The fog will slow you down to a crawl. I would love to have it but no go for me.

I also use onboard sound. I have no issue with it. Works fine.

Either of those very well could be the case. I should find out soon since I plan on buying a sound card before I do an upgrade. If the sound card makes the hiccup less noticeable, then it must be a combination. If the sound card makes the problem go away completely, then just a hardware issue.

BTW, I, too, forgot to mention my screen resolution. I run at 1280x960 (I have to have all the buttons on my orders bar that I can get:lol: ). I hadn't noticed any major slowdowns in fog, but then I don't think I've run into a lot of fog before. I'll have to test that in a single mission and see what it does to me.

Warhawk: Thanks, shouldn't be a problem. After all, someday one of the modboys will find a way to make it work on low-end systems.. A bit enthusiastic of me to think that maybe, but it could happen with the current speed of development.

Digital: You have the AC97 I guess? Don't be ashamed of it :lol: :p it's worked very well for me through 5+ years (newest game I had on my rig was probably SH3 although various demos ran well too)

Just curious, what are your upgrade limitations? Nvidia only, not upgrading your motherboard etc? How much is your budget for this upgrade.

If you have not visited newegg.com, you should! I am sure more people then me would recommend it. A P4 3GHZ goes for 89.00 and for 136.99 Core 2 Duo E4400.
You can get a EVGA GeForce 8600GTS 512MB for 214.99 after rebate 199.99 plus the card is DX 10 and for SH4 thats a big plus if you want the full effects or the XFX 8800GTS 320MB for 250.00 after the rebate, up to you.

Hey Torps,

my budget is around 500 USD (+ - 50 bucks) at current course and I don't live in the US, which means that online stores located there are out of the question - hell, I can't even order anything from other EU countries without overpaying. Yeah, I'm not going to switch the MB simply because it will be too expensive and most of the other stuff that I already have will have to go.

I generally trust GF cards more than ATI and have also heard they are better suited for this game, this GF card from XFX is probably the best thing around for the price.

If im not mistaken you are looking at 30% increase in price compared to the US. I think you should be able to run the game well, At this point im not sure what kind of hard drive your getting but it would benefitial getting a smaller Harddrive( If your under say 120 Gb already then maybe not.) in exchange for a better video card. There is a little price difference here (US) between a 7600 and 8600, if it is the same there, then you might want to consider it. I hope I was helpful.

I have a 120gig, don't think I will need more. Besides I have an AGP mobo, 8600 isn't made for AGP yet afaik (except for some version I saw in the US)