Graphics Card question

[rowech]

How can I tell what type of graphics card I have along with how many MB it is, etc.?

[Buccaneer]

Go to the Display panel (right-click desktop, properties). Go to Settings, Advanced and then the Adapter tab.

[Atocep]

Go to Run and then type: dxdiag (this gives you all of your system info)

Then go to the display tab and that should tell you which card you have.

You can also go Control Panel > device manager > Display Adapters



To get an accurate reading of how much video memory the card has you may have to google it once you know what you have, though.

[rowech]

Got it...thank you!

[rowech]

Follow up question....what is shader support and how do I tell about that?

[weegeebored]

Shader models are basically a description of how to display certain graphics like the lighting in a scene and their color intensity, and also geometric and physics shading depending on which shader model we're talking about. I think that DirectX 10 uses Shader Model 4, and DX9 uses 3, but I may be wrong about that.

If you know your video card make and model, you could go to the manufacturer's website or a place like NewEgg and look at what shader model the card supports. For example, my cheapo video card is an MSI 8600 GTS OC which supports DirectX 10's shader model 4. It was in the manual and on MSI's website.

Basically games will look better (theoretically) with the higher version of shader models because they include more capabilities.

[rowech]

Thanks...I have a feeling I'm screwed. I downloaded a demo for Medieval II and couldn't get it to even get to the intro screen on either of my computers. I thought I had two decent enough video cards for the game but I guess not...unless something was wrong with the demo.