Curse

moriz · Feb 22, 2006, 02:40 AM // 02:40

after recently discovering that my brand new spanking pc does not have an AGP (or PCI-E, for that matter), i installed a ATI radeon 9200SE on my old pc. well, it now runs the game. it actually look a lot prettier, as long as i don't move (getting some horrible framerates when fighting with a party). here are the specs of my old clunker:

CPU: intel pentium 3 (800mhz, can be pushed to do 900mhz)
ram: 526 mb
graphics: ati radeon 9200SE

so my question is: will upgrading the CPU greatly improve the performance? i'm running it at 1024x768 resolution and minimum detail.

Serafita Kayin · Feb 22, 2006, 02:59 AM // 02:59

You really and truly need a new PC.

If you lived close enough I'd GIVE you one of the P4s that haunt this place.

But honestly, you're scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as what will run GW. The only thing that can help you now is a new PC.

Blade Rez · Feb 22, 2006, 03:06 AM // 03:06

You need a new computer. CPUs do not increase game performance DRAMATICALLY. At higher settings sure 1-10 more fps, but gfx cards+RAM are more important for that.

New computer. AMD for gaming. Intel for some gaming+more work

moriz · Feb 23, 2006, 12:17 AM // 00:17

so the problem is mostly ram and graphics card, not processor. thanks.

anyways, my new pc can run the game with quality set to max, even with an integrated card, so i'm good for now.

swaaye · Feb 23, 2006, 10:50 PM // 22:50

Processor plays a major part if there are tons of characters on the screen. Battles and towns, for example. Could also be RAM bandwidth. PC3200 vs. 100MHz SDRAM for example, lol.

Blade Rez · Feb 24, 2006, 03:47 AM // 03:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by swaaye

Processor plays a major part if there are tons of characters on the screen. Battles and towns, for example. Could also be RAM bandwidth. PC3200 vs. 100MHz SDRAM for example, lol.

"Major" no, but it does play a part. Pc3200 vs 100mhz is a significant difference. For a CPU, just buy a AMD 64 chip or an Intel p4. Doesn't need to be 3 ghz or dual core. Just those, since they have an adequate amount of cache on L2 to provide for your gaming needs. GW is not a resource hog. Just don't get a celeron or sempron, that's more of a workstation type of chip

d4nowar · Feb 24, 2006, 04:18 AM // 04:18

What I want to know is why he bought a new computer without AGP or PCIe...

Blade Rez · Feb 24, 2006, 05:30 AM // 05:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by d4nowar

What I want to know is why he bought a new computer without AGP or PCIe...

think he was being sarcastic

whats sad is that my old 3.0ghz computer used the same gfx card as his 800 mhz card >.<. AGP vs PCI tho

swaaye · Feb 24, 2006, 10:10 PM // 22:10

Well whatever the characters require for calculations from the computer is definitely very, very demanding. The first step though is to make sure you have a beefy video card, cuz without that nothing else really matters.

moriz · Feb 24, 2006, 11:11 PM // 23:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by d4nowar

What I want to know is why he bought a new computer without AGP or PCIe...

'cause i'm a poor student on a budget. not to mention, i had no idea about graphics card when i bought it.

and no, those hand-build systems are out of the question, since my parents (who paid for it) insisted on warrenty services.

Ghozer · Feb 26, 2006, 02:21 PM // 14:21

all components come with ATLEAST a 1 year manufacturers warrantee, and all stores that build them by hand should LEAGALY offer ATLEAST a 3 month no quibble warrantee... so i wouldnt worry about that.

moriz · Feb 28, 2006, 04:05 PM // 16:05

my parents had some bad experiences with hand-built pc and components. for our first pc, the company went belly-up after a month and the components' warranty tend to be unreliable and downright annoying. so now they insist on branded computers, no matter how crappy they can be.

remember, i live in canada, where life is worth about $25 and people die of of their sicknesses while waiting for hours in emergency rooms.

swaaye · Mar 01, 2006, 07:43 PM // 19:43

well, as a pc gamer you should take matters into your own hands and learn how to build the PCs yourself and understand the components completely.

