Decent processor + shitey gfx card

Flaming Toilet Bag · 19th February 2004, 07:29 AM

Howdy. My dad's getting my computer upgraded because the motherboard was borked, so he's getting me a new Athlon 2.5ghz processor, 512mb ram, new case and 40 gig hd. However, the gfx card from my old one's getting put in, which is the original Creative Geforce Blaster Pro - is this gonna pretty much limit the capabilities of the new system, or should I notice a significant change in frame rates in games even with this shitey old card?

krashd · 19th February 2004, 07:36 AM

You'll definitely see a decent Frame rate increase as a lot of GFX jiggerypokery is still handled by CPU's, but you will mainly see improvements in older games, anything in the past 2 or 3 years that is of any quality will suffer due to your cards lack of DirectX9 support and I imagine low onboard memory (16Mb/32Mb?)

You can get a Geforce4 5200 for about 70/80 quid and I imagine a Radeon 9600 Pro for about the same price. Though Radeon 9800 SE's are like the cheapest of the top of the range cards, giving you a very long time before you'll be upgrading again for as little as 110 quid on ebay.

Rebelius · 19th February 2004, 10:26 AM

9600XT is only 130 and you get LOTS of free stuff, check out the bundle... oooh an then there's that lovely half-life 2 voucher

Misanthropy · 19th February 2004, 03:48 PM

don't quote me on this, but wouldn't you be better off using your onboard graphics processor? Depends on your motherboard I suppose

DrunkWookie · 19th February 2004, 06:58 PM

You'll see an improvement in some games but to be safe ur better to get a decent gfx card.
You'll notice a major difference once you do as it adds extended life to ur pc so you'll have a while before another upgrade is needed, i have a radeon 9800se and i am yet to find a game that cannot run on it, only cost me 125 quid off ebay including delivery.

Rebelius · 19th February 2004, 07:13 PM

aye but sometimes if you get a nice new graphics card which should be super dooper and cool and let you have the pc at 1600x1200 all the time and play all yer new games it just decides it's gonna not work and piss you off and restart for no reason and then you just end up using your mobo gfx anyway

humndislocation · 20th February 2004, 01:12 PM

I doubt you'll see that much of a framerate improvement, unless you're playing a game that's got a software renderer, like the original Quake. Just about everything to do with graphics is done on the graphics card now, even in older games like Quake 2/3. The CPU just tells the graphics card what to draw, rather than doing any of the work.

krashd · 21st February 2004, 06:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Misanthropy

don't quote me on this, but wouldn't you be better off using your onboard graphics processor? Depends on your motherboard I suppose

Onboard GFX is usually fucking rank for any type of 3D gaming, regardless of the chip, motherboards are overcrowded as it is, onboard LAN, sound, RAID etc are a bonus because the big manufacturers always use standard LAN chips that XP can easily detect and won't need drivers, the AC97 soundchip is rather tasty and gives good 5.1 (though i think some boards still use ESS Audiodrives and they are shyte) and lastly onboard RAID is not stifled by your PCI bus speeds giving you a tasty hard disk experience, but GFX i would always say is a no, i wouldn't even get a motherboard with onboard GFX as it tends to fuck up, and any time you reset the CMOS due to an overclock gone wrong you will have to remember to switch the onboard off again via your BIOS or it will mince up XP :/

Basically having something onboard will give you an extra pci slot you don't have to fill with shit, and just about all onboard systems will run off 1 chip, whereas your GFX will have a processor, sub-processors, FPU's, memory chips and a fuckload of small-but-powerful capacitors that will warm up your motherboard intensely.

If you don't use something on a regular basis, disable it via the BIOS, I haven't had anything that used Parallel ports or COM ports since I had an external modem and a parallel scanner about 3 years ago, so i deactivated them, frees up resources in windows and i imagine takes strain off the processor and memory by not having them active. I've even just disabled my floppy controller and the 2 slaves on my IDE cables due to losing my floppy and 2nd hard drive to another computer. Switch off anything you don't use, you will gain a fraction of resources back. If you never used a certain bedroom, you wouldn't have the central heating in that room on would ya?

Fuck me, that was a ramble :P
sorry

Flaming Toilet Bag · 3rd March 2004, 10:01 AM

Cheers for the info chaps.

The computer's here running and working well - there's no onboard gfx on the motherboard anyway, but there's a funky infra-red port...not that i'll ever use it, but hey. I had a bit of bother hunting down drivers for the onboard sound, lan and usb ports, but I just opened the case and looked at the motherboard manufacturer

Runs the games I play most pretty sweetly. Still, wanna get a semi-decent/cheap card to stick in it to give it a little more oomph.

