Planetside Performance.

[MidnightDave]

thanks rbstr I have a 9700 pro that im gonna keep for a while. Nvidia can kiss my a$$. Well then I guess ill be going with the pentium. As for the memory I did look inside (for something else but eh) and I got 2 512 ddr333 so I guess ill be upgrading. I was lookng on pcclub's website and they have this stick of dual channel memory or something, is that good?

[rogueleader]

This should be last question technically until I get my stuff. What about those drivers? What are they? Do I need them? How do I get them?

[Rbstr]

no, you do not have a VIA chipset you do not need the drivers.

good places to buy things: www.buyxg.com www.newegg.com www.ocsystem.com

Dave for memory heres what you shoudl be looking for:
A One GB dual channel kit (make sure its 2x 512, or you can buy two of the same 512 stick if you can get it that way cheaper)
DDR 400 (pc 3200)
with a CAS latency of 2.
here are good examples:
http://www.ocsystem.com/ocx21gbpcddm.html
http://www.buyxtremegear.com/twin2.html
http://www.buyxtremegear.com/twin.html
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...=BROWSE&depa=0

EDIT:
You know Midnight you coudl also get a 2.4ghz P4 and do something realy fun with it:
Get decent cooling(copper then 50 bucks realy, but you save ALOT by not geting a 3.2) Then you Oveclock it to 3.0ghz, thins means your system buss would be 250, and that would let you use DDR500 memory and with that type of memory bandwidth PS would run like glass i would say,

[Ait'al]

IM pretty sure because of te nature of planetside, namely the way they ahve to consider things coming from long distances, it renders the stuff through walls. Not to mention it keeps track of things on the entire continent. It cant afford to only render stuff in a small areas(a single hallway.) because your going to run outside and it would have to load really fast, and it would screw up performance for people with adequete computers.(in that situation it would have to instantly load everything right outside, other hallways you could see, everything to the horizon the games auto has the distance set to, etc. when a 3D rendered things is set to go back and forth its one of the most intensive thing that can be put on a computer. Your jumping from your ram using a little bit to possibly overflowing to having going back to smal things when you enter areas confined areas agian. Some types of 3D stuff can do that, its acutaly the simple way to render 3d environments, but its not possible with a game with so much interaction.

[rogueleader]

I'm going to buy some RAM, but I need advice. Should I buy two 512mb DDR400 sticks? or just one 1gb DDR400. Also is there a superior maker of these? Please tell me what the best company would be.

[Rbstr]

With ram you want 2 stick and no less(no more realy either, be 4 stick doen't hurt as much as 1 or 3) because the new chipset have what is callled a dual channel DDR memory interface/bus/whateveryouwanttocallit when you have 2 sticks of memory that are identicle you acctualy double the bandwidth that those 2 sticks can put out.

go with 2 512's, those gig sticks have very crpppy timeings too

[rogueleader]

So no specific brand you recommend? I've also found DDR DRAM and DDR SDRAM. What one should I pick?

[Rbstr]

Oh i recomend Crucial, Cosrair, OCZ, and Kingson

look at teh ones above, thats waht you wnat to try to get

[ZionsFire]

There is one answer to all the threads that have been and will be made.....

Planetside Hates You.

[rogueleader]

Is this one good? http://www.ocsystem.com/ocx21gbbapcd.html. The only concern is that the CAS is 3 not 2. I was just wondering how much this mattered. And what it even is.

[Rbstr]

Yeah thats fine but i would recomend getting the lowest cas you can get. OCsystem has CAS 2.5 and 2 also

[rogueleader]

Please take a look at these two and tell me which is better. This will be my final decision I swear. http://www.ocsystem.com/ocx21gbpcddm1.html http://www.ocsystem.com/ocx21gbpcddm.html

[BigFreak]

Right, got some advice from someone over IRC. I disabled a load of services and onstartup services. I was getting 90-100 fps in Sanctuary, still dropping down to around 20 out in the open :\ HOWEVER I'm hoping this + a defrag -might- just help, heh

[Phaelon]

Rbstr - Do not use the dual channel, it winds up actually slowing computers down more than helping them. The threading code found with AMD and Intel processors severly limits the actual theoretical bandwidth found on the Mother Boards. Go to www.tomshardware.com and read for yourself.

If you get ram, still with a 1 GB single chip. There are known performance hits for switching to dual channel.

Alright, Bigfreak. If you disabled lots of services, changed lots of stuff, and are still seeing the same problem, there are a few things you can try.
1).Take the sound blaster Live! out of the computer and use on board. The sound Blast Live! is KNOW to cause huge problems on almost every game. The card was made as an interim by creative and was thought of only to pass the tide for a few months. Or you can buy an audigy from www.newegg.com for like 55 dollars OEM.
2).Fresh Install of your Operating system. Use drivers that are KNOWN to work, and disable services and optimize the computer. www.blackviper.com
3).In all honesty I can't say buying new ram will fix it, but there is a KNOWN 10-15% increase in frames per second when you go with corsair memory. The stuff is just that good.

Did you update your motherboard bios? Did you have a 7200 RPM hard drive? You do have 1 gig of ram right?

Honestly, mess with that sound blaster card, I had one and it was the worst sound card I ever owned. It was responsible for 60% of the crashes in EQ.

[BigFreak]

Yea, I've got no onboard sound here. I guess I'll just have to play about with what I have access to. Thanks