mother board question for tech headsFollow

My PC wont run EQ2 because of video driver issues so I read all the video driver threads and got a new card, got a G force 5200 128DDR. but, when I went to instal it I discoverd that my PC has no AGP slot. just empty space staring me in the face #$%@={. So Im assuming I neeed a new mother board with an AGP slot? Can I swap out a new mother board as long as it supports an Intel Celeron 2.8? Comp is an Emachines T2895.

My recommendation is to return that 5200 graphics card and buy a completely new computer.

The GForce 5200 is a complete and utter piece of garbage. It is NOT a card that you should be spending money on, especially if you plan to use it with EQ2.

If your computer does not have an AGP slot, your computer is an utter piece of garbage. It's not going to run EQ2 well no matter how much money you spend upgrading it.

Don't mean to sound personal, I'm just telling it like it is. You WILL be dissapointed with any sort of PCI graphics option.

Save up some cash for a whole new PC (Check out techbargains.com for great deals on decent DELL computers) or play WOW. WOW has very low hardware requirements, and you're much more likely to enjoy playing it, whereas EQ2 is barely playable on a high-end computer from 2 years ago.

Edited, Sat Dec 18 17:59:02 2004 by siyona

That advice is just silly. He's got a 2.8 processor, so his computer isn't a total piece of garbage. The mobo is just sub-par.

Main thing about a getting a new mobo if its an old one is making sure the RAM is compatable. You might be using SD RAM in your computer right now, and if you get a new mobo you're going to want DDR RAM. If you're using DDR then you're good to go, but if not and you get a new mobo you're going to have to buy completely new RAM.

Make sure that it can handle the chip, make sure it has a 8x Pro AGP slot, probably want 3-4 slots for RAM, and make sure it doesn't have a built in video card, and try for around 4-5 PCI slots. Oh yeah, and USBs and stuff like that. I always get top of the line mobos because I hate putting new ones in.

You really have a couple options. You can grab yourself a pci video card if you absolutely want to play with as little money investment as possible. With this option your graphics performance will be sluggish at best. I doubt you'd be able to play much higher than high performance setting.

Something like this would work for you.

Your other option would be to replace that motherboard with a decent socket 478? mobo with an AGP slot. Grab the best video card you can buy at whatever price range works best for you. Think 9800pro as a minimum. It might also be a good idea to replace that case and psu. There is a chance that the new mobo may not fit and if you get a nice video card the cheapo emachines power supply may not be able to supply enough power for it.

One last thing. If you replace the motherboard make sure you have a real copy of windows xp with cd key so you can reformat and reinstall. You can really bork things up if you don't reinstall windows after a motherboard install.