Radeon 9000 video card

[ares473]

Anyone know if the reason AH2 crashes has anything to do with the Radeon 9000 video card? Sorry I don't know enough about this kinda thing to give specifics except that when I run AH2, I get a message that says my video card does not suppor zbuffering, then when I select "offline missions" the game crashes to the blue screen and I have to reboot. I am trying to play the game from my laptop since I am working away from my home pc for a while. Thanks for any help.

[columbus]

Manufacturer:   ATi
Series:   Radeon 9
GPU:   RV250
Release Date:   0000-00-00
Interface:   AGP 4X
Core Clock:   200 MHz
Memory Clock:   250 MHz (500 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth:   8 GB/sec
Shader Operations:   800 MOperations/sec
Pixel Fill Rate:   800 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate:   800 MTexels/sec
Vertex Operations:   50 MVertices/sec
Details
Noise Level:   Quiet
Framebuffer:   64,128,256 MB
Memory Type:   DDR
Memory Bus Type:   64x2 (128 bit)
DirectX Compliance:   8.1
OpenGL Compliance:   1.4
PS/VS Version:   1.4/1.1
Process:   150 nm
Fragment Pipelines:   4
Vertex Pipelines:   1
Texture Units:   4
Raster Operators   4


the mobile 9000 for laptops


Manufacturer   ATI
Mobility Radeon 9000 Series   

Mobility Radeon 9200 4/1@250MHz

Mobility Radeon 9000 4/1@240MHz
Codename   M9
Pipelines   4 / 1 Pixel- / Vertexshader
Core Speed *   240 MHz
Shader Speed *   240 MHz
Memory Speed *   200 MHz
Memory Bus Width   128 Bit
Memory Type   DDR
Max. Amount of Memory   128 MB
Shared Memory   no
DirectX   DirectX 8.1, Shader 1.4
Transistors   30 Million
technology   150 nm
Features   AGP 4x, 150nm processing technology, 952 MPixel/s Pixel-filling rate, theoretical filling rate: 9601000 Mpixel/s, memory bandwidth: 64007040 MB/s, Hyper-Z II optimization for memory bandwidth, Smoothvision: Super Sampling FSAA, Powerplay (not activated in all laptops!), integrated MPEG2 decoder-units like iDCT, Motion Compensation, hardware sub-picture-decoder, adaptive de-interlacing, 400 MHz RAMDAC, 165 MHz TMDS-transmitter, integrated video-exit, support for several display devices by ATi Hydravision (up to 3 displays simultaneously).

i am surprised you even got it running with AH, both cards are 8 years old even if it did work i wouldnt expect more then single digit FPS

[ares473]

Do you have any recommendations for a video card compatible with a Dell Inspiron 8500 that can run the game? If none then I reckon I can do without until I get back home.

[TilDeath]

There are no "video cards" you can swap out in a laptop.  They are chips in that model.  If you had purchased a "whitebook" meaning a custom built then you would maybe have a few options.

TD

[Scotch]

TD, do you have any experience with whitebook builds? I'm curious what something like that might cost vs a prebuilt comparable system...if you'd see the same sort of price savings as in building up a desktop? And how much it can really be setup to be upgradeable?

[TilDeath]

TD, do you have any experience with whitebook builds? I'm curious what something like that might cost vs a prebuilt comparable system...if you'd see the same sort of price savings as in building up a desktop? And how much it can really be setup to be upgradeable?

Whitebooks are EXPENSIVE builds esp if you get into higher end video... looking in the high 1800+ to 3k for a higher end build.  I have done about 10 of them, mostly for recording industry folks here in Atlanta.  They are upgradable so to speak but not by the end user, the parts are not available for over the counter sales.  I would not purchase one myself due to high cost (maybe if I hit the lotto).  Are the parts better then what is available in a prebuilt, yes, is there a savings, no way actually more.  You could upgrade anything you would want (ie memory amount and speed is higher, HD of coarse, CPU, GPU).  But NO would be the answer to your question.  Parts are to expensive.

TD

[columbus]

i believe the alienware laptops had replaceable video cards for their laptop line

[ares473]

  Turns out I found the latest and greatest updated driver for the Radeon, installed it, and AH2 is working as advertised     

Thanks for the input anyway fellas.

[columbus]

be curious as to what the FPS is

[ares473]

how can I find out?

[Masherbrum]

how can I find out?

Control + I in-game