Looking for input on existing rig being ok to run AH 2.16

[Westy]

I ask as I won't be able to install AH until some time later this weekend but I'm
hoping the pc I put together from parts and pieces a few months ago will handle
it.  I'm thinking a new video card may be an option (it's circa '03-'04) but a new
pc is not. If a new card is a must it would have be AGP

 Any input as to if this rig will play the game ok or not as well as any video card
recommendations would be truly appreciated.

Info culled from  DXdiag:

             OS: XP Pro with Service Pack 3
 DirectX Ver: DirectX 9.0c  
  Processor: Pent 4 2.40GHz
     Memory: 1.5 GB RAM
  Page File: 331MB used, 2593MB available
** motherboard is a non-overclocked ASUS P4800-E
** ASUS manual says AGP is "8X (0.8v, 1.5v only)"


Video  Card: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 w/ 256 MB
  Driver Ver: 6.14.0011.7519 (English)

 Audi is onboard: Realtek AC97 Audio
 Driver Name: ALCXWDM.SYS
 Driver Ver: 5.10.0000.5510 (English)

[Krusty]

Your CPU is the weakest link right now... May seem okay, but it's one of the older P4s. If you can get even a low-end C2D to fit into that, it'll smoke your P4 "6 ways from Sunday".

Your memory is okay. I've run everything from 512mb to 2GB. You notice a big jump in performance with 512 -> 1GB, but there's almost no noticable gain from 1 -> 1.5 or 1 -> 2GB. You should be set there.

Your sound card is onboard, not the best, but it WILL work. The issue is that it's using your CPU to process the sounds, where a standalone sound card has its own onboard chips to do stuff.

Video is your second bottleneck. I say this because if you want the "details" on you cannot do it with this card. I have an equivelant ATI card. It WILL run, and with decent framerates, but you cannot turn on the new terrain details. Not as bad as it used to be with the first release of the new terrain, they've tweaked it and it actually looks okay with "bump" and "water" on, but "detail" off. Not the best, but flyable. Smoke, fires, GV level trees, etc, still make you bottom out in FPS, but otherwise playable.


So, do you know the make and model of your motherboard? With that info you can check to see what socket it uses for the CPU. If it's recent enough, you can put higher CPUs in that socket. If it's too old, you won't gain much and will waste money.

[OOZ662]

Seeing as it's an older Pentium, I'd bet it's a Socket 478. In that case, I recommend this as a replacement. Though I'd much more highly recommend the Northwood core version; highly stable for the five years or so I've been running it, runs extremely cool and seems to work faster (elven magic?) than other comparable chips.

My computer comes from around the same era as yours. I have a vanilla AGP XFX GeForce 6800 and it too runs like a dream(considering its age)...even though I'd like to smash the head in of whoever made the heatsink on it. That just comes from being an engineer-type.

This rig will run the game just fine when she's kept nice and clean. 40~75 FPS with mostly-full sliders and advanced water/terrain enabled at 512 textures.

[Krusty]

Many P4s, including my old one, and one in my sister's rig, are Socket 775. They kept making them for a long time.

[OOZ662]

I thought Socket 775 was the replacement for 478...eh, I have no idea.

[Fulmar]

The majority of Pentium 4's produced were 478's.  The specs for the Asus P4800e are that it is a 478.

[Masherbrum]

The majority of Pentium 4's produced were 478's.  The specs for the Asus P4800e are that it is a 478.

Correct.

[Westy]

Thanks guys. Advice well taken and I've saved the links that were put up. It is an ASUS socket 478
and with cpuz it shows as a dual core cpu. I forgot what intel name it is at the moment.
I had a few minutes last night to load AH and with default settings found  I was getting 50-70fps -
but that's offline. I'm sure that'll tank online around activity. Guessthere's no easy patching with
this one - like another cpu or vidcard to buy a year or two. I'll try to see what I can do along those
avenues and look toward a total rebuild after the first of the year.

I appreciate the input! Very much so. Thanks!!

<S>

[Fulmar]

Thanks guys. Advice well taken and I've saved the links that were put up. It is an ASUS socket 478
and with cpuz it shows as a dual core cpu.
<S>

It's really not a dual core.  There is physically only one core on the processor.  It's what they call Hyperthreading.  If it was a real dual core, your processor would hold up much better in aces high.
"A processor with hyper-threading enabled is treated by the operating system as two processors instead of one. This means that only one processor is physically present but the operating system sees two virtual processors, and shares the workload between them. Hyper-threading requires only that the operating system support multiple processors, but Intel recommends disabling HT when using operating systems that have not been optimized for the technology.[1]"

[Ghastly]

Hyperthreading was one of the neatest stunts Intel ever successfully pulled - and they've tried some doozies (remember RDRAM?)

By coupling two instruction queues to a single core, they essentially forced the entire industry to ready themselves for multicore processors before they were economically feasible for general computing, ensuring that multi-core processors would almost literally be plug-and-play when they arrived.

