new computer parts?

(ScubaSteve) #1

After finding out 25fps (what I average) is not considered “good” , I have decided to possibly upgrade some parts of my 5 year old 550mhz AMD Athlon(windows98). I have somewhat recently upgraded my video card to the geForce MX 440 and added some ram to total 384mb (the maximum amount my motherboard allows). About half of that ram is pc100 and the other half is pc600 (or something around there). So my question is: limiting the cost to a few hundred dollars, what is the best upgrade path I should take to see the most improvement? (new ram, video card, etc…)

(MadMattUK) #2

I’d get rid of the cpu/motherboard/memory. You should be able to get a athlon xp2000, a motherboard and about 256 megs ddr ram for that.
(possibly better offers?)

MUCH better FPS :clap:

oh and get a decent p/s (cheap enough) :smiley:

how much is ’ a few hundred dollars’ BTW??? :???:

(Lanz) #3

Yeah as MadMattUK said, new cpu, mobo and memory. Just upgrading ram is pointless and waste of money and you cant just upgrade the cpu, you need to replace all three parts. Lowest memory recomended is 2 sticks of 256 meg of ddr ram so you get 512 meg and so you can use the dual ddr on the new motherboard. Exactly what to get is of course up to you and what you can afford and how much better performance you want.

That also includes thinking about if you want to go with AMD or Intel, the price differance is not that big nowdays and the Pentium is usually a bit faster than the equivalent AMD. You also need to consider your graphics card (I guess you meant the gforce 4 mx 440), since it has quite low performance even if you don’t use it to the fullest as is today.

The last things I upgraded my machine with was the following:
ABIT IC7 i875P 800FSB ATX Mobo $163
Intel Pentium IV 2.80Ghz 800FSB CPU $303
2 x 512MB PC3200 memory $186
total: $652

A cheaper alternative would be something like this:
ABIT NF7-S V 2.0 nForce2 ATX Mobo $136
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton CPU $118
2 x 256MB PC3200 memory $93
Total: $347

Note: I converted the prices from swedish currency so they might not be correct.

Everything really just boils down to how much you want to spend and what kind of performance you want.

(Lekdevil.NL) #4

Being careful not to let this deteriorate into another Intel vs. AMD debate, it looks like if you’re hunting for bargain prices (i.e. CPUs around the $100 mark or lower), AMD will give you the most bang for the buck. Here’s a good article on Anandtech: Budget CPU Shootout: Clash of the 'rons

(Lanz) #5

Yes, that’s why I sugested the Athlon XP 2500+ as the cheaper alternative. What I meant more exactly is that if you for example compare the Pentium 2.6 GHz 800 FSB with the Athlon 2800+ Barton you will see that the price differance between them is non existant more or less. I’m not gonna say that the Pentium is faster but according to some of the tests I’ve seen indicate that AMD has been exagerating a bit lately with there comparance to Intel speeds. AMD 3000+ is not the same as Intel 3 GHz. This always goes both ways of course depending on what test you look at and who did it. Another thing that needs to be considered is if you want to overclock, I’ve heard that the AMD 2500+ easily overclocks to the equivalence of an AMD 3000+ which make that CPU really price worthy.

So it’s a djungle of choices that makes it harder to decide whats best to buy at any given point, as usual when it comes to pc hardware. :slight_smile:

Anyway, just to avoid any form of Intel versus AMD; I’ve used AMD for several years just because they performed really well and was cheaper than the Intel CPUs. This has changed nowdays, the Intel CPUs has droped in price lately and that makes it worth to at least think of what brand to choose.

(Bludd) #6

I’ve got an ASUS P4GE-VL mobo, a P4 2.53 GHz CPU, a GB of PC2700 DDR ram, a GeForce FX5600 gfx card with 256 MB DDR ram, a fast cable connection, a massively tweaked config, my gfx card is tweaked for max performance, and I run ET with everything else (NAV, FW, e-mail client, browser windows, etc) off, yet my FPS still drops into the toilet sometimes. When uncapped, I can get maybe 135 or so when looking at a wall (which is rare, and useless anyway unless I wanted to kill the walls/ground/sky), but I cap it at 43 because that’s the most realistic cap for me, and I still drop below that at times, depending on the map and/or current nearby action. So I’m at a loss as to how some people are able to get 333 FPS and the like. Anyway, all I can say is tweak the ass out of your config file and turn off everything you don’t need to move and shoot and see the enemy, and upgrade your HW as much as you can afford.

