Nvidea GeForce 2 MX/MX 400 video cards and GW...

I really want to buy and play Guild Wars: Factions. My main concern, however, is whether or not it will run on my machine. I checked the system requirements and everything is fine but the video card. It seems I need a GeForce 3 at least, and I only have a GeForce 2 Mx/Mx 400 card.

To run Guild Wars: Factions, would I need to upgrade, or would it work if I reduced the graphics settings.

I realize that it's time to upgrade the video card (and WinME too ), but I'm worried that some of my favorite games won't run if I do that. Guild Wars will be my newest game, but I don't want a spiffy card not to support Doom, Might and Magic, and the other classics.

Thanks for the help! I can't wait to play this game.
Rob

Yep, it will work if you lower the requirements, I used to have the same card. It will run slow, but doable.

hmm...why do you think those games won't run on a "better" card?

and yes, GW will run fine...well not fine, you may have bad fps, but it's doable. i ran GW on the same card you have when i had to resort to using my old computer which i only use for word processing.

Yes, it will work but i'm telling you. U wont be able to play fine. Even with the lowest setting, YOU WILL LAG LIKE HELL. I got a Core 2 Duo E6400, 2gb of ram, Geforce9600gt and it still lag sometimes like in Kamadan district 1 where there is like thousands of peoples spamming trades, etc. I would suggest you to upgrade your system with an FX5700 (around 30$) or you will get yourself very very very angry. My old rig has the same Video Card as you. I tried to run guild wars. It takes 1 minute to load a map for christ sake. And the gameplay in general lags as hell. I usually get around 7-8 fps.

This shows the MINIMUM requirement in order to RUN guild wars. It doesn't mean you can play fine

* Windows XP/2000/ME/98
* 800 MHz Pentium III or equivalent
* 256 MB RAM
* ATI Radeon 8500 or GeForce 3 or 4 MX with 32MB of video memory
* 500 MB hard drive space
* Internet connection
* DirectX 8.0

This shows the recommanded specs in order to run guild wars OK (doesnt mean smoothly)

* Windows XP/2000/ME/98
* Pentium III 1GHz or equivalent
* 512 MB RAM
* ATI Radeon 9000 or GeForce 4 Ti Series with 64MB of video memory
* 500 MB free hard drive space
* Internet connection

my m8 has 1 in his pc and when i house sit for him i play gw on it,run it in DX8 with the shaders turned off run it on lowest settings but u will only get about 10/12 fps but all 4 games will work

Thank you for the quick replies. I'm glad there's some hope for the old card.

I really do need to upgrade the computer some time soon, but will probably get a completely new setup instead of trying the bring the current one up to modern standards.

I guess I'm worried just worried about a newer card not being compatible with older games. I know my dad tried hooking in a new one into his machine and many programs didn't run. Also, my computer itself might not be able to handle a newer, more demanding card-- it's hardware hasn't been updated since 2001 except for the DVD drive installed and the Linksys internet antenna.

Kind of OT, but has anyone experienced trouble playing Guild Wars through a router? I have had Gamespy Arcade troubles, but not when playing an actual game. I'm glad GW doesn't use Lamespy.

wow, thats an old card. And here I thought I was bad running it on a radeon 9200 while my new card is shipped in. If you haven't done so yet, read up on the Command line arguements, specifically -noshaders and -dx8. I can't remember the specs on the geforce 2, it may not even support shaders or directx 8 so these may be redundant.

A system upgrade in the near future is definitely a good idea, even a low end graphics card these days is going to be 10x as powerful, and without knowing the rest of your system I can still probably say they would see nearly the same benefit.

I don't know exactly what old games you are trying to run, but most of the time the problems are the games interacting badly with windows XP/Vista or something, not the graphics card itself. Not unless the game is really, really old. Lots of really old games can usually be fixed, for example dosbox will let you run pretty much any old dos game very well. If that still doesn't work, most old games had some form of software rendering you could use, which was slow back then but computers nowadays can power through it.

Seeing as how I also like to play really old games I can tell you very few old games are affected by your GPU. The only game I've ever came across having troubles was King's quest: Mask of Eternity.
The majority of issues from old games come from trying to play them on new operating systems i.e. Windows 2000/XP/Vista, as The Meth said. Even dos games should work fine without dosbox in Windows 98/Me.

