How Do I Find Out What Kind of Video Card (GPU) My Computer Has?
The primary reason for finding out just what kind of video card / graphics card our computer uses is usually because we need to find out if they're powerful enough to run the latest graphics-intensive video games or video editing programs which usually come with rather demanding requirements where video cards are concerned. As video games continue to evolve and continue to pump more and more polygons and require more power, you'll find that upgrading your graphics card is a must.
Fortunately newer computers, and even notebooks, from reputable computer dealers such as Dell and Alienware, come equipped with great ATi Radeon or nVidia GeForce video cards that can usually handle anything you throw at them; they also come with a somewhat hefty price tag but at least it's your decision as to just how much power you're willing to pay for.
Anyway, in order to find out just what kind of video card your computer has, we need to navigate to the Display Settings area of our PC. Click the Start button and go to Control Panel. After doing so, make sure you have the default Windows Vista view selected, as opposed to the alternate Classic Windows XP View, and underneath the Appearance and Personalization heading, select Adjust screen resolution.
You should now be presented with a brand new window informing you of what kind of video card you have installed, as well as what resolution you might be using.
At a glance, you can see that I currently have a very respectable nVidia GeForce Go 8600M GT installed on this notebook and for those of you who might be curious: I'm using a screen resolution of 1680 by 1050 pixels for my 15.4" UltraSharp Widescreen WSXGA+ TFT screen with TrueLife technology. However, you can't learn a whole lot else about your video card from here unless you bring up the Advanced Settings window.
You should now be looking at a much, much more detailed screen which contains a wealth of essential information about your computer's graphics card. In fact, just by taking a quick look around this screen, not only will you find out just which video card you're using, but you can find out just how much graphics memory your video card holds and the BIOS information, too.
Hey, thanks for the info helped out!
heej,
i cant see what videocard i have.. its say that it is not available..
how can i see it then?
hey jet, perhaps ure video card needs a specific driver to function properly. try running a pc audit on your pc...like Belarc advisor. it will tell you what components you have in your pc. and then you can download the driver for your card. belarc advisor is free. just google it.
Yah thanks, took me forever trying to find out this info but only when i found your web page did i finally find it.
thanks for helping me out, but it did give me bad news =(
Thank u very much!!!
thanks for the big help.....i learned alot about my video card
My screen does not look like yours above. My entire hard drive was replaced and I now have issues with the video card that I never had before. Help.
my system is brand new. how i was know my grapics card please some one know it replay me
How do you know if your vidoecard is vga, ddr3, or any of the thousand types out there. It does not say in the screen that describes the card in windows. Is there a visual way. Because I know I have a NVIDIA Geforce 6600, and I bought a geforce 6800gt agp but it doesnt plug into the mother board. Please help me not waste ant more money
i want to know what size or type of video card i have? i found this under devices as follows:
Intel(R)82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller what does all this mean? Please need to install a cad program and need to know if i need to change video card
I am running XP so how can i find that my graphics card is off 256mb or greater
I have windows xp pro and my graphics card is a VIA/S3G unichrome IGP. I am trying to play the game jaws unleashed. After successful installation when I try to run i get a prompt saying my pc does not have multistreaming. Do I need to upgrade my driver?, and if so where do i go? Or do i need a new graphics card?
My motherboard is VIA KM 400. Also when using a site such as youtube it sometimes takes several minutes for a video to load, is this normal?
i cant see my screen to look for this stuff. I was told i needed a vedio card because my monitor wont show anything. its on but no pic...help? its a HP desktop
I have windows XP, helpz???
I have a problem. Where it says the card types all mine say unavailable or n/a. My laptop recently did a startup repair and now everything is messed up. also where it says 2 monitors mine only says one and the ticked boxes dont show eiter. HELP ME!
Bull shit this didn't help me one bit.