Is it worth upgrading this, HELP.

[brainii]

I got a system with a Duron 650 with 256mb sdram 133 and a 30gb hard disk. My graph card is a radeon 32 SDR. I'm thinking of upgrading to at least a Geforce 4 TI 4200.
Do you think this is worth doing (I wanna upgrade to get better frame rates in Commanche 4 for example and the new games, last years games still are fine.) Bear in mind that I will not upgrade anything else due to costs...

 

[chuck232]

It wouldn't be worth it at all really. Commanche4 is extremely CPU dependant, so the video card many not do all that much. To tell you the truth, upgrading the CPU would be more worth it than upgrading the video card.

...And all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put my computer back together again...

 

[phsstpok]

Hard to say. I honestly don't know what level of performance of a Radeon SDR is when paired with a Duron 650. Do you have some benchmark scores like 3DMark2001? Quake 3? Unreal 2003 Benchmark?

By the way Commanche 4 is very CPU intensive. You will probably have problems with any video card as long as you have that Duron 650.

<b>I type sixty words per minute. Ten are spelled correctly.</b>

 

[brainii]

well I do have some benchmarks yes.
Quake 3 on timedemo 1 at 1024x768 highest quality gets 60+fps.
I also get 2220 points on 3d Mark 2001 (not SE one).
This is under win XP.
commanche runs also very fast till lots of moving objects (tanks, choppers etc) come into the screen, then it becomes totally unplayable./

 

[phsstpok]

60 fps is about all you will get from any video card with a Duron 650. What a faster card would do for you is let you run at 1280x1024 or even 1600x1200 with almost the same framerates on your system. You could also max the detail level but I'm sure you will still get huge slowdowns in heavy action.

I only have the demo of Commanche 4 and it was unplayable with a Gefoce2 and Tbird @1500 Mhz. It's even choppy with my Radeon 8500.

Don't know what tweaks might help. Usually cutting textures (not colors) to 16-bit instead of 32-bit helped me in most games. Reducing some of the effects like volumetric smoke helps too. These are general game tips. I don't really know what options are tweakable in Commanche 4.

<b>I type sixty words per minute. Ten are spelled correctly.</b>

 

[Bahumut]

What does your Motherboard support:
Processor type
Processor Mhz
AGP Spec (2x, 4x, ect.)

The lowest I've seen a GF4 Ti4200 for is ~$120.
That's roughly the same price as the lowest priced XP 2100+ I've seen. If you're board supports it, this is a better method of increasing performance.

Have you considered upgrading both CPU and Video card.
You are going to pay ~$120 for a GF4 Ti4200
Consider some other options for < $120.
Duron 1.3 GHz + $36
Radeon 9000PRO, Radeon 8500LE, or GF3 TI200. $71 to $82
Upgrade Cost = $106 to $118

A dual upgrade will probable increase performance more than either single upgrade.
Visit <A HREF="http://www.pricewatch.com" target="_new">http://www.pricewatch.com</A>

Pain is the realization of your own weakness.