Video Card Help, Please.

NLAlston

NLAlston

Member
My Gateway PC is just over 3-yrs old, and I had thought that I was (pretty much) good to go, with what I had, for a while longer. However, I just encountered a video card problem that I need help with.

Today, I tried kicking the tires of the OnOne Perfect Photo Suite (plugins) for my Photoshop CS5 program. Of the six included plugins, I could only get two of them to open for me (MaskPro, and PhotoFrame). The other four caused an error message to surface.

My video card is an NVidia GeoForce GT 120, and I've received notification that what is needed is an OpenGL 2.0. Until that takes place, I cannot make use of those other (and more important, to me) plugins.

Would someone be able to steer me towards the best solution for what is needed? Advanced thanks.
 
I'd like to check that 'new PSU'. A 600W PSU with only 30A on the 12V rail looks rubbish to be honest.
 
A big thanks to all responders.

I kinda figured that I might have to spring for a new (better, stronger) video card. But I had no idea that a new PSU might be of the order, also. Oh well, I guess you learn something new every day :). But, allow me to pose yet another question.

My computer is a Gateway LX-10, with 8Gigs of RAM (my video card is supposed to hold 1Gig of its own, dedicated RAM). It is a Quad Core Q8200 @ 2.33 GHZ. I haven't been able to price anything that has been suggested to me, yet, and wanted to know about what I should expect to pay for a really good video card AND highly capable PSU. Would it be worth upgrading my PC, considering what it is - or wait until I could, possibly, afford another whole system?

If the word is that upgrading would be the thing to do, then how difficult would it be for the layman to perform the tasks?

Again, advanced thanks.
 
Well, it seems that I had been given misinformation, when I first purchased this Gateway. I was told that the video card held 1GB of dedicated memory. But I just saw (Amazon.com) that its capacity was 512MB.

I have found some prices of that suggested VC, and now have to see what the PSU would cost me. I have no qualms about installing the VC, but think that there might just be a fair bit more to know before attempting to replace a Power Supply Unit.
 
Installing the PSU is just a tad bit more time consuming than installing the vid card, however, it's not really any more difficult. Cable management is what takes the longest to be honest.
 
I prefer newegg more, easier to navigate and generally same or better prices i think.

You don't need anything over 650w and that's giving you plenty of headroom, the comp really would only be using maybe 400w. And brand is big in psu's, and that's not a good one, here's what i'd look at.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139028

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139012

And the hx650 only has 2 amps less power on the +12v rail (the most important one, powers cpu/mobo/gpu), 52 v 54, but is much higher quality and a lifetime warranty is worthless if the company won't honor it, and corsair will be 10x more helpful than almost any other company.
 
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