What graphics card is best for me? How to upgrade for X3?

[Hondapower]

Hi Guys!

I have a Pc with the following specifications:

Pentium 4 2,0GHz
786 MB DDR Ram
MSI VGA-Card (Nvidia Geforce FX 5700VE-TD128 128 MB Ram)
Windows XP Home.

I don´t no if I should buy the game.

Does somebody have specifications like this and can tell me how the game works?

Thx

[alex hall]

personally i would change ur memory
for pretty much the same price u can get the Corsair XMS3500LL 2x1gb
theres gives you 2 main advantages, first its higher speed will allow you to over clock if you wish you, but it is also lower latency than the cas 2 stuff so the timings are better
if you dont want to over clock, you can clock the memory to the standard 3200 speed and be able to reduce the latency even further giving you pretty high performance ram.

you are right about the dual core, you wil lget a slight increase in perforance as one of the cores can be uses soley for the game, while everything else runnign the background like the os will run on the other, but for the price you pay, its not worth the small amount of gain, althou they are well worth it for other things.

Thanks for the hint, I didn't see this memory listed at Dabs, however I have found it elsewhere for the same sort of price. The rest of the kit will come from Dabs.

regards

Alex

[sonicfish]

I've seen the posted req specs for the game, but what's stated and what's actully needed can vary. There have been some very mixed responses. People with beasty systems are complaining of choppy gameplay while others with lower end systems don't seem the have the problem.

I'm running a 2.8ghz P4, 512mb of ram and a radeon 9800 pro. Will I be unable to play due to lag?

[yvesbl]

Hallo i want to know if i will be able to play X3 with my Pc. Here my specs

Athlon XP 3000+
Ati Radeon 9600XT 286MB
1,5 Gb DDR Ram
Win 2000 SP4

Hope you can help me

[Schizosimian]

your systems only real flaw is the XP processor...

youd be better off with a 64 X or X2

[muppetts]

From the information I have below, it appears my MB has 3 PCI Slots and 1 AGP slot. Is this correct (as it would make the future of my MB much safer if I have PCI as well as AGP.


Motherboard Info
Supported Slot Types ISA, PCI, AGP
Manufacturer MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD
Model MS-7010
BIOS Vendor Phoenix Technologies, LTD
BIOS Version 6.00 PG
BIOS Release Date 04/22/2004
BIOS Properties Plug and Play, Flash, AGP
AGP
Revision 3.5
Rate 4x, 8x (8x enabled)
Available Rate 0x0000000c
Selected Rate 0x00000008
Aperture Size 0 B
Sideband Addressing supported (enabled)
Fast Write not supported

Card Slots
Slot 1/4 (PCI)
Order 1
Designation PCI0
Type PCI
Characteristics 5.0V, PME Signal
Data Bus Width 32 b
Details Available, Long
IRQ 0

Slot 2/4 (PCI)
Order 2
Designation PCI1
Type PCI
Characteristics 5.0V, PME Signal
Data Bus Width 32 b
Details Available, Long
IRQ 0

Slot 3/4 (PCI)
Order 3
Designation PCI2
Type PCI
Characteristics 5.0V, PME Signal
Data Bus Width 32 b
Details Available, Long
IRQ 0


Slot 4/4 (AGP)
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700
Order 0
Designation AGP
Type AGP
Characteristics 5.0V
Data Bus Width 32 b
Details In Use, Long
Device Class Display Adapter
Manufacturer NVIDIA
Driver Version 8.1.8.5
Driver Date 10-10-2005
IRQ 16

[Angrybeever]

My copy is sitting at home at the moment waiting. I just wanted to know has anyone tried running X3 with a 5900xt yet and did it run anygood? I have X2 and it stutters alot even with everything turned down my spec is

P4 2.5ghz
1g ram
Gforce 5900xt

Any ideas peeps much apreciated

[grays]

yvesbll - You should be able to play with those specs if you dont go overboard with screen res, shadows and AA. This is just my opinion and dont get all upset if it dosent

Muppets - Your Mobo is an AGP version. Please dont confuse PCI with PCI-E (PCX) as they are completely different. PCI slots are for soundcards etc and a PCI-E card will not work in them.

