Originally posted by Chitownflyer
I have a 450 watt suppy that
should be big enough to do the job
That should be fine.
The motherboard is is an A7V8X-X asus mother board which is a good quality board.
Other observations.
I had an Nvida G force card before switching to ATI becase "the game didn't like it, now you saying ATI is not
obtimal, now it would seem no card is any good for AH??? now if thats that case then, maybe the game need to conform to ATI or Nada "personality"?
I think you misunderstood. Nvidia makes motherboard chipsets as well as video cards. I never made any statement about Nvidia's VIDEO CARDS over ATI's. As a matter of fact, the ATI 9xxx series video cards have a distinct advantage in Aces High over the Nvidia 5xxx series cards.
What I was talking about is the Nvidia "nForce" chipset motherboards, widely recognized as one of the top performing chipsets. Some have Nvidia's nForce sound chips as well, which are designed to use fewer CPU clock cycles and are proven more compatible and more stable than other manufacturers in almost any game you can name.
Also, this motherboard has "soundmax" sound chip which would be more effecient that Soundblaster or any othe sound cards out there, also Sound, no matter what, takes some cpu cycles in AH it can't be help it has to be.
Thats not entirely true. The Audigy 2 cards have built in hardware buffers and handle sound playback almost entirely on the card. AMD users like myself (and you) wont see as much of an improvement from it as Pentium users for unknown reasons that Skuzzy is working on testing. Irregardless, I have yet to hear of an onboard sound chip besides the nForce set that is good for gaming. Not just because of CPU hits, but also because of crappy drivers that arent as compatible with games.
Now I'v been following "humble's" thread in the general discussions and and Humble's thought that AH sould run well with "second line" equipment makes sense. Now I don't have first line, but to say a mother board/chip first line in, 2003 should now be junk now?
Also, I have been seen posting other people with system better than what I have, having FpS issues with GV ground operations. I have said,
In my opinion you have to have the slider set min of 65% and have FPS of over 15 to run GV with the tarrain modeling we now have and inorder to
do that you have have "First line"
If you've been following that thread, then you would see that I made the statement that as of this time, "second line" systems like yours and mine are doing just fine in AH, and better than the new ones in many cases. Optimization is the key, not necessarily more powerful equipment.
In other words you need a CAD/CAM system spec to now run AH.
Any rate I don't have the money right now to invest 300 to 1000 in this game. I may have that in a few weeks or months in which case I will build a pure "first line" game system.
I never said that. Nor did I imply it. I said your current system is quite capable of handling Aces High with minor upgrades that would probably cost around 300 bucks. I'll spell out what I'm talking about, it might cost less, it might cost more. Thats a guess. You asked about adding a XP3000+ to your system. Sure. If you want to optimize your system, you need RAM that runs at the same FSB speed, otherwise you are slowing down your CPU to memory bandwidth, and negating everything you gained by adding the faster CPU. Well, not everything. But a good sized chunk.
Here's some prices from newegg
Athlon XP3000+ = 115
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103394512MB PC3200 RAM = 41.50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145026ATI 9800Pro = 159
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102286Total 315.50 plus tax. Thats just a quick search at Newegg, you can probably find better deals if you really search. There was cheaper RAM, and definitely cheaper video cards. I chose what I think would give you the most bang for the least buck.
Can you get by with even less? Yes, most definitely. Again, optimization is the key. Optimize your current system, you wont spend a dime on parts and you can easily improve your frame rates. It wont be the stuff of miracles, but it will be noticeable. I put the "300-1000" thing out there to let you know that in the decision to upgrade or replace, there is a good bit of play money wise. That is a manufactured price range, its not set in stone. I pulled that out of the air to give you a framework. If it messed you up I'm sorry. As you can see from my above example, 300 was fairly close for a bottom end, given the hardware I was discussing. Again, you can still look for improvements without spending a dime.
But until then, I have to now go to the side and wait until I can build this "CAD/CAM solid modeling, first line gaming system" or when AH code becomes effecinet enough to run on a system like I have now.
Again, I think you have the wrong idea. While its true that not even the hottest computer on the market is going to run AH with all the bells and whistles at this time, to make a statement like yours is just not true. Obviously, since my system as I described it to you is of the same generation as yours, an older system can run the game satisfactorily. Or perhaps you overlooked that.
