Help on selecting new PC hardware

[acetnt367th]

Originally posted by richard_rds

   2. does anyone have any good or bad opinions on Emachines PC's, they were bought by Gateway.

I own an emachines computer, at least that is what I originally bought - it is currently completely upgraded.

Had no problems with the machine in its original format..it worked well. Of your two choices I would go with the emachines, you may still need a better Power supply though for the 9800..not sure.

The only thing I don't like (at all) about emachines is that they do not send you a copy of win xp with their computer. You get a restore CD instead.


Acetnt

P.S. If you ever decide to upgrade your bios of this machine - your restore CD will not work - so save a copy of the bios before flashing...

[richard_rd]

Thanks for all the advice guys!!!

  I bought the Emachines (xp3200, 512M(PC2700) and upgraded Mem to 1Gig. I also bought the standard 128M Nvidia 6800.  

   I have done absolutely no tweaking of windows XP or default options on the 6800.  the AH2 loaded up suggesting 512 textures so i did not change that. My monitor is a 17" with a max 72Hz rate.  I played AH2 for a couple hours and seems like my frame go from 50-72.    was in a fight taht had about 12 planes and smoking hangers and the frame rate seemed to stay above 50.
 
   The only weird stuff i have seen is trees have gaps in them at the taller parts.  


1. Are ther any default options on the 6800 i should change?

2. Should i tweak any WinXP stuff (I currently disable my Virus and FW when playing).


3. Should i try 1024 textures with this setup or just leave them at 512. Can the XP3200+/6800 run 1024 textures?

4. The PC came with a 300W PS, the 6800 manual says minimum 300W PS required. The card seems to be running OK with the 300WPS (but i really don't know what to look for).  I really don't want to upgrade the PS in this PC untill the 1 year waranty runs out, do you guys forsee any pblms with me using the 6800 with the 300W supply?

   Thanks again for all the advice, hope to see you guys in the arena

[Roscoroo]

i'd use the ps until you have problems ..

you'll have game/ fps freezes / graphic distortions or anomiles / sudden shut downs/reboots /black screen of death ect ...  if the power supply isnt cutting it .


 for firewall/AV program ... I wouldnt disable it unless your getting problems, game warps /trouble logging into the arena ect.
I run with fix-it AV on as for it doesnt make any difference.

 for setting up the 6800 and running textures above 512 i'll let those guys ring in about that (I dont have that card so i'll take a seat )

[acetnt367th]

I would leave the Firewall but do disable the virus scan and the windows autoupdate.

Download "end it all" --- a nice freeware utility that allows you to close multiple background programs with one button just before playing AH. This way when you reboot, all will be back to normal. There are several XP services that can be disabled but I would NOT suggest you go down this path unless you are experienced doing so. Your machine may actually perform much more poorly if you turn off a needed service.

As for the power supply ---  what roscoroo said. You will only know this after playing for a while. Look for the things roscoroo said. You may also download a motherboard utility to log your ps voltages to look for variations outside of the normal, when the graphics card is in use.


Regards


Acetnt

[214thCavalier]

I would suggest you never disable your firewall.
Tets have been conducted and show computers without a firewall can become infected within 20 minutes.

[ChasR]

Originally posted by Boat
Is this true? Doesn't seem to me that a CPU as powerful as an Athlon XP 3200+ couldn't keep up with the new generation video cards.

If you look at the latest video card tests performed by Tom's hardware, you'll see several benchmarks were several cards of different architectures, clock speeds, and memory bandwiths score within one or two fps of each other.  This is indicative of a cpu bottleneck.  It generally happens in more cpu dependent games (AH2 appears to be one of those) running high resolutions with eye candy.  Tom's performed the tests using a P4 3.2 as the test bed.  The XP 3200+ is the performance equivalent of a 2.8c.  There have been many posts in this forum from folks stating I upgraded to a big $ video card and I see little or no gain in performance.  If some one has a better theory than a cpu bottleneck, I'd be glad to listen.

[Roscoroo]

Asus probe is the in windows system monitor .

its fairly acurate (i get about a 1c difference in cpu temp vs testing with a infra red temp tester )

I'd open up the case and check to beshure that you have the asus mainboard in it ... then hop over to the asus site

  ASUS PC Probe V2.23.01 for Windows 95/98/ME/NT40/2000/XP.  
 is what i have .

heres the page

http://www.asus.com/support/download/item.aspx?ModelName=Tools&Type=Latest