(SJ_Frankenstein) #7

When you tweaked your config file what exactly did you change? I’ve thought about doing this but haven’t only because I don’t know what the heck I’m doing.

Any tips?

(Bludd) #8

Well, I’ve tweaked nearly everything, but here are some (not all) of the more popular ones that will disable certain effects and a few of them will help improve FPS more than others:

//fluff.cfg
seta cg_atmosphericEffects "0" //turns off rain/snow
seta cg_bloodDamageBlend "0" //turns off blood effect when hit
seta cg_bloodFlash "0" //turns off "red vision" effect when hit
seta cg_bloodTime "0" //turns off blood effect when hit
seta cg_brassTime "0" //sets how long ejected shells stay on the ground
seta cg_coronafardist "0" //turns off halo effect around lightbulbs, etc
seta cg_coronas "0" //turns off halo effect around lightbulbs, etc - may be RTCW specific (?)
seta cg_crosshairPulse "0" //turns off crosshair spread when moving
seta cg_cursorHints "4" //uses solid icon (hand/dynamite/satchel/etc) rather than pulsating one
seta cg_drawfps "1" //shows FPS meter
seta cg_drawgun "0" //hides your weapons/tools etc from view
seta cg_drawWeaponIconFlash "0" //turns off the flashing colors around the gun icon (lower right of HUD)
seta cg_gibs "0" //turns off the guts and bones left behind in RTCW, doesn't apply to ET
seta cg_lagometer "1" //shows the connection graph
seta cg_marktime "0" //sets how long bulletholes remain on surfaces
seta cg_shadows "0" //turns off shadows under players
seta cg_showblood "0" //turns off blood splatter when you hit enemies
seta cg_simpleitems "0" //turns items like guns, ammo packs, health etc into simple icons, RTCW only
seta cg_wolfparticles "0" //turns off the fire in explosions and disturbed earth when bullets hit the ground
seta r_colorbits "16" //16 bit colors
seta r_detailtextures "0" //disables texture detailing
seta r_drawsun "0" //turns off the sun and it's effects
seta r_dynamiclight "0" //disables lighting movement effects
seta r_fastsky "1" //turns off clouds, stars, etc in favor of a plain sky
seta r_flares "0" //turns off flare effect
seta r_gamma "5" //brightness of colors
seta r_ignorehwgamma "1" //this helps make extremely tweaked configs look less shitty
seta r_intensity "4" //overall brightness
seta r_lodbias "2" //eliminates some detail
seta r_mapoverbrightbits "3" //helps eliminate dark places
seta r_mode "4" //3=640x480, 4=800x600. 3 is best performance but can be too grainy. 4 is good compromise for smoothness
seta r_overbrightbits "3" //helps eliminate dark places
seta r_picmip "5" //eliminates sharpness of detail
seta r_rmse "50" //careful with this as it's range may be restricted
seta r_subdivisions "999" //eliminates some curved surface detail
seta r_texturebits "16" //16 bit textures
seta r_vertexlight "1" //uses a simpler lighting format
seta s_mixahead "0.15" //audio setting, improves FPS, can cause some distortion during heavy action
vid_restart //restarts so settings take effect

A few of those are for RTCW only, but this config can be used in RTCW and ET, it won’t hurt anything if a cvar doesn’t apply. Like I said, there are many many more, 500 or 600 in fact, but these will strip a lot of fluff and improve performance, at a high cost to eye-candy.

Save as fluff.cfg in etmain and type /exec fluff.cfg in the console then hit enter… or create a file called autoexec.cfg in etmain and add exec “fluff.cfg” to it.

(ScubaSteve) #9

I think that is the path I am going to take, thanks all.

