My Specs: what can improve FPS?

[jondotg]

Without buying anything new, what can i do to improve my FPS ingame?


Cable Internet
2.0 gHz Pentium 4 processor
512 mb RAM
80gb hard drive
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420 Ver. 6.14

[Rbstr]

...



defrag alot, clean install of windows, Overclocking, buy my 2.4ghz Cellron easily oced to 2.8

[dscytherulez]

What Rbstr said (- buying his celeron , + updating any and all drivers)

[Rbstr]

the 2.4 cell is better than 2.0 unknown(even if it is a p4)

Yeah i need 110 bucks and i can get my 2.8 C or E

Electros buying my memory for 50, and My 2.4 is going for 60, i also have a 350w PSU for 40.

[jondotg]

How do i update all my drivers?

[dscytherulez]

Download them from the manufacturers website.

[ZionsFire]

Ugh, an MX

[Electrofreak]

Rbstr, I might still be in the market for your CPU... I might be throwing a comp together for my bro out of my old machine

And yeah... jondotg, your machine is gettin to the point where it MIGHT be starting to need a bit of cash thrown at it. I will have to echo Zionsfire and say that the MX completely sucks...

[Sentrosi]

Radeon 9600's and 9800's are going to be dropping in $$ like flies soon. Keep your eye out for them.

I'd still stay away from the 9800XT's. You get as much bang for your buck out of the 9800pro's for $200 more. Not worth the investment.

[Cyanide]

Definately get a new video card. That will make a huge difference for you. The Geforce 4 MX is a fairly low end card. I would say that moving up to a Radeon 9600 XT or higher would give you the best performance boost for the money. Obviously you should get the best card that you can afford. As Sentrosi said, the Radeon 9xxx series should be dropping in price soon when ATI releases its new cards.

Everything else you have is fine for todays games. You could possible stand to get a little more ram, but that's not really neccessary for you. Upgrading your processor won't make a lot of difference right now. 2.0ghz will do fine for any game comming out in the next year or so (provided you upgrade your video card). Upgrading from a 2.0 P4 to a 2.8 celeron really won't boost performance that much. I'm pretty sure the celeron doesn't have as much cache as the P4 (i could be wrong), which reduces its performance. Not to mention that as clock speeds get higher, actual aggregate performance gain per mhz is dropping. The difference between a 2.0ghz P4 and a 2.8ghz celeron or P4 is not worth the cost.

[Acaila]

Essentially, nothing in your system would live up to the current recommended specs of this game. You need a serious upgrade. I am unable to recommend any form of tweaking that could come close to rendering decent FPS in all situations, your hardware just isn't capable of it.

[jondotg]

What do you think about the 9800 PRO? how long will i have to wait for the prices to drop?

[Vitter]

Nvidia just came out with their N40 card. I doubt it will be long before ATI rolls out theirs as well. Once that happens the 9000 series will drop in price dramatically.

I highly recomend a 9800 Pro. I have a 256mb version and i'm running Star Wars Galaxy on maximum settings on everything. That's like 30x more than anything PS requres.

[Rbstr]

the 9800 pro is basicaly the best card out right now.

But again for anyone that hasn't heard me, or just didn't listen last time i told them:

Video memory does not matter, no modern games even use 128 unless they have EXTREMELY high detail in the textures. and were talking detail that not even a 9800pro could handel well (ala New unreal engine)

[Vitter]

I agree with Rbstr completely. I just like my 256mb because I used to have a 128mb Radeon 9700, but it broke. Alienware was out of stock so they gave me the 256mb Radeon 9800 Pro for free

Of course, the damn PC STILL didn't work.... so I had to rebuild it with a new processor, motherboard, and HD.

Still.. I Radeon 9800 Pro's. 128mb or 256mb, they still rock hard.