Will a better GPU be worth it to improve awful lagging/fps

Hi, bit of background. Trying to get back into Zwift after a while away, new year health kick etc. Set up is a dedicated PC in my garage connected to a HD telly. I had a an ancient eBay purchase that ended up being so slow that contributed to me not bothering and cancelling my sub. Vaguely tech savvy and can Google with the best of them but by no means au fait with full blown tech speak it seems to be required to get best out of a PC to run Zwift.
Took said PC to a local IT shop who basically advised to chuck and got a basic refurb from them. Zwift now loads pretty quickly but lag and ‘glitchiness’ is awful, even on lowest resolution. An evenings googling (of articles I’m able to understand) hasn’t helped much, but tried 2 basics I understood, turned off video screenshots and increased the zwift.exe priority to ‘above normal’, with no discernable difference.

Reading what I can understand on the ‘Ultimate Guide’ on ZwiftInsider, I get the CPU is generally the limiting factor for performance, I’m just wondering whether a semi decent graphics card would be worthwhile given other specs:
I5 8500 3ghz
256gb SSD
8gb RAM
Windows 11
Geforce 210 (which I gather is basic, bottom rung, dross!)

Thanks in advance :+1:

Aside from the GPU, the PC specs are more than enough to run Zwift. I can’t say if there are other issues with the system but those specs are OK if you swap out the GPU.

I see the word ‘garage’ - which would put checking the WiFi signal high on the list of things to check.

Try temporarily moving somewhere more central in the house to see if it improves things. If so, look at a WiFi mesh or moving the existing hub.

The low performance is expected with the GeForce 210. Upgrading to a GTX 1050 or 1650 is totally worth it.

WiFi is grand, when I first got the tower home it was inside in the warmth while I updated/set it up for the first time and it was just as bad. Garage is adjacent to the house so physically only a few metres from the router. I’m not after breaking the bank or super performance, just some semblance of smoothness would be nice! Will see what I can find used. Would a cheap 600 or 700 series GTX with 2gb suffice or may as well do some digging to get a later model?

Network performance won’t affect frame rates. When I query zwiftalizer.com history of performance with that GPU, it’s really bad, and it gets the Basic graphics profile in Zwift.

Your GPU choices will be governed by the power supply in the PC and the format of the case. If it’s a typical mini-tower with no major space restrictions, I would pick a 1050 Ti as the lowest spec worth buying, with Ultra graphics profile in Zwift and low power requirements. If the PSU doesn’t have connectors to power a GPU then you can shop for a 1050 Ti that doesn’t require external power. A GTX 780 is a stronger GPU but requires external power, and a lot more power. A GTX 770 is pretty close to the 1050 Ti in terms of performance and also gets Ultra profile but again requires much more power. Below the 770 you lose the Ultra graphics profile, so unless a 1050 Ti is beyond your budget I would look at that as the minimum worth getting.

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Switch to the onboard Intel Graphics, they will be much faster than a geforce 210.

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You’re right, the processor is not that limiting a factor. Upgrade the GPU (but you may also need a bigger power supply). From Ebay I bought an i3 9th gen based office tower system for £140 and added a GeForce GTX 1060 which I got on Ebay for £40. This system happened to come with an upgraded power unit with the right connectors for the better GPU though. I get 60FPS, Ultra Profile and connect to an old 42in HD Sony TV. It looks great.

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Reverting to integrated graphics has sorted me out to be getting on with, to at least renew my sub! :+1:If I get back into things properly, I’ll shop around for a 1050 ti, can’t see any extra cables free from the PSU for external power.

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You can use a GTX 1650, too.
Running for 4 years without issues for me, Ultra profile @ 1440 resolution.

Edit - look at the specs, some needs external power! Mine is a low profile one, no external power needed.

Note that the ZWIFT graphics settings can not be manually changed in the app, you have to dive into the config files:

Not to complicated, maybe you find something that you can discard to get more FPS, like “shadow quality”.