Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: hogenbor on August 31, 2005, 02:44:59 AM
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I currently run AH2 on an Athlon 1800+ with 1Gb of RAM and I have a Ti 4200 vid card. Screen size is 1600x1200, graphic detail cranked way down.
The game is playable with frame rates from 24-43 but sometimes in a big furball it drops to unacceptable levels.
I'm really out of touch with current hardware developments. What would be a wise choice to upgrade? I figure I need at least a new motherboard, fast processor and good vid card. Undoubtedly there has been progress in memory speeds and bus speeds as well but these have completely passed me by. I also found out about PCI-express graphics adapters as oppossed to AGP. I suppose this is better too.
Hehe, when I read this I feel like some old f*rt when less than a decade ago I was a college student and knew everything about the best HW :D Priorities shift. At least now I can afford it.
Can someone fill in the developments of the last 4 years for me? Thanks in advance. To be frank I only need the speed to be able to play AH2, nothing much has changed there at least, speed to play games.
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I have ASUS SLI Deluxe MB
1 MB Corsair XXL cas 2-2-2-5 memory
AMD FX53
BFG 6800 GT PCI express (didnt go SLI).
My frame rates rarely drop below 60 at 16x12 512 texture, and sliders 3/4 to detail.
The thing to concentrate on is CPU power however you go about it. I could add a second vid card but it wouldnt matter cuz my CPU doesnt have enought horsepower to push it.
So you could get away with a non SLI board if AH is your mainstay. I think others with SLI would back me up on this.
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Balsey what did your rig run you $ wise?
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Well it included the whole shebang.... box, power supply etc...
The whole PC etc... was around$2500.
but if your MB, memory, chip and ram only your talking a lot less.
$1500-1600 or so.
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http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=158193
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I just put together a system a couple weeks ago and researched all the new tech. Here's my recommendations based on only playing AH:
Case:
Wide variety available. My preferences went to Antec, Coolermaster, Lian Li, and Thermaltake
Power Supply:
At least 480W (>500 would be better). Would only get from Antec, Enermax, OCZ, and PC Power & Cooling. If you're on a tight budget, look for a case that includes the power supply.
Processor:
single core AMD
Budget: 3200+ Venice core
All-out: one of the FX line
Mobo:
Budget: nForce4 Ultra (non-SLI)
All-out: nForce4 SLI
EPoX has had a lot of good reviews lately about being a fast, stable, cheap nForce4 board. If you plan to overclock, look into the DFI's. Note the DFI's are also tempermental - they are meant for overclockers to tweak every last bit of speed from the system. You also cannot go wrong with Asus.
Memory:
Budget: Corsair ValueSelect 1GB (2x512) Dual channel Kit.
All-out: Corsair, OCZ, RedlineMushkin 1 or 2GB Dual Channel Kits. There are different types of ram offered by each company. Ram with the lower timings = better = more expensive.
Video Card:
Budget: nVidia 6800GT or Ultra 256MB
All-Out: nVidia 7800GTX
I personally prefer nVidia over ATI for the main reason of nVidia supporting PS3.0. There are no games that support this *yet* but when I plop >$350 on a video card, I plan on keeping it for quite a few years where games may be released that support it. If you have the money, the Mobo, and the desire, go SLI. Just realize that 2 video cards does not equal 2x the perfomance. I don't know if you will even see an improvement in AH.
Hard Drive:
Go SATA. If you have the money, I'd recommend a Western Digital Raptor as the non-budget drive to get. As a budget drive I prefer Seagate and Western Digital due to their reliability and warrenty. Hitachi and Maxtor are faster, but there are more stories of failure from these drives. I wouldn't bother with Raid 0, the performance isn't worth it, but Raid 1 is good for mirroring of data.
Sound Card:
Budget: On-board sound
Non-budget: Creative X-Fi
CD / DVD:
Go with a DVD-RW drive, they are pretty cheap nowadays.
OS:
Go with Windows XP Home or Pro. Don't go 64bit.
This is the system that I ended up putting together. Its a blend between cost and performance with me leaning more towards performance. I'm planning on overclocking the processor and Ram so I paid extra for better, more stable components and cooling. Total cost for everything (including case, cooling, and monitor which are not shown) was around $2200:
AMD 4400+ X2
Antec NeoPower 480W
ThermalTake XP-120 Heatsink
DFI Lanparty nForce4 SLI-DR
2GB OCZ Platinum DDR400 (2x1GB)
BFG nvidia 6800GT 256MB
Seagate 7200.8 250GB HD
Plextor 712SA SATA DVD-RW
Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer SoundCard
-aqualung
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your'e right about dfi mobo's....my friend keeps losing/corrupting his GART driver, so his fast rights are turned off and his AGP drops to off.:rolleyes:
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What aqualung suggested looks verry good.
Motherboard: get a brand name, and one that supports athlon x2. DFI,MSI,Asus,Aopen are good in my opinion, but thats not really a hard fact.
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One thing I should have noted above is that the nForce4 boards are PCI-E, so you would need to get a PCI-E video card.
I have a DFI board and have not had one bit of trouble with it. It seems that most people who are having problems have cheap ram or a sub-standard power supply. DFI also has the best support I've seen from any of the mobo manufactures. There is a large community at http://www.dfi-street.com with a couple of DFI employees posting there as well.
I was really debating though whether to go with the EPoX or the DFI, but the large support site swayed my opinion to the DFI.