[The_Judge]

Hi,

The game should run okay on an FX5900XT. I'm not sure why it was not performing well under X2...I upgraded to an FX5900XT (from a shite FX5200) about a month into playing X2 and I was able to run the game at max resolution etc etc.

I then sold my Gainward FX5900XT on Ebay in February for like £120 which was incidentally the price of my current card, a Gigabyte 6600GT.

What is your 3DMark03 score? (check out www.futuremark.com for a copy)

[GaddyG]

do you have your graphics on madly high in X2?
i've a bog standard FX5900 and it ran perfectly fine.
minimal trouble with X3 as well, and my system specs are quite worse than yours...
(Athlon XP2000+, 512mb ram)

[Angrybeever]

Nope al settings are turned down (no bump maps shadows or full screen aa ) Run other games fine Doom 3 Quake 4 HL2 just doesnt like my X2 much wich is a bit of a bugger as its one of them games i always come back to after a blast on other games. And i try running in a modest 800x600 i think my 3d mark was between 8000 and 9000 but its been a whle since i run it i could be wrong Im just hoping that i can get a playable frame rate out of x3 ( 30fps will be fine im not fussy lol ) Ill let you guys know how it runs when i get home tonight. Im going to pop home at lunch and grab the manual to have a read. Thanks for the reply's peeps. If anyone know's how i may get more out of them id be very gratfull if you could let me know

(All background apps have been turned off aswell and i run addaware as soon as i boot to get rid of all that nasty spyware)

[ezza84]

. My computer has 512mb of Ram I want to buy some more maybe another 512mb or 1gb but on dabs.com which is where I get my stuff there is all different kinds of ram and I don’t understand the difference my greatest fear is that I by one and I t isn’t compatible with my computer. can some one please help me out with this

[CBJ]

Go to the Crucial website and use their configuration tool. Once you've found out what type(s) of memory your PC can use, you can either buy from them or use the specification to buy elsewhere.

[TK - 421]

I have:
an AMD Athlon 1.7GHz CPU
512 RAM
an NVidia Geforce 5660 (128Mb)


The game (v1.2) is running fine in free flight with the graphics all LOW but barely in combat and when things get busy. A simple question then is what is the most cost effective upgrade for me?
more RAM? a faster CPU? or an expensive new graphics card?

I could probably stretch to more RAM and a CPU could get a 2800+ sempron on the board without breaking the bank).
suggestions welcome!

[CBJ]

To be frank, all three could do with upgrading. Let people know what your overall budget is and perhaps they can be more precise in their suggestions.

[TK - 421]

maximum budget of £150.

I know the machine needs upgrading, but which of the elements mentioned is most integral to the smooth running of the game? which would have most effect, and bear in mind that I will probably be running the LOW resolution most of the time anyway, just to get the best frame rate.

[TK - 421]

Incidentally, why have these topics all been pushed off the tech support forum? bunching them together is fine, but surely this IS a tech support problem for most people, and far from off topic?

[The_Abyss]

Incidentally, why have these topics all been pushed off the tech support forum? bunching them together is fine, but surely this IS a tech support problem for most people, and far from off topic?

No, this is not tech support, this is a discussion on PC hardware. If you read the forum descriptions, you can see why this is here.

[Al]

What is your current processor model? The Semperon 2800 has a lower clock speed (1.6GHz)

Try checking this comparison table and those after it for performance figures:

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/2004122 ... ts-13.html

HTH

Al

[Jhanactus]

Looking on my box here, I have an NVidia Geforce4 MX440. 128MB RAM.

I'm not going to be able to run X3, am I?