2900 XT and a game that I like

[jrlcgmx]

Helo everyone.

I play Age of Conan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Conan.
Can someone tell me what I need to change in my computer for
the least money to be able to play Age of Conan on high?

I have:
some asus motherboard with pcie
AMD Athlon 64 x2 4200+
ATI Radeon 2900 XT 512MB
2GB DDR2 (a mix of every memory module I could find)

I use both windows XP and windows vista 64bit but both are quite the same when I game.

 

[dagger]

It's good enough to run. You may not be able to run it at high resolution or max graphics settings, but it'll work fine.

 

[shadowduck]

If you want high, you need 8800GTish. 2900XT won't be able to handle high at anything over 640x480.

 

[dagger]

If you want high, you need 8800GTish. 2900XT won't be able to handle high at anything over 640x480.

That's wrong, it's not nearly that bad. 2900xt should do fine for moderate 1280x1024 on most games.

 

[angry_ducky]

Maybe some nice overclocking RAM so that you can overclock your CPU?

 

[shadowduck]

That's wrong, it's not nearly that bad. 2900xt should do fine for moderate 1280x1024 on most games.

Really? Well then I stand corrected

 

[Gravemind123]

The HD 2900XT is similar to the HD 3870 in performance, it just uses a lot more electricity. As far as moderate on 1280x1024, my 7900GS still manages at least medium on 1280x1024, it just managed that in Crysis, so it is definitely better then just moderate at 1280x1024.

But on the initial subject, you really need to upgrade the CPU, as it will be the bottleneck if you were to try to upgrade just the GPU. You could try overclocking the CPU and see how that boosts your performance.

 

[jrlcgmx]

The HD 2900XT is similar to the HD 3870 in performance, it just uses a lot more electricity. As far as moderate on 1280x1024, my 7900GS still manages at least medium on 1280x1024, it just managed that in Crysis, so it is definitely better then just moderate at 1280x1024.

But on the initial subject, you really need to upgrade the CPU, as it will be the bottleneck if you were to try to upgrade just the GPU. You could try overclocking the CPU and see how that boosts your performance.

When I change the CPU would an E8400 be good and will that enable me to play smooth on high?

 

[dagger]

When I change the CPU would an E8400 be good and will that enable me to play smooth on high?

Yes. Although your current cpu isn't that bad, and shouldn't bottleneck graphics cards other than the latest generation just on market.

 

[Gravemind123]

Yes. Although your current cpu isn't that bad, and shouldn't bottleneck graphics cards other than the latest generation just on market.

The problem is that those current gen cards are the only things that would make a true upgrade anyway. The HD 2900XT performs at the level of an HD 3870 or an 8800GTS 640MB. The only thing that would give a performance increase worth the cost is an HD 4850 or 9800GTX, the GTX 200 series is not a very good price/performance option.