But MAN can you get some wicked deals from Dell, especially if you do some coupon hunting!

My mother is a ER doc. She wastes hours upon hours every day helping people who think they're sick, but are sometimes hypochondriacs or just people with colds. These people take away tons of time that could be spent with the truly injured/sick people. Never mind when she has to deal with stupid criminals or general people who inexplicably hate doctors (people trying to save their lives lol) and spit and swear at them. It's also true that the smarter people in the world don't get themselves hurt/sick as much. It's like late night Walmart shopping; the crowd isn't usually the most intellectually impressive.

swaaye · Mar 04, 2006, 05:13 AM // 05:13

Ok, I'm very convinced that CPU bus/memory bandwidth plays a critical role in GW speed. If I'm in a busy town, my beastly 2.4GHz Athlon XP-M Barton-core chip with a Radeon 9700 at low detail @ 800x600 will get roughly 28fps. If I up the resolution to 1360x1024 (a wacky one I know, but I like it), the framerate drops to maybe 20 fps in the same spot. That shows that the video card is hardly a bottleneck. It's such a small drop for going from low res to insane res, even with antialiasing too. At 800x600, if I look away from the crowd, framerate will jump from 30fps to 120fps.

On my Dell Inspiron 9300 notebook, with its Pentium M 2133MHz and GeForce 6800 Go and 2GB PC2-4200 DDR2, I can pull roughtly 35-40fps in the same scenario (same town with lots of people). This notebook is besting a CPU that is ~300MHz faster, but the Pentium M's bus and RAM performance is far superior, and the Pentium-M has a 2MB cache to help too. Again, the difference in framerate between 800x600 and my notebook's max of 1440x900 is insignificant when looking at a town crowd.

CPU most definitely plays a major role in intense situations with many characters and spell effects. These two above examples are of roughly top of the heap CPUs.

EF2NYD · Mar 04, 2006, 08:52 AM // 08:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blade Rez

"Major" no, but it does play a part. Pc3200 vs 100mhz is a significant difference. For a CPU, just buy a AMD 64 chip or an Intel p4. Doesn't need to be 3 ghz or dual core. Just those, since they have an adequate amount of cache on L2 to provide for your gaming needs. GW is not a resource hog. Just don't get a celeron or sempron, that's more of a workstation type of chip

Major, no. HUGE.

Alias_X · Mar 04, 2006, 07:54 PM // 19:54

Sure, every component affects the performance, but not all of them affect it greatly.

You could dish out $230 on a sound card, and scrape 2-3 more frames per second from your games.

Really, you need a new computer, and if you were to build it, I could help you pick out parts if you give me a budget. If that isn't what you want to do, I suggest upgrading your graphics card.

moriz · Mar 05, 2006, 08:32 PM // 20:32

thanks for your help. like i said, my new comp (not my old clunker, the new one without an agp slot) WILL run the game. in fact, it runs pretty well even at highest quality. while i do know how to build a computer myself, i do not have the money to buy the parts. my parents have a chokehold on the family purse (which included my scholarship money. grrrr).

by the way, i've recently came across a geforce 256mb FX5500 PCI card. does anyone have an opinion on it?

Alias_X · Mar 05, 2006, 09:53 PM // 21:53

I have a friend with one, and it was an improvement over his integrated graphics, but I don't think it was the best.

I have heard that the ATI Radeon 9250 is the best PCI card, and people can run Half Life 2 with it. I think stores run weekly rebates on it, so it is around 60-90 dollars.

Josh · Mar 05, 2006, 10:21 PM // 22:21

Regarding the above, it's around £34 / $60 on eBuyer.

GeCube Radeon 9250 9250 PCI 128MB 64bit Edition
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=91364

jimmy_logic · Mar 06, 2006, 04:51 AM // 04:51

I think GW tends to stress out the Proc and Memory subsystem more than the graphics card. Any modern decent card which can be had for less than $100 should do the trick fine on max settings.