Upgrade Path P2-400, V770 Ultra

[funked]

My system is a P2-400 with a V770 Ultra.

FPS in AH is unacceptable in some situations.

What would be my best bang for buck on an upgrade?

Would I get more FPS from a new CPU or a new video card?

[Fishu]

V770 is good for under 500mhz computers, so you're in need of new CPU and video card.
Though, you might try to get new video card first and see what happens.

I've had celeron 500, which I replaced to celeron II 566 (which I have also overclocked sometimes to 850mhz at least)
V770 (non-ultra) is my video card and I can't see any big hits in frame rates. (probably needs new video card)

[This message has been edited by Fishu (edited 09-19-2000).]

[Mickey1992]

I have a PII 400 with a V550.  I am upgrading my processor to a PIII 600 the first of the month and I will let you know what my performance increase is.

[gatt]

Funked,
definitely go for a new CPU. You can find PIII550E or 600E Coppermine chips at *very* low prices. With those CPU's your graphic card still works pretty well. Coppermine are easily overclockable as well and they dont overheat. Your fps increase will be huge.

Check at  http://www.azzo.com

Check if your MoBo can mount a PIII (Coppermines need 1,65v instead of 2,0v of normal PIII).

[This message has been edited by gatt (edited 09-19-2000).]

[-lynx-]

PIII600e here with 770 Ultra - no problems.

Up to 600MHz the bottleneck is the CPU, not TNT2 Ultra card. Can't even be bothered to push the CPU higher - fps is in high 40s all the time (dropping to 15 when I taxi through black smoke )

------------------
lynx
13 Sqn RAF

[Westy]

 In same boat as you Funked. My PII 333 is getting long in the tooth and the Viper V770 Ultra is able to handle the sim much better than the CPU is. I figure my best bet is to upgrade my MB and CPU this year and next year I'll go for a new vid card.
 With my current cpu and this 770 Ultra card I am getting fps in the mid 30's to mid 40's and it does drop to the 20's and hi teens in a low battle over a damaged and smmoking base.  Abbreviating the horizon has been helping me out ok in those circumstances.

  -Westy

[Gunthr]

Hi Funked,
I think you might be at a crossroads here...


I would upgrade to a PIII CPU Flipchip, Via motherboard (preferably ASUS) and 128 mb 133mhz ram all at once, even if it means waiting a while. Then your 770 Ultra will be the bottleneck, but it will be much faster, so it will do you for a while longer.

This will give you a continuing upgrade path, ie > overclock or > Cpu > ram > video card, whereas with a BX board, you would just about be at the end of the line.

And you won't need any Slotket, which can be a problem.

[hblair]

I'm taking the big step right now. I was running a PIII550 w/the viper 770 ultra. I got a new mobo and 800mhz cpu thinking it would help my frame rates. I couldn't tell a dimes worth of difference. Apparently the 770 ultra tops out with a 500-600 mhz as far as performance goes.

I went ahead and ordered a voodoo 5, oughta be here today or tomorrow, I'll let you guys know how that goes.

[Fishu]

 

Originally posted by hblair:
I'm taking the big step right now. I was running a PIII550 w/the viper 770 ultra. I got a new mobo and 800mhz cpu thinking it would help my frame rates. I couldn't tell a dimes worth of difference. Apparently the 770 ultra tops out with a 500-600 mhz as far as performance goes.

I went ahead and ordered a voodoo 5, oughta be here today or tomorrow, I'll let you guys know how that goes.

This is true and I have noticed same effect with newer celeron.
Even though mine is not ultra, I believe it does not change much..

[Gunthr]

I would think just going from a Pentium 2 to a Pentium 3 alone will net him some increase.

Starting with the 400mhz P-2 with 66mhz ram, and upgrading to say, a 700 mhz P-3 and 128 mb 133mhz ram on a Via board, the frame rate produced by a 770 Ultra should go up, and I mean a good kick in the pants...maybe 20fps, and maybe more. At least mine did. I rarely bench anything, but my impression is that my Viper went from the 40's - 50's to the 70's and 80's, 800X600.

[Ripsnort]

I got a PIII-550 Intel chip here for $75.00.  FR increase from my 350 was nominal...I think I need to overclock it, which I have NO idea how to do, and don't even want to mess with it since I've been known to break things before  

[kbman]

Hi Folks,
         I am running a PIII 550E@733 0n an Abit BX6r2 with a V770 Ultra and my FPS are in the 50-75 range in 1280 32 bit and when I was running in 1024 32 bit were 60-84 with a 85hz refesh and V-sync on. Albeit this is with a good bit of tweaking that requires some expertise/experimenting. Nonetheless this is more than acceptable performance for the sim as it stands now. This would more than likely require a Mobo/RAM upgrade depending what your present box is built around. As Gunthr said, the BX chipset has its limitations for future upgradability but I would venture that my FPS are better than many "untweaked" GEForce based systems and is more than adequate at this stage. All indications are that the best bang for buck boxes these days are AMD Duron/Thunderbird VIA chipset based as they have taken a great leap in FPU performance over Intel CPUs recently and PIVs dont look to be regaining the lead from early reports at least.

What does this mean???  well, I would upgrade your CPU/Mobo/RAM 1st and keep the V770 and learn how to tweak it a bit and then look at your options for Video cards a few months down the road when things shake out a bit and prices are better yet.

Lephturn is right,as usual, its all about memory bandwidth and thats why I dont think that the V5s are worhtwhile because even with 64MBs of fast Video RAM they dont have enough bandwidth to run FSAA at higher resolutions and that seems to be their biggest claim right now. You will get better FPS from GEForce card. This is why the V6 is coming with 128MBs of RAM in order to handle FSAA properly. But, for me, $500 for a video card is totally unreasonable and out of the question. Sour grapes perhaps, but I am very satisfied with the performance I am getting from my box for the time being. Just my $.02.

kbman

[Fishu]

It is good way to make money and raise prices on the market when those video card producers are first giving out 'bulk' versions of video cards (like GF2 with slow memory and then ultra with faster memory!)

Just get one chip off from fully qualified one and delay its release date couple months and you'll get more money and then release it with that one chip in there and you have more money again and prices raised  

[Pongo]

How much ram Funked?
I assume 128.

[funked]

Thanks guys.

Pongo I have 128 MB RAM (100 MHz).