PC hardware/CPU advice
 

Who here thinks they're running the slowest processor?

I'm trying to decide whether buying a new video card would allow my 4 year old 1.3GHz Athlon to run SH3 w/o frame rate problems...

The computer is (unfortunately) a Compaq, so upgrading the processor might be too tricky for my tastes since it's an OEM board :(

Re: PC hardware/CPU advice
 

I guess it depends.

I find the TC compression lag unbearable on my Athlon XP 1800+, so I finally bought parts for a new rig.

I went with the cheaper Socket 754 and bought a 64-bit Sempron, a 1GB RAM, and a 6600GT AGP.

If that's not your thing, you'd need to buy a whole system from whoever.

If you're just having framerate issues, you could try to upgrade your video card, but with such an old machine that might be hit and miss. There's no guarantee the newest, AGP v3.0 cards will work in your machine. You'd have to check the specs and see if it supports AGP 3.0 cards or only AGP 2.0 and earlier cards.

Also, the PSU might not be powerful enough for a 6600 or 6800 or whatever the ATI equivalent cards are.

It might help if you mentioned what kind of video hardware is on your system?

In either case, Socket A is dead, so I wouldn't suggest paying a lot of money for a faster Socket A CPU. You'd want to either buy a new box or build a new system. (I'm partial to Socket 754 or 939, with 939 being the best for future proofing, but I'm sure someone has a favorite Intel equivalent, too.)

Re: PC hardware/CPU advice
 

I'm trying to decide whether buying a new video card would allow my 4 year old 1.3GHz Athlon to run SH3 w/o frame rate problems...

The simple answer is no. To run SH3 with no FPS problems, you need at least a 2.0GHz processor and a Gig of RAM in conjunction with a high end video card. It is all relative of course...you can run with a mid range video card and 512MB of RAM with few problems if your system is configured correctly.

I think you shold replace the entire computer, because anything you buy now, will be bottlenecked by other components in your system.

Thanks guys.

The board on this system is sketchy and there are a lot of good PC deals floating around.

Sounds silly to buy a new system just for this game, but it might be even sillier not to! :lol: ;)

ExMachina, When I tried to price upgrading my rig last year, I found out that I was much better off going the new route. There are some good deals out there, if you shop around.

I'm running SHIII on a Pentium 4 1.4 GHz, 512 MB RDRAM, nVidia GeForce FX 5700 VE (256MB RAM).
It runs well with only occasional framerate annoyances.

The LE?

The 5700LE is the consistently worst performing card from the FX series. Unless you can get one for under $30 I wouldn't.

:up:

I guess since I'm dead set on getting SH3 no matter what, I could buy it and try it on my existing system first :o (I'm a little slow sometimes)

:know:

"VE", not "LE"! The VE is even worse (but not much). :) It only has a 64-bit memory interface... :dead:

Fellow Compaq owner here as well, dealing with the same question. Frame rates challenge my patience at times. Using the external cam is brutal and the event cam isn't even a consideration. All this while running on the lowest possible setting. I have:

Evo D300s
P4 1.5mhz
512 ram
Radeon 7500

So, what's a guy that's been playing sub sims since the days of Gato to do? Well, he'd love to drop $$$ on a new comp, but can't stomach it right now. I decided to buy a new card and some more ram. My 9800 Pro and additional 256k arrive tomorrow. :yep:

I'll let you know how much better it gets.

Of course, if you don't hear from me in a few days, you know it's gotten much better. :ping:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3000+
Ram: 512 MB DDR
Video: Nvidia 5200 FX

It does the job

What would be my best up grade option. These are my specs .
Pentium 4 2.4 northwood.
gigabyte fsb800/dual channel ddr400 motherboard.(478 socket)
2 x 512 megs of ram.
Geforce 4 Ti4400 graphics card.
Would a better grapics card be the way to go(say a 6800) . Also would i be better of upgrading the cpu to fit the existing motherboard (say a Pentium 4 3.2ghz / 800 FSB 1meg cache ) or start again with a new motherboard and go for a (INTEL PENTIUM 4 Processor 640 LGA775 3.2Ghz 64bit 2MB L2-Cache 800FSB) . Thanks .

:oops:

Pentium 4 2.8 ghz, 1 gig ram, Radeon 9800 pro..........runs like a charm.

I have a 1.8ghz athlon with 512 ddr and a 9600 pro radeon card and it runs very well save for 1028 time comp. but the latest patch seemed to have smoothed it out some. don't need a monster machine for this game.

I would upgrade the Ti4400 gfx card to some 6800 or something like that. The CPU is still quite fine, perhaps you can overclock it (some of P4 2400MHz went all the way up to 3600MHz so I think you should be able to achieve 3200MHz).

I use a Geforce 6800 Ultra with a 2.0 ghz AMD64 and 1.5GB of ram.

It stays smooth, except on the nav map when there's a lot of traffic at high time-compression. For example, in the English Channel at 1024x, it routinely drops down to <10fps, and I have to decrease to 512x or 256x compression to bring it back up above 30fps.

Here's the funny thing. When I use that DirectX Tweaker I was talking about, and use the "Force Shader P" option, I see an enormous difference in the nav map frame rate. I see a little bit of an increase when I'm using the external camera to watch explosions, but the nav map is entirely faster. Haven't really recorded any statistics for it, but it's probably 50%; I can leave the compression at 1024x, and it *never* drops below 30fps. Not ever! And that's on the bloody nav-map!!! What the HELL Ubisoft was doing on the nav-map, I don't know, but whatever it is, it destroys video cards.

And this is consistent with my upgrade from a 5900XT. Same processor, just different GPU. And I saw an immediate increase on my nav-map framerates, which doesn't quite make sense. I would think the nav-map is CPU dependent, not GPU dependent...

:huh: this is my pile o junk pentium4 1.8, 512 ram memory, geforce ti4600 128meg :rotfl: dont even ask about framerate :up: it works like a snail on roids ;) i can even host multiplayer games since patch 1.4 :smug: is that sad or wot :rock: i keep promising myself a new pc ;) one day

Ok, so my package came today from Newegg. :rock:

Installed my additional 512 RAM to bring me up to 1 gig.

Installed my new 9800 Pro card.

I feel like a new man!

HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT! :up:

I have come to the conclusion that the price of video cards in australia is ridiculous . I could only afford to upgrade to a ATI RAEDON 9600XT which cost me over $200 . A card like a NVIDIA 6800GT would have cost me 2 weeks wages .