good video card for this game?

[KG45]

say, about 200 bucks or less. last couple of updates have rendered the on-board that came with this rig obsolete. frame rate in the 20s is annoying, and a shootout with a feild gun just about impossible.

i'm sure its been asked before and looked in other forums and didnt see thread.

add:

4 y.o. HP Pavilion
630 intel pentium 4 w/ HT
1.0 gig PC2 DDR SDRAM
200 gig 7200 RPM Hard drive

[Motherland]

I got my NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS for around $200. May be able to afford an 8800 with $200 by now.
I run smoothly at 60 FPS unless I'm in FSO or an SEA map.

[Max]

What ^ ^ ^ said.

Try reposting in Hardware/Software...Skuzzy will move your post there sooner or later, anyway.

[BaldEagl]

The NVidia 8800 GT is now ~$150 and the 8800 GTS 512 (G92) is at $199 on newegg.  Both great cards as long as you've got a PCIe x16 slot.

[LTARumbl]

You can get better fps than 60. Your monitor is the limiting factor. Try setting the refresh rate to its highest allowable value. Yes I know you dont need more than xx fps, but it looks really cool to get over 100 fps,

[thndregg]

I'm still running on an ATI 9800 from 4yrs ago.

[KG45]

thanks all.

i somehow missed the hardware and software fora.

doh!

[Fulmar]

And 8800 GT or GTS may be overkill for your old Pentium 4.  If you can snap a 7xxx series card yet, I'd drop $150 into a card and add an extra 1gig of ram.  DDR is more expensive than DDR2.

[KG45]

And 8800 GT or GTS may be overkill for your old Pentium 4.  If you can snap a 7xxx series card yet, I'd drop $150 into a card and add an extra 1gig of ram.  DDR is more expensive than DDR2.

was considering another gig of RAM for an all aorund increase in speed for general purposes and i think an 8600 will be all the card i need. AH is the only game i run.

[Getback]

I don't think that is a very good card. Hopefully someone will give further feedback.

[Fulmar]

WINTEC AMPO 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Desktop Memory Model 3AMD1400-1GB-R - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161626
$27.99

Your motherboard is more than likely AGP 4/8X.  So I wouldn't spend a whole lot of money on a video card.  You'll want to save your money for a future upgrade on the computer (i.e. starting from scratch with a new system).  Plus with a new video card, you may have to change your PSU to a more powerful one because I'm sure the stock one you have is fairly low end.

SAPPHIRE 100217L Radeon HD 2600PRO 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 AGP 8X HDCP Ready Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102709
$79.99

A more expensive 2600 XT is available for about $97, but I'm reading that ATI does not support new drivers for their AGP cards.  The 2600 ATI cards really beat their Nvidia 7xxx in that price range of sub $100.

Before you hit the buy button, you'll need to tell us what the wattage of your PSU and more importantly the amperage on the 12V rails (if you know what this is, if you don't we can help).

[Fulmar]

Remember, $400-$500 can get you a nice new budget gaming system.  So I wouldn't stick more than $100 in an older system (especially that it uses AGP and the older Socket 478).

[KG45]

Remember, $400-$500 can get you a nice new budget gaming system.  So I wouldn't stick more than $100 in an older system (especially that it uses AGP and the older Socket 478).

you are correct. it seems i only have PCI slots so I ended up with a e-Geforce 6200 - 49.95. it's up and running. fortunately i took a pic of my mother board with me to Comp-USA


now, where on these forums do i find out the best video settings for the game?

OT but  - my box came with 1 gig RAM: 2x 512mg.

I bought 2 - 1-gig sticks. there seems to be 4 slots 2- blue and 2- black - the exsiting mem is in the 2 blue slots

can i use all 4 slots? like 2 1-gig sticks and 2 512meg? for 3gig?

thanks for the help, homes. 

[Fulmar]

I bought 2 - 1-gig sticks. there seems to be 4 slots 2- blue and 2- black - the exsiting mem is in the 2 blue slots

can i use all 4 slots? like 2 1-gig sticks and 2 512meg? for 3gig?

thanks for the help, homes. 

Yes you can, the different colored slots are telling you that your motherboard supports dual channel ram.  Basically two identical (up to two sets) chips work together to be faster (it Lehman's terms) than non-dual channel chips.

If you don't put the chips in the right slots, you won't have dual channel activated.  Here's a pic of how the chips should be placed on your motherboard.  Make #1 and #3 your 1gb chips and #2 and #4 your 512mb chips


So as you're looking at the motherboard you'll have this:  #1 slot: 1gb chip #2: 512mb #3: 1gb #4: 512mb
So you will have 3gb of dual channel ram.  You'll notice a nice increase from your stock 1gb.  Your Nvidia 6200 isn't the greatest card, but it is sure an improvement over your onboard video.  But you were limited to PCI slots (which is slower than AGP).  So its understandable.

[AirFlyer]

My old comp had a 5500 and 1GB of RAM and I got about 40FPS, so he should be good I would think.