(BondyBoy007) #10

[quote=“ScubaSteve”]

I think that is the path I am going to take, thanks all.[/quote]

Blimey is $650 only a few hundred? lol

Enjoy your new system mate

(Fusen) #11

lol I bought my new Archos AV340 for the equivalent of that

ROLLING A JOINT

(ScubaSteve) #12

Blimey is $650 only a few hundred? lol

Enjoy your new system mate[/quote]

Well I figured it is better to spend a little more and get something that is sure to work and last, rather than constantly giving up $200 here and there for new parts that are still low quality. Also, $600 is still not a lot compared to several thousand for an entire new computer. :cool:

(Computertech) #13

I seriously would NOT spend that much on an upgrade. The AMD 64’s are looking good, and Intel has yet released their next generation. The old Socket A and 478-pin guys are being discontinued. You will be in the same boat once again.
Something like a AMD Athlon 2800+ $130
Thermaltake Volcano 11+ heatsink $ 29
An Asus A7N8X-X motherboard $ 74
PC2700 256mb (2 for 512mb total) $ 80

That’s only $313. With the large savings, you can get a really good video card to boot.
BTW, you don’t need a sledgehammer to kill a fly, why pay more for the performance you will never see?

(Lanz) #14

And where in a regular store or web can you buy an AMD 2800+ for $130?

I took almost the same things from a swedish store and converted to US $:
AMD Athlon XP 2800+ Barton $230
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Gold nForce2 ATX $148
256MB PC2700 x 2 $144
Total: $522

Hmm, I would have to pay $522 for the same things. If you can get it that cheap in the US, you need to take my prices * 0.60 (60% of my prices): 652 * 0.60 = $391 say $400 even…

(Computertech) #15

The american prices can be looked at many stores here:

Some of these stores are quite good, there MIGHT be one or two that actually sell out of the USA. Maybe there is some web site that’s similar in your country.

(eRRoLfLyNN) #16

You lucky lucky swine. Try 12, with tweaking!!! :angry:

(Eld0Rad0) #17

Got myself a
Pentium IV 2.8 800Mhz FSB
2x512 MB DDR pc 3200
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe, supports dual channel
Saphire ATI 9600XT 128MB

And I have +100 FPS (in radar in gras it drops to 65 or so)

I also tweaked my cfg

(ScubaSteve) #18

True, but a sledgehammer sure works better on 100 flies.

But anyway, I was looking at pricewatch.com and noticed pc3200 is only $3 more than pc2700 for a stick of 256mb, pc3000 is $7 more than pc3200 and pc3700 is about $10 more than pc3200. 1gb of pc100 is about the same price as 1gb of pc4200, but pc4400 is more than double that. Why are the prices so messed up and seem to be almost out of order in terms of naming them. I understand that it’s probably different companies selling them so the prices will vary, but that extreme?

(SylverDragon) #19

True, but a sledgehammer sure works better on 100 flies.

But anyway, I was looking at pricewatch.com and noticed pc3200 is only $3 more than pc2700 for a stick of 256mb, pc3000 is $7 more than pc3200 and pc3700 is about $10 more than pc3200. 1gb of pc100 is about the same price as 1gb of pc4200, but pc4400 is more than double that. Why are the prices so messed up and seem to be almost out of order in terms of naming them. I understand that it’s probably different companies selling them so the prices will vary, but that extreme?[/quote]

You have to remember, pricewatch is basically a free market for prices. It comes down to supply and demand. There are still quite a few PC’s out there running PC100 SDRAM, but the manufacturers are slowing its production, so there is less out there, so the prices are going up. As for the other stuff, its a mix of overstock and loss-leaders. Most of the stores offering good deals on memory are hoping you will buy more than just memory from them. I know I did; I found the best thing you can do is figure out your system, then go to several of the sites and see which one will give you the best deal on all of the parts together (including shipping and tax). Built a nice system (for the time) for about US$1500 by doing that. A good spreedsheet can help with this a lot.

The video card probably isn’t helping, the FX5600 is really a bad card to pick, unless you absolutly need the DX9 features right now and can’t afford an FX5700. You’d do better to buy a TI4600, it will cost slightly more, but gives a lot more performance. Take a look at:


Its a nice comparison of the current cards out there. Though I should probably add that there are those people on this board who question the integrity of Tom’s hardware, so take it with a grain of salt (you know who you are, and failed to convince me last time, let us not get into it again). I would say, ignore the last few pages, and just look at the raw data, the TI4600 makes a damn good showing for only costing US$170+ over on pricewatch. And it almost always beats the stuffing out of the FX5600.