Pixel Shaders and Vertex Shaders

sorry for the possibly really stupid question, but i really an a noob when it comes to things like this, so here it goes

is it possible to upgrade the pixel and vertex shaders on the graphics gard? i have an ati radeon xpress 1100 (notebook), onboard card with shared memory up to 256 megs. the problem is that i only have pixel shader 2.0 and vertex shader 2.0, and i've noticed that most new games require v.3.0 or even 4.0.

if they can't be upgraded or smth like that, is it possible to emulate them or something?

oh, and dun make fun of my question please

 

unfortunately, it is not possible to upgrade the pixel shader on your card.

there is probably some effort to emulate them, and it might be theoretically possible, but even if someone managed to get it to work, you still won't be able to play the latest games.

the real issue is that you can't upgrade just your graphics card. you will need to buy a new laptop to get a new gpu. or buy a desktop or console for your gaming needs.

 

Not possible.There is an emulator for many things,but it never worked for me.

Try this
http://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/tools/3d_analyze/download/

 

i see ... thanx for the answers guys.
however, how much is the quality of the latest games affected by the fact that i don't have the lastes pixel and vertex shaders? i mean, what can i do to improve the gaming?

i have an intel core 2 (2gh), the video card is up to 512, and 768 RAM (and i'm plaing to add up to let's say 4 gigs). adding more RAM is going to make the games perform noticeably better? and is directx 10 a sollution?

 

Adding RAM is only useful if your system/application can use more RAM. Vista's Superfetch ensures that adding RAM almost always gives you a performance increase, but all applications only need so much. If you have 2GB, and a game uses 500MB, upgrading to 4GB won't help a lot.

 

well, i only have 768MB RAM, so i believe (and if i'm mistaken please correct me) that i could run Crysis more fluently with about 3-4 gigs of RAM (it runs kinda slow in low settings right now). and what exactly is this Superfetch?

 

To run crysis "fluently" you need 2 gb of ram and at least a 8800 GTX card, mobile or desktop.(for high settings) , 8600 GT for medium settings and about a 8600M GS or 8400M GT for low/med.

 

it might run better than it is running currently, but it is still going to run slowly in lowest settings.

 

what about my ati radeon xpress 1100? is the game going to run better if i add 2 more gigs of RAM?

 

You must be running WinXP, and it surprises me that Crysis runs at all on that laptop with the ATI 1100.

I don't think more than 2GB of RAM will be helpful if using WinXP, but a little more than what you have might help things, especially since you are sharing it with the video.

I would rather buy a $700-$1K laptop that has a lot better graphics. Like an HD2600 GDDR3, or HD3650, 8600M GT or 9500M GS graphics.

 

the graphics card you have in your laptop is very weak, in terms of the amount of work it can do. so upgrading to even 10gbs of ram isn't going to help. You need a new laptop with a more advanced graphics solution

 

yeah, i have win xp, sp2, and about crysis, i dunno dude, i placed the settings on low, and it was running kinda slow, but rather playable.

for comparison, s.t.a.l.k.e.r. runs fluently on medium/high settings. same goes for doom3.

i don't have money to buy a new laptop, and honestly i don't wanna change it yet, as i just bought it half a year ago. i was just wondering it there is something i can do about making some new games run smoother

 

Some more RAM would help you, and try to find some high speed stuff, low latency DDR2-667, it might actually help your graphics.

Like here
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231130

 

awesome! thanx mate!

 

Adding RAM will NOT increase gaming performance in his case. The x1100 is an integrated (and therefore weak) card. Adding more memory or lower latency will not increase performance of the card by more than 0-1%. The fact is, no matter how much memory the card allocates itself, it still doesn't change the fact that it simply isn't fast enough.

For example, picture a 512MB Geforce FX 5200. This card, in no way whatsoever, will outpeform a 128MB Geforce 8600GT. This is due to the architecture of the card. Simply said, a lowly 5200 will never be able saturate all the memory it has.

 

you know what's the weird part (and judging from that experience i tend to follow his advice)?

when i set the card at 256 shared (512 MB overall) and 768 RAM remaining, i was able to play doom3 on medium settings. and it was running pretty ok.

however, a few days ago, i set the graphics card to share only 32 MB (weird stuff is that with dxdiag it showed me it's actually 128 -> which makes me think that actually that's almost my cards' memory apart from the shared amount of RAM), and with 128 MB on the graphics card and 1 gig of RAM, i was able to run Doom3 smoothly on high.

 

Im sorry, I didnt realize your 1100 had dedicated memory.

But still, your laptop is in need of additional RAM, so any RAM upgrade will help a little.

If your video was only shared memory then faster RAM would help.

And the fact that your game needs more RAM for the CPU to process the game more smoothly more RAM will also help. With XP and my old old computer I have seen up to about 1GB of RAM used, so with your newer CPU and system, dual channel or what not, I would imagine you could use more than 768MB efficiently.

So there will be improvement.

 

yupp, well that's what i'm gonna do this summer out of the next paycheck.
how exactly do i know what type of RAM should i buy?

 

How much RAM is actually installed in your laptop? 768mb or 1gb or more?

And your 1100 video has 128Mb of dedicated RAM? Or is it an 1150 IGP?

What laptop model do you have?

 

oi, here's the system info

Model: Asus X51r (came with free os, and i installed xp sp2)
CPU Speed: 2.00 GHz Performance Rated at 3.74 GHz
Processors: Intel Core Duo, 2 procs running, 2gh each
RAM: 1024 (768 -> see below)
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon Xpress 1100, shared memory. Right now i set it to share 256 megs of RAM, so currently it has 512 megs, Pixel Shader 2.0, Vertex Shader 2.0, Video Card 3D Acceleration and Video HW Transform & Lighting.
HDD: 120 gig.

i have 1024 RAM installed on my laptop, and here are the possibilities to use them and the graphics card:

256 shared for the video card -> 768 RAM left for the PC
128 shared for the video card -> 898 RAM left for the PC
64 shared for the video card -> 960 RAM left for the PC
32 shared for the video card -> 992 RAM left for the PC (i have no ideea why. all i can attempt is a guess that by some strange reason, my video card has its own memory, ranging somewhere from 64 to 128)

 

I think the memory I linked above is your best bet, and only $50.

Your system only takes up to 2GB anyway.

I can't find a lot of good clear details about the notebook graphics, but I think its only 64-bit memory bus so they could save on battery power. That sucks, and why using more than 128-256Mb of RAM on it wont make a difference. I'd leave the shared memory as low as possible until you get 2GB RAM in there.

One thing you can try is overclocking your graphics with ATItool. The only difference between the 1150 and the 1100 seems to be 100Mhz core speed, so its possible you could easily get another 50Mhz out of yours or even 100Mhz. From 300 to 400. You should read up more on that before trying though.