Need some graphics help...

[jay_the_pilot]

I'm no computer programmer, but I think I could be getting better performance.  I have a Sony Vaio, purchased December of '01, with a 1.7 ghz pentium 4, a 15 gig drive and a 55 gig drive, 512 megs SDram, and an Nvidia Riva TNT model 64.  I'm not sure if the graphics card is 32 meg or 64 meg, but since it is "model 64", I think it is 64 meg.  I also have downloaded the latest drive for it from Nvidia (increased my performance a little, and with no side effects except that MSN messenger has all the little persons as green, online or not).  My textures are very crummy, with lots of lines, as demonstrated in the screenshot below.

This is what Micro$oft is enjoying as far as graphics:

When I had FS2002, I could run that thing as high as it could go and still get unlimited fps.  Now, if I put it above "Medium High" on anything, I get a fairly choppy picture .  I know my processor and harddrive is a little outdated, but 512 megs ram is nothing to sneeze at, either (don't make fun of me if you have a gig of ram!).  Please help!

[Delta_]

Your CPU and RAM are fine for now i would recommend you look into getting a new graphics card, depending on your budget i would look at the ATI Radeon 9600np (not se) upto ATI Radeon 9800pro.  $98 upto $206.  These cards will allow you to max out if not all the settings.  Also they will give full pixel shader abilities which means the water bar can be maxed out and stay maxed out.  

I am not 100% sure whether a Vaio is a laptop, if it is you should be able to get a 9600np laptop version.

[andy2]

It looks like you need to turn antialaising on, either in the sim on the hardware page, or in your graphic driver, the latter if you have it.

[Delta_]

He is using a TnT it won't even be able to cope with AA.

[congo]

That's right, the problem is the TNT graphics, no way it will handle the Anti Aliasing.

Those lines get smoothed out when you enable anti aliasing and set higher screen resolutions Jay.

If your Sony Vaio is a desktop model, you can probably upgrade your graphics through an AGP slot on the mainboard, if it's a laptop, you may find your options are much more limited.

[jay_the_pilot]

Sony makes a Vaio desktop and laptop line, I have a desktop.  I tried anti-aliasing and it didn't slow me down a whole lot (though it was as Lubbock, which isn't one of the detailed cities), but it didn't smooth the lines a lot either.

[congo]

The anti-aliasing needs to be turned OFF in the game settings, and then enabled by default in your video driver settings.

Right click your desktop, go to properties/settings/advanced/(your video card tab).......check out the options and experiment.

(TNT64's will not handle AA and still give a playable FPS.)