Upgrading Gaming Machine?

[azmyth]

Ok..

I've been debating this for over a week now.

I'm currently in beta for a new MMO called "Age of Conan". It goes live on the 17th. I'm in the Open Beta.

I can't really tell how well its going to perform on my machine due to there being a debugger running, and some memory leaks hogging all my ram.

I exceed the recommended requirements. But in Beta I can only get around 20fps, and sometimes in the 30s.

people with SLI 8800GTs and 4gigs of ram are having the same issues. So I am chalking it up to being Beta.

Anyway, I was gonna make some upgrades to my machine.

I don't play ANY games on my pc other than MMORPGS. I don't do first person shooters.

My choices are narrowed down to the following.. what should I do/not do? and why?

here are my specs as they currently sit.
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AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ dual core @ 2.1 ghz
2gigs of PC6400 dual channel RAM
ATI HD3850 512mb Video card
40 gig HD w/ Windows XP home
160 gig HD w/ only games installed

extra hardware to be installed: Linksys Wireless USB adapter (its fairly new, got it like 2 months ago), cheapo firewire card (don't even know the brand at this time but can easily replace for cheap).

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A. Upgrade to 4 gigs of ram. use money left over to buy a 250gb Hard drive. Stay with Windows XP 32 Bit and don't worry about the extra ram not getting used.

B. Upgrade to 4 gigs of ram. buy 250gb Hard drive.
Upgrade to Windows XP 64 bit.

C. Upgrade to 4 gigs of ram. buy 250gb Hard drive
Upgrade to Windows Vista 32 bit for DX 10.. and don't worry about the extra ram not getting used.

D. Upgrade to 4 gigs of ram. buy 250gb Hard drive. Upgrade to Windows Vista 64 bit for DX10 and full memory usage.

E. None.. I would suggest you upgrade this instead.

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each has its ups and downs. the main thing I am worried about is stability and driver compatibility. Windows XP works fine for me as it is.. but if I stick with it, no need to up to 4 gigs of ram unless i change to 64 bit. What would you do?

 

[Scotteq]

(1) config looks perfectly fine

(2) Asking in the Vista area will get you "Vista x64" answers for stability, the ability to fully utilize RAM, and for vendor/maker support going forward.

(3) Asking in the XP area will get you "BEGONE BLASPHEMER - How Dare U Qweschun teh Supero... Superreeoritess... Ummm... GREATNESS of "The One True OS. ExxPee Akbar!!!

(4) I may be exaggerating for humor's sake.

(5) Unfortunately, some users have disabled that service in order to get that last Frame Per Second.

 

[azmyth]

Yeah I understand all those points..

I'm just debating if I even need to change anything at all.

Age of Conan will have a DX10 version. But, not sure if my pc would be up to snuff to run it with just a ram Upgrade.

 

[Scotteq]

If the DX10 version is completely standalone, and you really like the game (*how is it, BTW??*), then it may be worth your while to do what it takes to ensure everything will run smoothly. That'd mean Vista and perhaps some hardware upgrades.


The reason for that statement is that DX10 and DX9 are completely different sets of APIs - Software written for one will NOT run on the other. Besides DX10, Vista includes a version of DX9 (DX9ex - for "extended"). This extended version of DX 9 uses the different display drivers introduced for Vista so that DX9 games can run on a DX10 computer. DX9ex also includes some extra '10 commands which DX9 developers may choose to take advantage of: Understand that the current games *all* are DX9ex, and not really DX10. But the game makers's marketing goons point at these extra commands and declare the game to be "DX10". So there is a shell game going on.

 

[azmyth]

I'm not quite sure of the details.

I know it will have a 32bit client and a 64 bit client.

I don't think its designed with DX10 in mind first.

Its amazing so far.. which is why I am wanting to make sure I can smoke it at release.

I'm just really seeing if I even need to upgrade at all..