"High" graphics issue

[Sein]

Another quick but unrelated to my last post question.
 
I've been playing the sims for a long time and my computer has always been fantastic at playing with high graphic capabilities, but these days it seems like I enter the game and everything goes from "high" graphics to the "medium, can-only-tell-if-you-get-really-close" graphics in only a few seconds. And this is happening on a lot with no CC! I just got seasons so that might be part of it...
 
It's just annoying when doing contest entries to enter and exit the lot again and again when the graphics move to "medium". Do I need a new video card or what?

[tylersada]

Have you checked to see if there are updates for your video card drivers?  You didn't say what you currently have.  I have a 256 MB ATI Raedon which is not state of the art but works very adequately with the graphics for Seasons.

[caffeinated.joy]

Seasons adds a lot graphic demands onto your system with the addition of weather. So, without knowing what you have, I'll have to assume that your system can't quite handle full on high graphics with the card you've got.

[Sein]

this might be a rather stupid question but... how would I check my video card without opening the computer?

[maniac19642003]

For WindowsXP, go to Start/Run, type in dxdiag then click OK. Once that comes up, click on Display and you can see what card you have as well as the driver for it.

[Sein]

Thanks for the help
 
so it seems like I have a Radeon 9600 XT AGP? and my driver is ati2dvag.dll.

[caffeinated.joy]

Minimum requirement on the vid card for Seasons (as far as the Radeon goes) is ATI 8500, or, if you're on Vista, 9600.  This is likely the reason for the degradation in video quality.

[Buffy]

Im using a ATI radeon 9550 and all of my default settings are on high and I have no problems running seasons. I only recently installed my card though. I did read in another thread about cards becomeing degraded after a certain amount of time. maybe this is the problem.

[Sein]

that's what I'm thinking. Thanks for all the help everyone. I'm going to go scout out the cost of a new video card and then compare relative costs.

[Sein]

Yeah. this video card has seen better days, that's all I can say. Well... I'll just hope that I can take my PC with me to college