April 11, 200422 yr I have a P4 2.6 800 FSB512 DDR 400GF FX 5200I can spend about $200-300.After buying Far-Cry I was surprised to see my comp cant play it with the graphics juiced up...What component is getting bogged down?Note: I'm thinkin G-card, is a 5900XT a good card?
April 11, 200422 yr Personally I'd update the video card to maybe a 9600 pro or something... but the newest Nvidia cards are catching up to the ATI. Video card for sure, but its your choice as to video card.
April 11, 200422 yr yeah Vid card and another 512 of rameither go for teh FX5900XT or 9800pro both good (the FX is a great card and has just been discontinued so itll be VERY cheap at the moment look around)
April 11, 200422 yr Farcry isnt running? I think your specs should be enough. Which graphics settings you made ? If you wanna upgrade you should upgrade your memory to minimum 1 GB Ram. That is enough for all games. The Ati 9600 Xt and 9800 pro are good mid range cards, but you must look at there specs, there are cards with 128 mb and 256 mb ram. With Nvidia Chip its the fx 5700 in your price range, but i wouldnt buy this one. There will be new cards shown in the next few days, by nvidia and ati. When they are available, the prices will come down. Then you can buy an fx5950 or ati 9800 xt for this price. But the problem is: you have to wait.
April 11, 200422 yr Seems also to me youre system should run it ok unless you insist on very high res and details setttings. If you really must have more, I'd ask store of card can be returned no questions asked, in case you find out you spent the money for little improvement.
April 11, 200422 yr This is a fact guys....... Your Biggest improvement will come from the graphics card being upgraded. Ram will NOT make your computer faster. Especially 512gb to 1gig. EXAMPLE>>>>>>> Getting a better graphics card is like adding a subwoofer to your speakers. Its Like WOW!!! Where as getting a new amp will only make it a little louder. I would definately get a 5900XT. Look for one with a really good software pack. Lots of time they include great games that you do not have for the same price as a different brand. Like this one....... http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-125-128&depa=0 http://secure.newegg.com/app/CustratingReview.asp?DEPA=0&item=14-125-128
April 12, 200422 yr Author My comp runs Far Cry really well but not when the graphics are juiced up, thats all i was saying...lol Mac, that FX5900XT is the one me and my bro were thinkin about buyin before i posted this.I think we shall order that tonight
April 12, 200422 yr If you build it....... they will come.ORIf you build it....... It will rock!!!!!!!
April 14, 200422 yr This is a fact guys....... Your Biggest improvement will come from the graphics card being upgraded. Ram will NOT make your computer faster. Especially 512gb to 1gig. EXAMPLE>>>>>>> Getting a better graphics card is like adding a subwoofer to your speakers. Its Like WOW!!! Where as getting a new amp will only make it a little louder. I would definately get a 5900XT. Look for one with a really good software pack. Lots of time they include great games that you do not have for the same price as a different brand. Like this one....... http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-125-128&depa=0 http://secure.newegg.com/app/CustratingReview.asp?DEPA=0&item=14-125-128 Yes a good video card is important but going from 512 ram to 1 gb is really important for these types of games. I know when running battlefield my system uses more than 512mb ram including what is need to run win xp. The game loads into ram because it is able to access it much faster especially when you have a good amount of cache memory. If it runs out of memory it will have to access data from the hard drive which is much slower. When this happens you will get a short burst of lag which will happen in intervals and slight latency throughout. Yes more memory especially faster memory will make your computer work faster depending on the amount of resources need for a particular task (like games that eat resources). If accessing data from the hard drive a fast processor will only run at a small percentage due to a series of wait states because the processor can only access data as fast as the hard drive can supply it. Also hard drives have some latency when first accessing a piece of data. Oh and from what i hear far cry needs much powerful computer to run great. Two of my friends must run far cry at lowest video settings and are barely able to run it. They have P4's, a 2.2 and 2.6 both with 1 gb ram and a medium quality video card with 128mb. I tried it and so far i'm good to go at very high settings. I have amd 64 3200+, radeon 9800 pro, 1 gb ddr 400, 2 wd serial ata raptors running raid.
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