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Hi there, I've recently decided to get Dawn of War II for the PC. Now my PC is up to scratch bar one thing ... the graphics Card. The specs for the game say I need a GeForce 6600 GT mininum to run the game. So I went out, shopped around and saw a few I thought about buying. I can get hold of a 9500 GT for £50 however one of the guys in the shop said that getting a GT240 would be better and that it was mid range in terms of graphics cards, and in the end I bought it but found DOW2 runs very sluggish.

So my question is.... is this correct, is a GT240 better than 9500GT because if yes, it means I need to look at my system. If no then I may have been duped.

I'm just not knowledgable on this subject anymore so your help would be appriciated.

Cheers

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-240M.17654.0.html

Hey HG, how long ago did you buy the card? GT240 is middle/lower field of the graphics card market when it was released about a year and a half ago.

EDIT: Can you look at the box and tell us if it's GDDR3 or something like that?

I bought it yesterday. This is the exact model which I bought at maplin in store.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/nvidia-geforce-gt240-1gb-pci-e-graphics-card-352202


And this is the one I found afterwards, grrr
http://www.maplin.co.uk/b-grade-nvidia-geforce-9500gt-1gb-pci-e-graphics-card-385500


I'm just confused as the only difference I can see is the "GT" part is at the end instead of the front. So not sure if that means the GT240 is better than a 9500GT.

Well... I'm not really sure as I look mostly at the laptop graphics market.

But google has some info on it,

http://www.techenclave.com/graphic-cards/9500gt-9600gt-or-gt240-154378.html

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2906/9

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/297431-15-gt240-gt220-9600gt

If you're curious about a GC, just google it + review. It'll usually turn up a wealth of info.

They both should run adequately... What settings are you trying to play? What's the rest of your computer like?

I think, good sir, that you may have well answered my question with the first link. I had googled for info but could not seem to find the right info I needed.

I'm going to double check when I get home, but I think its my computer thats at fault. I have a feeling its not getting the wattage it requires. Thank you very much for the help

No problem, my good man. Best of luck, I know what it's like to want to run games and not being able to :(

Anyway, if it's not working properly, you could lower the resolution, cut the extra stuff (lighting, etc - dunno if DoW II has those options) so it can run acceptably.

Funny thing, I can run DoW I on my laptop (2.0 ghz, 8200m, 3 gb ram), DoW II doesn't work, but Starcraft 2 works wonderfully.

The way it USED to be was that the 'thousands' number was the generation, and the 'hundreds' number was the overall raw power of the card. So a 9600 would be the "nine" generation, which meant that it usually had fancier pixel shaders, supported a more fancy Direct3D version, and in general would play more modern games, however, the "six" designation means that it's their midrange card, and inferior to the 9800. As far as the letters go, I can't remember the exact rule of thumb with them, but I seem to recall more letters = better. So a GTX is better than a GT. As far as their new format for model numbers, I can't really help you there. I'd guess that the hundreds is the generation and the tens is the overall power of the card.

Personally I run a GeForce 9800GT. I bought it for just over 100 USD a few years ago and it's run everything from Fallout 3 to DOW2 with at least medium graphic quality set with no issues.

You cannot go by model numbers alone. Video cards that are of the same model number vary considerably amongst manufacturers. I have a 4870X2 that outperforms many cards in the 5 and 6 series range.

OP, what kind of the CPU do you have? RTS games tend to rely more on the CPU than the GPU. This is because they lower quality graphics, but tons of data flowing across the screen.

Both of those video cards are outdated, newegg doesnt even stock 240s any more. Is there any way you can return it and get a newer card? Newegg.com has some great deals on their GTS400 line, several are about the same price as the 240 on that other site after rebates (around 100$ after rebates). I would be surprised if that 240 plays DOW2 on higher graphics, it wont be playing much in the next couple years.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The 240 is better than the 9500, but that doesnt mean they are good cards.

You got gimped. GTX240 and GTX250 are essentially just repackaged 9800 cards.

That doesnt mean he got gimped, the 240 is still better than a 9500. Although the price is sort of high from that supplier, but I am also used to newegg pricing, which are considerably lower than...everyone.

However, there may be models of the 9500 that are better than his model of the 240, you cant tell just by model numbers.

You can have the best card ever but it is totally meaningless without knowing the rest of the config.
What's your system memory and processor? What settings have you got it running at? Having all bells and whilstles turned on is a system hog on it's own.

Don't forget to turn off that damned system monitor, memory monitor, skype and the other billion and one things that people insist upon still running in the background which they don't need.

It might also be the ram.....

Thanks everyone for all the help and advice. Got it working eventually and have learnt a fair bit as well.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off ta kill dem umie's with ma stompa! wwaaagghhhh!

Maybe a bit too late but here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-cards-charts-2009-high-quality/Far-Cry-2,Marque_fbrandx876,1810.html

(look at the bottom)