laptops spec - any advice would be appreciated.

P.S. I'm clueless when it comes to computers so keep it simple please.

Cheers

Ok - so you can see - this is the system specs from SEGA:

Processor: 2.0GHz or Faster

Supported Processors: Intel Pentium 4, Intel Core, AMD Athlon

Memory: 1.0GB RAM

Hard Drive Space: 2GB

DVD-Drive: 4x Speed

Video Card: 128MB *Supported Chipsets (see below)

Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible

Directx: Version 9.0c (included)

LAN: TCP/IP compliant

Input: Keyboard, Mouse

*Supported Chipsets - Nvidia FX 5900 Ultra or greater; ATI Radeon 9800 or greater; Intel 82915G/82910GL or greater.

Earlier cards may only display 2D Match Viewer Mode and are not supported. Laptop versions of these chipsets may work but are not supported.

You have the bare minimum of RAM, an intergrated graphics card (which you dont appear to be complaining about) and a semi-below spec CPU.

So - to answer your question - YES buying the extra RAM would help - according to the specs of your laptop its upgradable to 4gig of RAM - so adding another 1 gig shouldnt be a problem. HOWEVER, although adding the extra RAM will help, I dont know how much your processor is the one holding back the permformance - so dont spend £30 just because I said so

32bit vista cant make much use of more than 3gig of ram (3.12gig I think is the maximum it can use) so dont go above that, there isnt much point.

The graphics card appears to be an integrated one which draws on the system RAM and on the system CPU, rather than being an independant card - this is probably the source of most of your problems.

yeh i realise that i probably wouldnt get the full whack from a 4 gig pack of 2x 2gig cards,with being 32 bit,,, but i have been advised by a lot of folk that it always better to run 2 matched cards in the slots, and as far as im aware they dont sell 1.5 gig ram chips,

For me to pay 35/40 quid for 2x 1gig ram and match up to 2gigRAM dosent seem worth the cash for what would only be 500mb more than i currently have,, ive been told that i should get between 3 - 3.5gig ram with a 4gig pack ,,which is more than double my current spec,,

From the system specs your pc has 2 512mb cards for a total of 1 gig over 2 cards. So, you have the choice of replacing them with 2 1 gig cards or 2 2 gig cards.

The first option will double your ram (From 1 gig to 2 gigs) the second options will quadrupil your ram (from 1 to 4).

You are right - you will only beable to use 3.12-3.5gig of ram if you upgrade to 4 gigs. The reason why I say this isnt necessarily the way to go is that increasing one part of a computers hardware wont necessarily have the expected effect. You might find that 4 gig of ram shows no real speed difference to 2 gigs of ram because your processor is what is slowing down the computer (think about the processor as a cars engine, the RAM as the cars gear box - improving the gear box a bit will make a difference, but shoving in a racing gearbox with all the bells and whistles wont make it any better than the cheaper option because without a new engine, you cant actually use the fancy gear box - I hope that makes sense.)

You can find 1 gig of ram chips for about £10-15 (So for 2 thats £20-30) - 2 gig ram chips are £20-30 (so thats £40-60) - both sound like a lot of money to play a game which cost less than the memory upgrade

EDIT - I just realised ive confused the two people asking questions... yes - you didn say you had 1.5gig of ram... SORRY - whats your CPU (processor?) it might make a difference.

From the dell website its one of these:

Intel® Pentium® Dual Core Processor T2310

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T5250

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T5450

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T7250

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T7500

AMD AthlonTM 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TK-55

AMD TurionTM 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-58

AMD TurionTM 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-60

AMD TurionTM 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-64

EDIT - I just realised ive confused the two people asking questions...

I probably should have made a different thread to save this confusion..

Thanks a lot though, might go ahead and buy some now.

Intel ® celeron ® CPU 540 @ 1.86 GHz ,,, which should be able to run this game ,, the game has the same system requirements as FM09 ,, which i had not too much problem with once i put in the 1 gig chip last time

Apparantly its not the same requirements as last time (although google searches arent always right!!)

OS: Windows XP/Vista

Processor: 1.4GHz or Faster

*Supported Processors: Intel Pentium 4, Intel Core, AMD Athlon

Memory:

- XP : 512MB RAM

- Vista : 1GB RAM

Hard Drive Space: 2GB

DVD-Drive: 4x Speed

Video Card: 128MB**

I posted this years specs a few posts above. looks like the processor needs to be more powerful this year

I have compared the spec on the back of both games covers and they are identical on the box. Still my processor may not be great but should still run game.. My graphics card i have just updated from dell using my specific TAG no,, so will see how that go's,,, my graphics card still had planty mem (358mb) compared to the requirement (128mb),, like i mentioned when i updated RAM from the standard 1 gig last yr the game ran fine,,, so its making me lean towards thinking this is perhaps a RAM issue..

Do you think upgrading RAM will make a difference or is the processor just not up to it ??

I dont wnt to back to 2d match ,, it is playable at the mo ,, just has annoying moments when starts lagging

hehe - as I said - google is often wrong

Unfortunately - your graphics card isnt right - the 358mb is a bit confusing - but you dont have what the game needs. The name needs 128mb of DEDICATED graphics ram. Because your card is integrated it wont have this - it will probably have 64mb of dedicated graphics ram and will 'borrow; 256 ram for your system memory.

The reason why it probably starts lagging (PROBABLY) is that because your graphics card is drawing on system memory and the system processor, as it gets more 'into the game' (the longer its been running for) the more the game will be drawing on the system ram - whereas at first there is spare ram, now there wont be spare ram and thats why it starts lagging.

Put it this way - upgrading the RAM wont make performance worse, and it might well make it much better - but dont sue me if it doesnt

Cheers mate for all your usefull advice,, and I wont be suing anyone lol,, I have been meaning to update my RAM in anycase, ,now i have reason at least. Probably update it to its MAX, that way at least wont have any choice of having to bother in future like when FM11 comes out lol,,

Last year i put in a gig along with leaving in one of the 512mb ,, so an increase (although not paired) of 512mb got me through 09,,, have a feelin if i go up to 2 gig ( another 512mb increase) might get me through FM10 ,,But knowing my luck,, exact same will happen again when FM11 comes out,, or any other new game for that matter lol:D

lol - just buy the 4 gig now and you might get through FM12

Buying 4GB of RAM is a great investment!

Processor: 2.0GHz or Faster

This will be why the game doesn't run well on my laptop...my processor is only 1.77GHz

This will be why the game doesn't run well on my laptop...my processor is only 1.77GHz

Its not always that simple (when is it simple!)

If you have a dual cored 1.77ghz processor, in some circumstances it will be better than a single cored 2.0ghz processor, and in other circumstances it will be worse.

As to what and when those circumstances are - im not actually all that sure