Low fps, probably need a new graphics card - help?

[Tamoa]

EDIT: sorry I replied before you told us your PC. I'm afraid the Acer X1930 is really hard to upgrade, it only has a very small 220W power supply and the unconventional casing doesn't help with upgrade parts. People have talked about it here http://www.tomshardware.com/s/upgrade+aspire+x1930/

You'd really be better off buying a new computer sorry.

Ouch yeah, seems you're right, upgrading my pc to where it can use a more powerful card is probably going to cost me enough to where I might aswell start saving up for a better pc.

@Madeleine: updating drivers now, I tend to forget that, so thanks for reminding me.

[Tamoa]

@FrionielHope: my fps drops to 10 and even below that in busy areas. And believe me, I'm used to playing with low fps from XI (until I got the aforementioned graphics card, which now isn't adequate anymore lol). It just seems more noticeable in XIV for some reason.

I appreciate everybody's input, many thanks.

[Tsudin]

Might I ask what resolution you are attempting to play the game at? My monitor's max resolution is 1680x1050 and trying to run the game at that resolution with my specs is a nightmare, as my computer has gone by in age I've come to terms with the fact that just running lowest settings just isn't cutting it anymore and have turned to playing at 1152x720. The reason I ask this is because I am running relatively lower specs than what you are and even though I don't stay above 30fps the frame rate I get is very playable for me.

Just to give you a little insight as to how much of an impact this could have I ran the benchmark at 1680x1050 at almost lowest settings(had some shadow details at normal instead of low and Trilinear texture filtering instead of Bilinear) and again at 1152x720(only changing the shadow details to low and to bilinear filtering) and my scores were 1311 at 1680x1050(10fps avg.) and 2441 at 1152x720(20fps avg.).

So before looking into buying a new computer I would definitely look into lowering the resolution first. Someone earlier mentioned that your card scored a 292 on the benchmark website, my GeForce 210 scored a 185 so your card should definitely be able to push you up to a much more playable frame rate, just at lower resolutions.

[Eder]

Oooh good point Tsudin, lowering resolutions will help. And if a Geforce 210 works acceptably then the OP's computer should too. (I was going off the minimum required video card someone else posted above.) Good luck!

[Arikaen]

I too am looking for a better graphics card and I think I nailed down which one I'm getting. If you really want to take the time to do some shopping around the best thing to do is go to www.newegg.com Look under video cards and use the side bar to set limits as to what your motherboard/case needs. Then go to http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/ to check out the video cards you want to look at. From there compare them on newegg compare prices and what not. Also check to see if your town has a used comptuer parts store or check craigslist to see if anyone is selling computer parts. Thats what I have been doing and so far after buying all the parts and once I get the video card I want my whole rig is costing me just under $600

[Tamoa]

Might I ask what resolution you are attempting to play the game at? My monitor's max resolution is 1680x1050 and trying to run the game at that resolution with my specs is a nightmare, as my computer has gone by in age I've come to terms with the fact that just running lowest settings just isn't cutting it anymore and have turned to playing at 1152x720. The reason I ask this is because I am running relatively lower specs than what you are and even though I don't stay above 30fps the frame rate I get is very playable for me.

Just to give you a little insight as to how much of an impact this could have I ran the benchmark at 1680x1050 at almost lowest settings(had some shadow details at normal instead of low and Trilinear texture filtering instead of Bilinear) and again at 1152x720(only changing the shadow details to low and to bilinear filtering) and my scores were 1311 at 1680x1050(10fps avg.) and 2441 at 1152x720(20fps avg.).

So before looking into buying a new computer I would definitely look into lowering the resolution first. Someone earlier mentioned that your card scored a 292 on the benchmark website, my GeForce 210 scored a 185 so your card should definitely be able to push you up to a much more playable frame rate, just at lower resolutions.

Like Eder said, good point - I'll try lowering the resolution and maybe that combined with the updated driver will help some.

@Arikaen: I live in a small town in Norway, and there's definitely no used computer parts store here. Buying parts and building/customizing a pc is something I'm absolutely not capable of anyway - unfortunately.