Graphics upgrade?

[Inferno]

I have a Celeron 333 overclocked to 415 MHz, 256 MB of RAM and Asus TNT graphics card. I thought about a little upgrade. Maybe buying a Geforce 2 MX card. Would my CPU be a bottleneck, and should I maybe upgrade it first?

 

[Guest]

Hi
Im not famillar with your processor or card but try this it might give some indication...
To find out if your cellery is going to be a bottleneck simply play a couple of games that you normally play which you think are a bit slow, and follow these steps:-
1. Set the resolution for the lowest possible and test the frame rate/ playability of the game ( ignoring the poor resolution) basically is it still jerky. Take a note of the frame rate.
2. Now increase the resolution one step and test the frame rate again.
If the frame rate decreased by more than a couple of frames per second when you went from step1 to step2 then you are still graphics card limited.
If there was little or no change from step1 to step2 then the frame rate of the lowest resolution (step1) will indicate the typical frame rate from a newer faster card running at a higher resolution. This may or may not be fast enough for you if it isnt you will also have to upgrade your processor.
If you were graphics card limited when you went from step1 to step2 then you may attain higher refresh when changing cards. How much faster is a little hard to tell but dont expect too much from your processor.

Hope this was of some use.

Later
MAD1

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by MAD1 on 12/27/00 03:13 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

By the way, the previous post has some good advice, you really should try it. As an informed guess, you will probably find a bit of each. The celeron will hold back the mx well before its performance maximum. But the benefits may still be substancial. Soon you'll want to change both. If you can only do one now, and one a little later, then in the meantime, the accelerator should have more impact.

Tom Mc

Even a fool, when he remains silent, appears wise.

 

[Bandit]

The T&L engine of the MX will take some of the load off your processor. So you will notice a preformance increase. If I were you though, I would look at a mobo and processer upgrade before anything else.