VGA - Bottleneck

Hi everybody,

First of all, sorry for my English ....
I`ve a simple dude, My PC is a Pentium IV s.775 3.06Ghz, 1Mb Cache, RAM 2Gb DDR2 533Mhz, Intel Mobo (chipset ATI x300), I want to know which VGA to buy for running Medieval 2: Total War, Empire: Total War, Crysis and CODs.

Thanks all, thanks!

Recomend to drop PC to rubish and buy a new one ? xD

My brother has a P4 3.4GHz, 2GB of RAM, and an 8600GT and runs Medieval 2: Total War just fine. He hasn't tried any of those other games. I wouldn't invest a lot of money in a video card for that computer, because all of the other pieces are getting old. I would suggest something cheap like a Radeon 4670. You won't be able to play those games on the highest settings, but I bet they will be playable.

Medieval 2

Windows 2000 / XP with DirectX 9.0c
1.5GHz Pentium IV, AMD Processor or equivalent
512MB RAM
11GB HDD Space
128MB display resolution or above
Sound Card (16-bit DirectX 9.0c compatible)
8x speed DVD-ROM Drive
Mouse and keyboard
Broadband internet connection or LAN for multiplayer

empire

Supported OS: Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista™
Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel® Pentium® or greater or AMD® Athlon® equivalent CPU
Memory: 1 GB RAM (XP,) 2 GB RAM (Vista™)
Graphics: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible hardware accelerated video card with shader version 2.0 support, 256 MB video memory
Display: Minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels
Sound: Directx9.0c compatible sound card
Hard Drive: 15 GB free hard disk space formatted as NTFS
Peripherals: Windows compatible mouse and keyboard

Technically you should be able to play both of these but remember these are minimum and mean you need alot more than that.

Thanks strangestranger, but I`m sure that it`s impossible to play with the official system requirements

1.5GHz Pentium IV, AMD Processor or equivalent
512MB RAM .... LOL

Sorry, i got that wrong, you need a dedicated gpu for empire, intergrated won't cut it.

As long as you have room for the large heatsink, I think that is a great card. I actually have a Sapphire 4670 that I'm very happy with. Mine is the one with the fan on it though.

When I played Medieval 2 I had an 8600GT, 2GB of RAM and an Athlon 64 X2 4200+. If I remember correctly, everything in Medieval 2 ran fine at 1680x1050.
I've since upgraded my computer to an X2 5200+ and the 4670. I played Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2 at 1680x1050 with that setup. The 4670 made a very noticeable performance improvement.

It really depends on how much money you want to put into your PC. For $50-$75 I think you will see a very nice improvement with a 4670. For any amount of money over that I would look into getting a new PC.

I guess it mostly depends on personal preferences. If you only play games a few hours a week and most of that is Medieval 2, then an upgrade to your old system is fine. If you want to spend 40 hours a week playing games and want to run Crysis on high settings, then spending the money on a new system makes sense.
As far as waiting goes, there is always something on the horizon, and parts that are expensive today are almost always cheaper a few months down the road. The big problem is that reasoning means you are always waiting for something and you never get a new computer!

I think you will be able to play Medieval 2 at full settings at 1280x1024 with your PC and a 4670.
I don't know anything about using an Nvidia card for physics, but if you want to go that route you should probably look at a 9600GSO or 9600GT.

My understanding is that you can only Crossfire other 46X0 cards with a 4670. So you could use another 4670 or a 4650. And of course you need the proper motherboard.