I have a Dell Dimension 3000 Pentium 4 with a integrated 64mb card. I want to know HOW to turn it off in BIOS so that I can put a new video card in the computer. I looked around in BIOS but not sure what to do in there. Please help.

Sounds quite similar to what I was faced with and am doing now, though if this was in EARLY 2004, my PC is still not as new as I'd hoped. I just don't know what logic is involved in this Extreme Graphics chipset if it's anything BUT extreme! I have the same chipset listed in my Presario 1220 desktop! It lists a min of 8, a max of 64, but using DirectX 9.0, which is what current games are using, that's good. My Celeron D is 2.93 GHz, the RAM card PC2700 is 512K at the moment. Since the BIOS here only lists Priority set to PCI versus integrated option, it looks like you can install it right away without adjusting anything prior.
I was told there could be problems so I await more advice to avoid it not working out as planned. I seek more advice ASAP.
I pray the ATI Radeon 9250 is DirectX 9.0c capable and works with GUN, the new Western themed Activision game I bought. I was just reading that 4 rendering pipelines is half what new cards priced up to $200 offer. I didn't see much of that locally in stores!
BILL

BILL S, you've talked about a very similar subject in two different places, making it hard to respond to your concerns.

You say that you have a 9250 and are disappointed by its performance. You also say that you looked around and it had the highest "numbers", so it should have been the best. This is a good lesson time. Higher numbers does not mean faster performance. Higher model numbers when comparing products from different manufacturers will never give you a good comparison. More and more, comparing model numbers between cards made by the same manufacuturer doesn't give you a means to compare performance.

The 9250 is an older card and was developed to be a low-end graphics solution. In essence, it was developed to be used as a graphics solution for offices and productivity software users that don't work with demanding multimedia applications.

The fact that a card has a DVI output doesn't mean that it is created for performing advanced rendering; it simply means that the card can output a true DVI signal for use on better LCD monitors and other displays that support DVI inputs.

If you truely want to find out what a card is made to do and what you can expect out of it, find sites that benchmark cards and see what they say about the card you want to get. In other words, do your homework. It's sad that you can't just look at a model number and know exactly what to expect from a card, but this is the state of computer components now.

In order for a card to be able to list DirectX 9.0 compatibility, all it has to do is be able to support all the instructions from the DirectX 9.0 instruction set. It doesn't have to be able to execute those instructions well in order for it to get the honor. So it may be able to execute all the instructions, but it doesn't make any promises that it will do it in a timely enough manner to make games playable.

Now... On to your system specs. You indicate that you have a Celeron D 2.93GHz processor, 512MB (I certainly hope that you meant MB rather than KB) of PC2700 (or DDR333) RAM, and have integrated graphics. You want to know how to make this machine powerful enough to play the latest games. To be frank, that's going to be hard considering that, after looking at your basic setup, it's apparent that this machine was designed to be a budget productivity machine, not a gaming machine. To start with, your motherboard is going to show its age fast in that it won't support the latest graphics cards because it doesn't have a PCI-Ex16 slot and that it doesn't have a fast bus. Your CPU is a Celeron. Think of Celeron as being short for "not as good as a Pentium", and you wouldn't be too far off base considering that Celeron is basically a Pentium with some of the expensive components reduced to make a budget chip. You have 512MB of RAM, which I consider to be a bare minimum amount of RAM to have now-a-days. I recommend no less than 1GB of RAM for any computer user, gamer or otherwise, since the RAM demands will continue to increase in the months and years to come. Furthermore, your RAM is DDR333, which, for an Intel system, is well behind the top speeds Intel systems are capable of now.

MyAdvice:

1. This is the most important advice I can give... If you want to play games but have a limited budget (don't we all?), don't make the mistake of thinking, "I'll buy this machine that I can afford because I can always upgrade it later". It used to be true that you could do that, but it is no longer the case. If you truely upgraded an older productivity machine to be a gaming machine, you would end up spending so much money, you might as well have just built or purchased an entirely new machine. So, if you want to play the latest and greatest games, shell out the money for a gaming machine to begin with. If you can't afford to buy a gaming machine, then maybe you'll have to settle for not playing the latest games.
2. Do your homework. Make sure that you fully understand what a component's designed use is and what it is capable of before purchasing it, or you will end up throwing money away.
3. Don't get caught on marketing hype. Words like EXTREME, Advanced Performance, Enhanced, [insert additional marketing words here] don't mean anything. They are used to make people think it is something newer and faster.
4. Machines with built-in graphics cards will never be considered gaming machines. If they ever manage to make a machine with an integrated solution that can play the latest games, it won't be able to keep up for long.
5. Don't try to get a "gaming laptop"; rather, make a decision between a gaming machine or a laptop. Gaming laptops cost a fortune and will have to be replaced annually in order to keep up with the latest games.
6. Who really cares if you can run the latest game with the highest settings? If you do, you have to ask yourself if it is worth throwing a minimum of $1000 at your machine every year in order to keep it current.

</rant>

well....i just ordered a new graphics card for my Dell Dimension 3000 P4...so is there any way to turn off the integrated graphics card in BIOS??

Hi, Chris
I know I'm quite anxious to get some info on this as I've been told a few things while out shopping of course, some maybe hype or misinformation, etc.
I found one review, I think, on Yahoo that points out the series numbers inaccuracies and that the 9250 may not be a good route to go, mine is opened but not installed yet, but I did purchase it last week. I can't find many PCI cards that are game worthy on store shelves here, and my eBay searches didn't bode well either

BILL

Which ever card you bought, check their site, for mine, Xtasy had a FAQ for things like that, each BIOS is laid out a bit different, but there are three areas I read that need to be addressed when switching the video handling chores, one is letting Windows know, as it's seperate from the hardware end.
-BILL

NEVER EVER BUY A PC WITH AN INTEGRATED GFX CARD. THEY SUCK.

They can barely run quake 2

If you note, Intel's Extreme Graphics is virtually anything but, BUT it appears new PC's are upping the anti and the main key is that there will still be a slot for adding a card. The price prohibited need something that will let you run most games, HOPEFULLY, but as I found first hand, budget PC's can't hold a candle to simple console games that I think should have paved the way for new PCs to incorporate both 3D accelerated gaming and video along with typical PC's power for more boring apps
-B

intel extreme cards are designed for office use and for people that dont play games or are graphics card intensive. intel extreme and other intergrated graphics are designed just to produce an image to the screen, nothing too fancy. if you like to play games and you have intergrated then buy a dedicated graphics card with dedicated video memory that doesnt leech off your ram.

Try this link...graphic card and Deactivate Outmoded Graphics Functions

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/...o_z/page7.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/...o_z/page8.html