New Video Card problems...Money wasted?

[BossCityBoy318]

Okay, I just bought a PCI Ndivia 8400GS 512MB video card from bestbuy. I got it so that games like Left4Dead and World of Warcraft would play a little smoother. Boy was I wrong about this. This video card is worse than the old 1 that came with my computer. The game skips and lags a lot worse than before...I really have lost all my patience with this stupid thing... It really seems like everything else besides games is going faster and it looks better...Here are my specs.

Microsoft XP
Media Center Edition
Version 2002
Service Pack 3
HP Compaq Presario
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+
2.19 GHz, 960MB of RAM

Model# is SR1650NX

Thanks in advance if you can help...This video card has caused me nothing but trouble so far... x.x

[patio]

Not sure why that card would not perform well but i wou;d return it and maybe spend a little more for a newer version.

[squall_01]

did you get the latest drivers?  do all the requirments match the games?

[Calum]

The 8400GS is a low end card, and will not handle gaming well at all.
What did this card replace?

[BossCityBoy318]

It replaced a ATI Radeon XPRESS 200 Series. When I checked on Systemrequirementslab.com before the new video card it said it wouldnt play Left4Dead or Sims3. Now that I put the new Video card in, it says I pass all requirements. I have a feeling I need more RAM, since it's a 512MB card. I would think I need like 1g+ of RAM, and all I have is 960mb of RAM. I have the latest driver.

[cengbrecht]

I am wondering what Brand of Card that is, Best Buy is Notorious for getting the cheapies in there even if they are Gigabyte and such...

[Calum]

It replaced a ATI Radeon XPRESS 200 Series. When I checked on Systemrequirementslab.com before the new video card it said it wouldnt play Left4Dead or Sims3. Now that I put the new Video card in, it says I pass all requirements. I have a feeling I need more RAM, since it's a 512MB card. I would think I need like 1g+ of RAM, and all I have is 960mb of RAM. I have the latest driver.

Don't put too much trust in systemrequirementslab.com and other sites like that.
You may pass the minimum requirements, but not well.
I agree that video card should give slightly better performance than the onboard chip though.
Check that the onboard video is disabled to avoid conflicts.

I am wondering what Brand of Card that is, Best Buy is Notorious for getting the cheapies in there even if they are Gigabyte and such...

Sorry ... that seems contradictory.  Would you mind explaining, please?

[cengbrecht]

There are cards that through Gigabyte, have a special code to them that are made with some parts removed, they are designed to be *Entry* level cards and not really good for any current games, and a GS is usually in that level, but depending on the brand you can get drivers that in some cases are designed to work with that and function normally.

I have run into cards like this rarely, but those people did know about the issue.
I would have to re-read the info I was givin a long time ago.
Eitherway, they may not do that anymore.

[Calum]

I've always liked Gigabyte hardware myself, I wasn't aware they produced cards with parts removed.
"GS" is a suffix used by Nvidia to denote a lower-end card, it's not a manufacturer code.
I'll have to research this further I think.

[squall_01]

so its more like a cpu then?  It can be rated to run at differnt speeds.