GFX upgrade help

i currently use a radeon hd4200 which cant run the game worth crap, im wanting to upgrade but there are so many out there and i dont know what to even consider, can someone recommend a decent one thats under 150 USD, or tell me if ill have to go over, thanks!

It could be worth waiting it out; the last update alone improved framerates more than a graphics card upgrade probably would. I'm not sure about items in that price range, though http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/ is a good spot to start, to see what bang you'll get for your buck. I went from an old card to a GTX 780 which is more than the cost you mentioned; it made a big difference!

Cheers

GTX780 is kinda overkill for this game i guess.

yeah i was gonna do that, till i found out running some games my graphics card was upwards of 500% worse the the recommended for a lot of the games i actually own

The texture memory of a better card will be of fair benefit I'd say. But I'm sure there are cheaper cards that will give you most of the benefit anyway.

I still find that with planets size '4' and above I get a lot of lag and 'tiling' graphical issues. That's with the desktop system in my signature. The CPU is a little old and I could do with a bit more ram, but when I looked at the current offerings in that area they aren't a huge step change from what I've got - so I'm waiting for another generation of those to come out

Card name: ATI Radeon HD 4200
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 645 Processor (4 CPUs), ~3.1GHz
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
and i have 6gb of ram

you're pretty decent, you could also do with a ram upgrade, if your mb can handle 12 or 16 gb of ram it would be a good idea. but your graphic card is indeed in the greatest need of an upgrade.

It sucks that witing 'till release is the only way of knowing what to because it's durring alpha and beta phases that PA could use all the new horsepower ^^

As said before you need to prefer cards with faster and larger VRAM. For most of games even 1.5GB is overkill, but PA is special and it's can easily use 3GB of VRAM i think.

I use a 660ti and haven't experienced any lag with it on the new patch. I have a 1gb 560ti lying around my house somewhere if you want it. Just pay for postage and you can have it. I live in Norway.

that would be very nice of you, i live in the us lol, however i dont know what the price would be (i dont have the money just yet for a 150 was planning in the near future) or how i would pay you back for that, i dont have any way to send money online, the only reason i got pa is cause gamestop sells steam money cards.

jesus christ that's generous of you.

im not 100 percent sure, i actually havent opend the pc up to see, i only have enough room to get it to 8 GB, im new to most computer hardware stuff (its been in the last year ive learned what i know about computers).
luckly my two friends could make a computer from a pile of metal and silicon, so a lot of things i know come from them.

haha, then yes, ask those two friends. chaps like these will find the best solution, let them know that PA s a memory hog like never before, both ram-wise and vram-wise. not because it is graphically intensive specifically but because it loads lots and lots and lots of everysingle model and texture it has.

I'll check the shipment prices later. I sent some guy in Africa a phone last month and it was like 60 dollars so this been bigger maybe a little more. If its 60 dollars or less I'll send it and you just throw money into some charity if you want. I will never know otherwise but our lord Jesus savior chuck Norris will know.

wow clopse I'm flabbergasted

To be honest, i find it quite a bit difficult to predict which graphic card is required to play in good conditions. With my 660 TI, one single planet is displayed with no lag in the planetary system. And besically, while playing replays (which are cached as far as i understood) i manage to have 10/15 FPS when there are tons of units. However, when putting a secondary planet in the planetary system, FPS decrease a lots and with 3 or 4 planets i'm watching a slideshow. I do trust Uber for optimizing a lot but i sincerely wonder how it will be possible to have 3 planets and tons of units on each of them without experiencing lag (network or GFX related). Finger crossed

for the prediction of graphics cards i just use a website that scores hardware, and as for the optimization, my guess is they would do something like when you zoomed in on the planet only that planets textures will be loaded and the others are just textureless balls with small placeholders for units and buildings (of course you would never no since you cant see them) and when looking at the system all you see is mildly texture planets

again you leave me speechless, if it costs less then 60 ill purhcess that much in sleeping bags to donate to a camp i once went too that uses donations to get the poorer families kids out of the city and off the streetd

If for some reason Clopse's very nice offer does not happen for some reason. Remember that the new generation of AMD cards are almost out, so if you can hold out tilll them, they willl offer bettter performance, or drive the prices lower on older cards.
They should be out in less than 2 months.

If I had an actual rig I would take you up on your offer clopse if the others don't want it Sadly I only got a laptop currently and an actual PC system is about a year away(If my prediction is correct and my income will be what it should be...)

But it's great to see great people like you once in a while(Because we all know the "usual" types), keep it up ^.^