My predicament exactly. Do I stick with my P4 2.8 prescott, 2 Gigs ddr, and update my 9600xt to something with a bit more muscle, for around $300.......

.....or do I spend a $1000+ und update the lot.

I just get that niggling feeling that a $300 agp card, may be overkill on my relatively redundant machine.:hmm:

I can't upgrade my card beyond a Ge Force 6200, due to the fact my coputer will only accept low profile AGP cards!:damn::damn::damn:

What next
 

Okay I share the same problem - I have a Geforce 6800 GT am looking to upgrade my video card (like to stick with Nvidea for now) and ad memory (currently have 1 gig). It is PC3200 DDR 400 (ASUS PC800E Deluxe - any tips?

You and me both. It's new computer time. Just gotta get that paper route up and running again so I can get the money. :smug:

I also have an XFX 7600GT AGP. Works great for SH4 as long as I don't turn on the volumetric fog.

Ok i´m going to buy a 7600 gs or gt with 256 mb of dd2, if i can found one , .. is cheap and it will be the last upgrade before i earn enough "renown" for a XXI computer.:hmm:

Agp cards starts to be difficult to find here and the options are limited

Uh huh and look at the price of this Geforce 7600 GS OC ............Nice :rock:

http://www.bfgstore.com/

But I've the 7800 GS OC 256mb and it rocks the socks off my five year old ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Mamaboard and it cost twice as much a year and a half ago as this 7600 GS does now..
But I still say that 7600 GS OC is at a nice price at BFG for you guys that could use it.

Do I hear sleigh bells already ? HO HO HO

Hmmmm.... noticed something
 

Looks like BFG has a lifetime warranty (limited) too! Anybody have any experience with it? When companies treat you well it's time to be very loud about it to teach other vendors that standing behind their products is their best sales tool.:up:

I apologize for the delay- check the first post for test results and images- I've edited it with the details

But how about this pic
How about this- yes this is an ATi card
http://www.kickinbak.com/posts/2600-2.jpg

Don't know about the "Limited part" for they have replaced two cards for me in the last five years and there were no hassles at all. My last card was smoked because of a bad tempered power supply ( You wouldn't know about something like that though would you Rockin Robbins. :roll: :lol: ) and was replaced in less than one week after sending "ole smokey" to them. Since then I've purchased a Geforce 7800 GS OC 256 MB from BFG. They are good people to deal with.

Now just what I'm going to do with a new FX 5950 Ultra 256MB AGP card sitting in a box that's collecting dust is beyond me. Card has about five hours on it when I received new 7800 GS.

BFG is Illinois based.

Same setup here (A64 3200+ O.C.'d to 2.4GHz). When I built my system I had the option to get a PCI-E mobo, but decided to save some cash and at the time the drivers for these new boards were not as good as the current 939 AGP boards. What a stupid mistake.

I've decided that rather than try to hobble along with this system I need to build a new C2D/45nm system with one of the new Nvidia cards (once the better performing ones get the die shrink).

The cool thing right now is that with the new die shrink of both CPU (soon to come), and video card (already here for the 8800GT and soon for the faster cards), my current 450w Antec Neo power supply will be beefy enough to run my new setup. That savings, along with canabalizing my existing setup (case, PSU, DVD-drive, sound card), will allow me to get a REALLY nice system for <$1000. I just can't justify $200 or so for something that already would be struggling with existing games, let alone trying to hang on in the near future.

I'm intrigued by the power supply thing. I have a 450W Enermax, and was just thinking (without thinking) I'd need to upgrade that, too. I'll have to spec things out first.

AMEN.

Nvidia always has been, and always will be, the King of Graphics Cards.

Do some research on your exact power supply to find things such as staying within spec during higher load conditions, as well as its efficiency rating. It really is cool with the die shrinking going on. Anantech.com just did a couple reviews with the new parts and it was shocking that under load the SYSTEM power wasn't going much over 250w.

So now we have TWO great graphics card manufacturers who have stood the test of fire (literally almost). Near as I can tell all warranties are limited because the law makes them use the word if there are any limitations at all on the warranty. Of course we wouldn't expect anyone to replace a card we ran over with a truck, but unless they limit the warranty's scope, that's exactly what they would have to do.

This has been about the best thread ever in SUBSIM. I'm convinced that hardware problems are, along with software conflicts, the major reason people have difficulty playing Silent Hunter 4. SH4 is definitely a 2007 game which cannot be played satisfactorily on a 2005 machine! BUT that 2005 machine might be upgradeable to something SH4 can live on comfortably and this thread has plenty of information on how to do that. Great job guys!

On the other hand there are people like poor swdw over there, crippled with their ATI (oops. wasn't supposed to mention that OTHER card in this thread:oops:) cards who have to make believe they're happy with their mistakes, I mean choices.:88) Everybody be nice and say it's a nice picture.:up: Just kidding, it IS a great shot. Can you imagine someone telling you three years ago that it came from a game? I would have laughed at them.

Hey, I have a great CGA card I'll sell you cheap it has 16 COLORS and 320 x 480 resolution! Runs like a scared rabbit too! You'll have to upgrade your motherboard to get those newfangled ISA slots, works best with a whiz-bang 286 processor and DR-DOS...