Which video card

[Smeghead]

I have a P4 3.0 gig CPU and 1GIG DDR Ram and a Radeon 7200 which is obvious a serious bottlekneck.
I was thinking about the ATI X1950. Anyone running that card with a P4 3.0 ?
How does Pirates run? Right now I have to play in 800*600 with medium settings and even then Port Royal is laggy and when you board a ship its ridiculous!

Any advice?

[Eloricth]

I don't know ATI cards, so I can't offer advice on them. I can, however, offer advice on nVidia cards if you're interested in them at all.

If you are, I need to know a few things:

1) What kind of mobo(motherboard) do you have, and what is it's capacity for RAM.
2) What kind of video slot is on the mobo (PCI, AGP, PCI-E, PCI-Ex16...)
3) How much money do you have to play with for a new card.

-Elo

[Smeghead]

Older board, AGP only, plan on putting 2GIG mem in it.
$150 to spend

[mrcharisma316]

that chip is way much more needed for this game lol

[Chris]

lol potco requires a powerful vid card to work with out lag and to its fullest O_o if not frequent crashes and lots o lag are crazy

[am1974]

ATI video cards are just not that great anymore. They have been having issues with running hot and bad drivers. I would go towards Nvidia. They have great drivers, support and have proven themselves.

[Eloricth]

IGABYTE GV-N76G256D-RH GeForce 7600GS 256MB 128-bit GDDR2 AGP 8X Video Card - Retail $89.99 + $5.84 shipping.

About the best you'll do with an older AGP board.

-Elo

[Smeghead]

you would choose that Nvideo over the x1950?

Im also thinking about saying screw it and changing the mobo, memory and getting a PCIe version instead.
If i had that option which PCIe would you get for under $150?

[Eloricth]

Like I said before, I have no experience with ATI cards other than what my friends have told me from their use, and from reading comments on message boards.

So all I'll recommend are nVidia.

As far as a PCI-E card is concerned. For under $150, I'd recommend this:

XFX PVT84JYDF3 GeForce 8600GT 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail $129.99 + $5.84 shipping ($99.99 after $30 MIR).

-Elo

[Smeghead]

That does look nice.

I need to get a new motherboard, CPU and memory then I guess YUK!
Im so out of the hardware game I know nothing about all that any more.
Single core, dual core, whats the diff?

If I have about $350 to spend on a mb/cpu/mem/video what do you think?
Ive always been scared of AMD, always stuck to Intel

[Eloricth]

Nothing wrong with AMD.
Been using their CPU's exclusively for 7 years and I've yet to have one fail or be defective.

Getting a decent CPU/Mobo/RAM/Video combo for under $350 could be tricky...I'll see what I can dig up.

I just recently upgraded from a single core cpu to dual core, and it's made a dramatic difference. Basically all a dual core cpu is, is a single chip with two processors inside it. They have their own L1 & L2 caches (at least with AMD...Not sure about how Intel's caches and memory interface works...).

I'll see what I can do about the rest...

-Elo

[Maximvs]

Originally Posted by am1974

ATI video cards are just not that great anymore. They have been having issues with running hot and bad drivers. I would go towards Nvidia. They have great drivers, support and have proven themselves.

All I can say is ATI anything appears to be junk... NVidia, I'm coming back!

Have two ATI cards in two comps, one 256mb and the other 512mb - and I've tried every thing (including a fresh OS install with old/new drivers) and nothing...

Everytime I give ATI the chace - they fail me... yet my NVidia Cards are fine (currentl using an older 6600 to play the game withno issues, but upsets me that I own an ATI 512mb card with much more power thatn the 6600 and cant do squat with it...)

So for those out there ATI and have it working, I salute you - but will be back to NVidia soon...

[Dead Bodies]

Originally Posted by Smeghead

I have a P4 3.0 gig CPU and 1GIG DDR Ram and a Radeon 7200 which is obvious a serious bottlekneck.
I was thinking about the ATI X1950. Anyone running that card with a P4 3.0 ?
How does Pirates run? Right now I have to play in 800*600 with medium settings and even then Port Royal is laggy and when you board a ship its ridiculous!

Any advice?

do you run servers? if not then why p3 id wrather have the AMD with the constant power level instead of the fluxuations with p3.

your first problem might be your ram, 1gb is cool but 2 gb sets you free in any game and situation. with game running your pc is prob over 60% processing... thats might be why your slow....

(ps pirates does not depend on your pc much if you read there tech files they setup the game to run the same speed for everyone *to avoid people from taking advantage of certin programs *verry little depends on your cpu. assumming you meet the requirements with your pc *wich it looks like*)


Now on to ATI i WAS an ATI fan untill they sold out. so your not buying ATI cards anymore just the name... and the new ones they are *censored* even though i dislike nvidia they are making some amazing cards now a days .

i go through cards like candy but i usually buy two Geforce 7800's + and run them togeather for amazing stabality. ( dont know if you can crossfire... on your mother board)

Or look into the Fatalty series *lifetime guarantee*

hope it helps... sorry about my english

[Smeghead]

So a dual core CPU works like Hyperthreading?
Does windows see 2 virtual CPUs in task manager? If so thats not so good as most applications wont utilize the second one

[Eloricth]

Yes and no... A dual core is literally that -- it has two cores. HTT is a technology that Intel uses that, from my understanding, allows multithreading of processes. This allows the CPU to process more than one process at a time, but it does not make it a dual core CPU. I don't know what it shows in the task manager for a single core with HTT, but for a dual core, it does show activity and usage on both cores.

To Dead Bodies: I ran SLi for a good while. Across both 6x & 7x series nVidia cards. They STILL don't have SLi to a point where it outperforms a single card config enough to justify the money needed to get two cards. You'd do better to take the money from the dual 7800's and buy a single 8800GT 512 (G92). Best-bang-for-your-buck card on the market at the moment.

Check out XFX's line of nVidia cards. Double lifetime warranty that isn't voided if you overclock. Works for me!

-Elo