The extra ram's definitely made a big difference.

vyse · 4th March 2004, 12:24 PM

ebays your best bet for a cheap card. The geForce fx5200 as naff and budget orientated as it is only cost me £35 and it supports AGP 8x and DX9. Its runs halo naff tho. And i have no idea why.

humndislocation · 4th March 2004, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vyse

ebays your best bet for a cheap card. The geForce fx5200 as naff and budget orientated as it is only cost me £35 and it supports AGP 8x and DX9. Its runs halo naff tho. And i have no idea why.

That's because every card on the market runs halo naff. They've not done a good job of getting it working fast on the PC.

Still a great PC game though.

19th February 2004, 07:29 AM	#1 (permalink)
Flaming Toilet Bag Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Gone. Posts: 2,537	Decent processor + shitey gfx card Howdy. My dad's getting my computer upgraded because the motherboard was borked, so he's getting me a new Athlon 2.5ghz processor, 512mb ram, new case and 40 gig hd. However, the gfx card from my old one's getting put in, which is the original Creative Geforce Blaster Pro - is this gonna pretty much limit the capabilities of the new system, or should I notice a significant change in frame rates in games even with this shitey old card?

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19th February 2004, 07:36 AM	#2 (permalink)
krashd Senior Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: Kirktonia Posts: 2,064 Band: Crosby, Stills, Nash, krashd and Young	You'll definitely see a decent Frame rate increase as a lot of GFX jiggerypokery is still handled by CPU's, but you will mainly see improvements in older games, anything in the past 2 or 3 years that is of any quality will suffer due to your cards lack of DirectX9 support and I imagine low onboard memory (16Mb/32Mb?) You can get a Geforce4 5200 for about 70/80 quid and I imagine a Radeon 9600 Pro for about the same price. Though Radeon 9800 SE's are like the cheapest of the top of the range cards, giving you a very long time before you'll be upgrading again for as little as 110 quid on ebay.

19th February 2004, 10:26 AM	#3 (permalink)
Rebelius Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Edinburgh Posts: 7,168	9600XT is only 130 and you get LOTS of free stuff, check out the bundle... oooh an then there's that lovely half-life 2 voucher

19th February 2004, 03:48 PM	#4 (permalink)
Misanthropy Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Dundee Posts: 4,101	don't quote me on this, but wouldn't you be better off using your onboard graphics processor? Depends on your motherboard I suppose

19th February 2004, 06:58 PM	#5 (permalink)
DrunkWookie Registered User Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Under a bridge in Kirkton Posts: 296	You'll see an improvement in some games but to be safe ur better to get a decent gfx card. You'll notice a major difference once you do as it adds extended life to ur pc so you'll have a while before another upgrade is needed, i have a radeon 9800se and i am yet to find a game that cannot run on it, only cost me 125 quid off ebay including delivery.

19th February 2004, 07:13 PM	#6 (permalink)
Rebelius Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Edinburgh Posts: 7,168	aye but sometimes if you get a nice new graphics card which should be super dooper and cool and let you have the pc at 1600x1200 all the time and play all yer new games it just decides it's gonna not work and piss you off and restart for no reason and then you just end up using your mobo gfx anyway

20th February 2004, 01:12 PM	#7 (permalink)
humndislocation Hardcore is serious guys Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Dundee Posts: 5,893 Band: Blasphemous Necrorapist	I doubt you'll see that much of a framerate improvement, unless you're playing a game that's got a software renderer, like the original Quake. Just about everything to do with graphics is done on the graphics card now, even in older games like Quake 2/3. The CPU just tells the graphics card what to draw, rather than doing any of the work.

3rd March 2004, 10:01 AM	#9 (permalink)
Flaming Toilet Bag Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Gone. Posts: 2,537	Cheers for the info chaps. The computer's here running and working well - there's no onboard gfx on the motherboard anyway, but there's a funky infra-red port...not that i'll ever use it, but hey. I had a bit of bother hunting down drivers for the onboard sound, lan and usb ports, but I just opened the case and looked at the motherboard manufacturer Runs the games I play most pretty sweetly. Still, wanna get a semi-decent/cheap card to stick in it to give it a little more oomph. The extra ram's definitely made a big difference.

4th March 2004, 12:24 PM	#10 (permalink)
vyse Registered User Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: edinburgh BABY! Posts: 15	ebays your best bet for a cheap card. The geForce fx5200 as naff and budget orientated as it is only cost me £35 and it supports AGP 8x and DX9. Its runs halo naff tho. And i have no idea why.