PC illiterate seeks help in words of no more than one syll..syll.. letter

[pokee]

Hello all, I am completely unfamiliar with anything to do with pcs sadly and in desperation have logged on here to try to get some help this evening.

After many many weeks of staring at my brand new sims 3 i finally load it to find i dont have the video graphics card spec...and worse still after trying to read my way through self help pages i don thtink i even have a graphics card at all!! lol Is this possible? I play other games. Oh dear even i'm aware how dim i'm sounding : )

 

Ok when i go into dxdiag and look at display details i have a lot of N/A under device and nothing i can enable on the acceleartion bit either. Please someone tell me what i need to be looking at and the ultimate question....can i ever play my sims without spending anymore bloody money?

Thank you in advance x

[KenB]

Hi and welcome to ExTS.

 

You say you sound dim - I had to look up what Sim 3 was :)

 

i don thtink i even have a graphics card at all

You must have some sort of Graphics "Card" - otherwise you would see nothing on screen at all.

 

XP System Requirements for the game ( from the game web-site )

2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent

1 GB RAM

128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0

The latest version of DirectX 9.0c

Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2

At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games

 

Lets check one or two things:

 

Start > Run ...type in .....winver......ENTER

This should tell you

1. How much RAM you have

 

2. Which Service Pack you have ( SP1 / SP2 / SP3 )

 

================

Start > My Computer > Right Click on C:\ > Properties

What size is the Hard Drive ( in GB please )

How much free space ( in GB please )

 

================

Start > Run ...type in .......devmgmt.msc.......ENTER

Click the + next to Display Adapters

 

Please post here what is written.

Also -

Are there any yellow exclamation marks or red Xs ?

 

================

 

Please post all details listed above.

RAM / SP 2 / SP3 ? / Hard drive size / free space etc etc.

 

Lets see what this gives us for starters :)

Edited July 14, 2011 by KenB