No... just no. At the lowest settings my GeForce 2 ran GW Prophecies without lag. It just won't be able to render some things (e.g. no boss aura's). GW Prophecies and Factions should run with some graphical malfunctions.

upgrading your graphic card might be the best thing to do for you.

^ Not really, consider how old that pc is, upgrade a new card won't do much good, getting a new one would be better. Decent pcs are pretty cheap these days, consider what they can do as well. Aim for a mid range pc and your wallet (or your old man) won't cry out in horror.

ye k, thats true, its better to build a new one than upgrade a really crappy system.

Dos might be the only thing that worked in windows Me. And it still didn't work well.

I would advise you upgrade your video card to a DX9 card, and make sure you have at least 2gb free hard drive space. If possible, you will want about 15gb free to allow for the windows swap file.

As for video cards: I did a quick search and found a quite a few for under $50.00.

If you use a PCI slot for video: A Geforce 6200 with 256MB VRam. Not great but it will produce 17-27FPS. In some areas the rates may drop to about 5.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130289

If you are lucky enough to have an AGP port there are a lot more options. Setting the price range at 25-50 dollars yeilds twenty results. Remember the more video ram, the better.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...=%2425+-+%2450

Video memory is far from the deciding factor in performance, especially in guild wars. I highly doubt you will see any benefit going past 256 megs as far as GW is concerned. 128 is more then enough to run the game adequately in all circumstances.

We could probably give a lot better advice if the OP would give a specific price range and whether or not he/she is willing to get something completely new or just wants a new video card.

Allegedly, the "MX" in GF2MX stands for MistaXe

Cool, I'm going to purchase GW:Factions on Amazon pretty soon. I'm optimistic that while it won't run with the graphics turned up to the hightest setting, it will run. That won't be a problem, because I am still used to games like Doom and World of Xeen.

Thank you for the help, all! I am really looking forward to playing this, and have already aimed to start out as an Earth Elementalist or maybe a Ranger.

What's the rest of your system spec anyway? GW doesn't need much to run but just because you nearly meet the minimum requirement doesn't mean it will works. Then again you don't seem to care if the game won't be able to run as it intended.

Well just upgrade the memory to 1gb at least, look for somehting like 2100 or 2700 memory.

The best thing to do is to get a upgrade on the card, as much as your pc can handle as everyone else has said.

This pc had a NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 that could run all 3 games and expansion, but only just.

Since I got a 7300 GT, the game in general has run a lot better and the graphics are a lot better (well, you'd think this is obvious, but since the Geforce4 was in my pc for 8-9 years.. it is a surprise to see such good graphics).

I hope you have luck finding a card your pc can handle.

The MX series were horrifying... those were around when I was still in High School, and they were... unbearable.

Just junk the system out, saving what little you can. Take 300 bucks and build a very low key budget system. If you use your current case, and throw in some really cheap junky parts, you will find you have a pretty decent system, especially if you are running good old Win98.

I will post a parts list for you in a little while. I think I might be able to go to sleep now... Give me a few hours kk?

As for the rest of the recommendations. You won't be able to put a DX9 card into that relic. More RAM won't save that PC. Nothing can save a PC that is THAT old (presumably) It is Game Over, you lose, good bye, shot in face, put into grinder, toodles, aufwiedersehen for that poor thing!

Your old games will run perfectly fine on a slight "newer" system. Even an extreme budget system will be 1000000000x better than what you presumably have right now.

Like I said, give me a few hours to sleep. My back incision started bleeding randomly earlier (just a little amount, but that means I need to take it easy on it and lie down for a while) I put on a surgical sponge and a new steristrip, and a water cover over it. I think it should mend up with the iodine and neosporin treatment in about 8-10 hours. I am about 75% back to my normal self. In 3 weeks, I can lift more than 10 lbs! You have no idea how restrictive I feel not being able to do more than that. I can drive as of Thursday (10 days was the min), and as of Monday, I am totally cleared for all activity minus the 10 lbs limit and excessive twisting of the back. Can't wait to drive my friggin new car!!! OMFG!_!_$(%@!#*$&!@# Ok, I am going to bed. /end diagnosis