<S>

[Fulmar]

I wouldn't call RDRAM a doozie.  It was initially ahead of the game and was faster than SDRAM.  Eventually dual-channel DDR matched it, plus it was a lot cheaper.  Though one can argue (and has been in the courts) that the price fixing by DDR manufacturers really kicked RDRAM out of the market because of its premium price.

[gyrene81]

Don't worry about that processor in your system. I have a 2.4GHz P-4 (Northwoods P-4 Extreme) that runs AH very well, but my video card sucks. Toss 2 gigabytes of something like Kingston HyperX DDR PC-3200 in that thing and grab one of these video cards:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048%201069609639%201305520549%201068320729&name=1GB

Make sure that system has a "barebones" load on it...i.e. use the system only for gaming and you should be good to go from there.

1. No anti-virus
2. No anti-spyware
3. No internet surfing (just what you need for gaming)
4. No email client (outlook, outlook express, thunderbird, opera...etc)
5. No other programs.
6. Kill any process that isn't absolutely necessary to run the system and connect to the internet.

If that is your only pc and you must use it for something besides gaming....just be very careful what you choose to put on it.

[Krusty]

AH is far more CPU intensive than vid-card intensive. The RAM won't help, he already has more than enough.

[Ghastly]

I wouldn't call RDRAM a doozie.  It was initially ahead of the game and was faster than SDRAM.  Eventually dual-channel DDR matched it, plus it was a lot cheaper.  Though one can argue (and has been in the courts) that the price fixing by DDR manufacturers really kicked RDRAM out of the market because of its premium price.

I wasn't meaning to infer that it was inferior from a technological point of view - I was referring to the behind-the-scenes maneuvering associated with it, given that Intel had a significant stake in the only company (or was it companies???) licensed to produce it. Like the allegedly "accidental" release of the flawed MTH which resulted in the "recall" of nearly a million Intel 820-based motherboards - mostly at the expense of the motherboard manufacturers.

<S>

[Anodizer]

Ok, Westy...  Check it out..  Not to knock all these guys, but I doubt most (if any) of them even looked up your mother board to see what it'd support...


You can make this system play AH very well..  But it may cost you a little..  You'll have to be smart about it..  Stick with 2nd hand stuff because anything you get new in the package is going to be outrageously over priced..  You can occasionally run into deals at places like Fry's Electronics if you have one near you..  But most places will rape you blind on older stuff from some stupid reason..  There are deals all over for older hardware, but you have to look..  Craigslist, Amazon,Ebay come to mind..  Some one recommended a processor...  Yeah, don't get that P4..  You can find P4 3.2ghz HT 800FSB 1meg cache for 40 bucks or less..  The most your board will support is the P4 Extreme Edition 3.4ghz)the fastest Socket 478 processor produced)..  Not much of a boost from the 3.2 I mentioned...  Your board supports an 800mhz Front Side Bus, and is especially good at overclocking..  

First off, you'll have to ditch the ram you have as it's holding you back..  You need some high performance PC4000 DDR 500 Dual Channel that will allow you to take advantage of the performance available..  IF you can't find any PC4000, you can use PC3200..  Just get something decent(Crucial Ballistix, OCZ, Geil, etc)..  Right now, you're not even using Dual Channel mode with the two different kinds of memory in there..  You can find Kingston HyperX PC4000 or more brands all over eBay..  Get one gig (usually around 40 bucks or so).  If you can swing 2 gigs, I'd advise that..  Anything more is a waste of money..  By the way, if you go with 2 gigs, you'll need two 1 gig sticks(or if you go with 1 gig, you need two 512's) to take advantage of Dual Channel mode..  I also would like to stress that it is better to have 2x1 gig as opposed to 4X512 sticks if you want a total of 2 gigs..  Your timings will be off and your board will actually clock the ram and your FSB slower than what it's rated at(ram buffer and memory management issues will arise using 4 sticks)..  
The stuff is sold in pairs..

Third, you need a better video card..  Straight up....  Even if you got the fastest Socket 478 processor, it wouldn't make much difference..  That card is seriously holding you back..  You could do so much better..  If you like Nvida, stick with anything like a 6800GT/GS or a 7800GS/GT if you can find one..  You are obviously limited to AGP but you still have some very viable choices!
IF you want to go all out get the ATI/AMD HD 3850 which is (to date) the fastest AGP card available IIRC..  A power supply upgrade may be in order, though..  I would use something closer to 500 watts, atleast..  And a decent PSU at that..  

If you are interested, please PM me and I will help you further..  I can attest to the performance potential of a properly set up Socket 478 machine..  I use one to play AH on occasion and runs the game just great with almost everything turned up all the way (besides shadows) at a resolution of 1280X1024(on an Nvidia 6800GS modded a bit for more performance)..