My horse and me 1 - help!

[wolfy86]

I've just bought the 1st game for the PC, never played it before, but it looks absolutely AMAZING and I'm dieing to play it!

On my laptop and dads computer it says the card reader or something needs to be upgraded, but on my mums it just comes up with an error and needs to be shut down. I think all the specs are right but not entirely sure...

any help and I'd be very grateful

[kalniel]

Hi, we need to check the specs of your computers to find out what the problem is likely to be.

To do that, press start->run and type in 'dxdiag'

A diagnostic tool will appear, wait a few seconds then click the 'save all information' button and save it to the desktop.

Next, start a post on these forums and make sure to 'go advanced' so you have the additional options underneath the post - click on the 'manage attachments' button and add the txt file that you just saved from dxdiag.

[wolfy86]

there you go :)

[kalniel]

Thanks :)

Right off I can see the problem - your computer only has a NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 graphics card. From memory I believe MHAM needs at least a Geforce FX (5) - but realistically you need at least a Geforce 6 series or better, or an ATI X700 or better.

[wolfy86]

on the back of the box it says...
*video card: 64mb with shader support (NVIDIA GeForce3/ATI Radeon 8500 and higher)

I'm not very good with comps, so if I wanted to get Geforce 6, do I buy it, or will I need to buy comp with it in? grrr, why can't it be so much simpler to just buy and play a game! lol

[kalniel]

*checks a bit further*

Right you are.. however you've unfortunately fallen foul of nVidia's confusing numbering scheme - The Geforce 3, 4 Ti, 5 etc. all have shaders.. however the geforce 4 MX (ie not Ti) doesn't :( It's like an odd one out, and I'd guess that those shaders are needed for MHAM.

As for what you need to do, it depends on whether you can open up your computer or not, but in theory yes, you just need to buy a newer AGP graphics card and replace your Geforce 4 with the better one. No need for a whole new computer. I would recommend that someone who does know what they are doing do the actual replacement, and they can double check that a newer AGP card will work with your computer too.

I agree with you about things not being simple - consoles have the right idea!