Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: 230G on September 05, 2007, 11:13:54 PM

Title: Recommended Video card for older system
Post by: 230G on September 05, 2007, 11:13:54 PM

I have an older system with an Intel Pentium 4 Processor 2.8 GHz with 533FSB w/ 512K Cache and 512MB DDR333 PC2700 Non-ECC Memory (512MB x 1).
 The system has worked quite well for AH2 with the GeForce FX5600-8X 128MB AGP Video Card, (for 3 1/2 years) but lately I have frame problems in the large furballs. Would some of you Guru's please recommend a good "upgrade" video card? I think the board also has a PCI slot.
 Thanks,
  230G/35Whelen

Title: Recommended Video card for older system
Post by: Flint on September 06, 2007, 05:04:15 AM

I'd go for another 512mb of ram first. Disk access could be the cause of your stuttering.

That said the 7600gt AGP is a great budget upgrade card.

I really wouldn't drop too much cash on this system - best save for a complete upgrade.

Title: Recommended Video card for older system
Post by: ozrocker on September 07, 2007, 03:29:13 PM

I would say more ram for sure. You could run an AMD 9600-9800 at the older, cheaper end. Or Nvidia 6600. But ram will help a lot too.

                                                                         Oz

Title: Recommended Video card for older system
Post by: Fulmar on September 07, 2007, 06:27:01 PM

You've got the same processor I had in my old computer that served me 4 years.  P4 Northwood core.  Anyways, 512 is kind of skimpy.  I would probably stick another 1 gig in the system.  I think what allowed me to keep that system that long was the fact that I had 1.5gb of ram in it.  You'll notice a nice performance boost when you add in some ram.  Especially if you're coming from 512mb.  

Adding the ram will give u the benefit of seeing a nice overall system boost.  Programs will start up faster, windows will boot faster, and you can have more multitasking going on at once.  Ram is also cheap right now.

The video card would also help, but AGP cards are becoming more rare and actually more expensive than their PCI-E counterpart because not many companies make them anymore and the in the numbers they used to be made.

Title: Recommended Video card for older system
Post by: MrRiplEy[H] on September 08, 2007, 12:54:37 AM

Yes get more Ram, 512 is not enough for gaming even on XP. Ram is very cheap now.

Title: Recommended Video card for older system
Post by: Krusty on September 08, 2007, 02:07:54 AM

Even if you had more ram, don't go above a Ge6600 on that older system. I know for a fact you won't get all you can out of a Ge7600. I have one and had a similar system for a while.

The ram may not seem like it helps -- but it makes a MAJOR difference in how applications in general run (and AH in specific!).