ATI Radeon 3000 Dedicated Video RAM

[flimflop]

Hi there,
I play a lot of games on my PC, but when checking if my computer has the right specs for playing many of them (on Can You RUN It | Can I run that game | Game system requirements), my Dedicated Video RAM on my ATI Radeon 3000 graphics card always falls short below most minimum requirements at 256MB!

I'm not sure if this graphics card is just very weak in comparison to the rest of my machine, or whether I have not "assigned enough RAM to it" - as some forum posts suggest for other cards. This is a real shame because the rest of my computer is in good shape for gaming, but there's something up with this graphics card!

I am aware that this is an on-board graphics card (I think!), and I have no idea how to replace / upgrade this in any way. If the worst comes to the worst i do not mind upgrading the card, but it would be much appreciated if i can get an opinion on this first before spending my money.

Any help in simple steps which are easy to understand are much appreciated!
Thanks in advance!

System info:
OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
System Manufacturer Hewlett-Packard
System Model SG3-230UK
System Type x64-based PC
Processor AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 220 Processor, 2800 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 3.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 2.75 GB
Available Physical Memory 1.66 GB

Adapter Description ATI Radeon 3000 Graphics
Adapter Type ATI display adapter (0x9616), ATI Technologies Inc. compatible
Adapter RAM 256.00 MB (268,435,456 bytes)
Installed Drivers atiu9p64 aticfx64 atiu9pag aticfx32 atiumd64 atidxx64 atiumdag atidxx32 atiumdva atiumd6a atitmm64

*If any other system information is needed I can post it right away*

 

[dsperber]

I'm not sure if this graphics card is just very weak in comparison to the rest of my machine, or whether I have not "assigned enough RAM to it" - as some forum posts suggest for other cards. This is a real shame because the rest of my computer is in good shape for gaming, but there's something up with this graphics card!

I am aware that this is an on-board graphics card (I think!), and I have no idea how to replace / upgrade this in any way. If the worst comes to the worst i do not mind upgrading the card, but it would be much appreciated if i can get an opinion on this first before spending my money.

System Manufacturer Hewlett-Packard
System Model SG3-230UK

You're not going to be able to upgrade the graphics card with this motherboard. It only has two PCIe x1 slots, and virtually all decent video cards require a PCIe x16 slot (and also a decent power supply).

I'm afraid you're probably stuck with the onboard graphics if you keep this motherboard.