Games and Upgrades, CPU or Video limited

[sandorski]

Since a lot of people upgrade for certain games, I thought a thread like this might be helpful. If we throw our collective experience together perhaps it will help out those seeking answers on what to upgrade. Now it's quite possible that our experiences won't scientifically answer the CPU vs Vidcard limited question, but even if we are somewhat off on the exact best route to take, if we have noticed an improvement in a certain game going one way or the other it still may be helpful.

So I propose that we post the before system, then what was upgraded, and then the results in whatever games we play. FPS numbers would be best, but even just a visual impression(I'll be using this method) of smoothness will be helpful. If you want to include games that have no noticeable difference that would be fine, but I'll only mention games that have improved. Mention 3Dmark if you must, but in my experience my 3Dmark remained the same yet certain games improved very noticeably.

Anyway, here goes:

Before System

Athlon XP 1700+ @1533mhz(XP 1800ish)
MSI K7N2-L (NForce 2)
Saphire Radeon 8500LE(250/200 core/mem)
512mb Infineon PC3200
Audigy Gamer

Upgraded

Athlon XP 1700+ Palimino to XP 2800+ Barton

Noticed

Unreal Tournament 2003-- 34fps(botmatch) -- 49fps(botmatch) 40+% improvement

Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2-- no video improvement, but was able to use D3D/EAX sound setting without noticeable performance hit, this was impossible before

Rallisport Challenge-- very much improved, previous tracks that jerked now run glassy smooth increasing control

Enter the Matrix-- this is the game that inspired me to make this thread as I couldn't find any info on it. Very big improvement. Before the upgrade it was frustrating to play through the jerkiness, it now runs glassy smooth.

🙂

 

[igowerf]

Actually, I think this thread would have much better luck in the General Hardware forum, which is a lot more active than Software. This thread goes along the lines of "how do I make [insert software title] run faster?" which is pretty common in the Hardware forum anyways. Perhaps a definitive thread like this one will stop people from asking, "WhAT shoudl i upgradE to make Cs Faster??????"

Anyways, to add to the thread...
1.4GHz Tbird
512MB Crucial PC2100
ECS K7S5a

I upgraded a GeForce 256 DDR to a Radeon 8500LE (350/375)

Dungeon Seige didn't really run any smoother.
Morrowind ran smoother and a lot prettier, but the boost wasn't as big as I had hoped.
Medal of Honor ran a lot better.
3Dmark went up a lot too. 🙂

 

[Lonyo]

Upgrading your CPU helped EtM? Making me reconsider buyig myself a new one now :/

 

[DaveSimmons]

TomsHardware had a couple of video-scaling articles, one showing how the cards behaved with both a 1 GHz and a 2700+ CPU.

It was interesting to see (comparing the midpoint) that for an XP 1700+ or faster, the video card helped more than a faster CPU: a 2700+ with Radeon 9500 Pro was slower than an (estimated) 1700+ with a 9700 Pro. So if you have a 1700+ or better buy a new video card now (preferably a 9700 Pro) and wait to upgrade the CPU later.

Toms big videocard chart

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: igowerf
Actually, I think this thread would have much better luck in the General Hardware forum, which is a lot more active than Software. This thread goes along the lines of "how do I make [insert software title] run faster?" which is pretty common in the Hardware forum anyways. Perhaps a definitive thread like this one will stop people from asking, "WhAT shoudl i upgradE to make Cs Faster??????"

Anyways, to add to the thread...
1.4GHz Tbird
512MB Crucial PC2100
ECS K7S5a

I upgraded a GeForce 256 DDR to a Radeon 8500LE (350/375)

Dungeon Seige didn't really run any smoother.
Morrowind ran smoother and a lot prettier, but the boost wasn't as big as I had hoped.
Medal of Honor ran a lot better.
3Dmark went up a lot too. 🙂

I considered GH forum, but now that it's here I won't cross post it. Maybe I'll start a "Search!" thread there. 🙂 nah

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
TomsHardware had a couple of video-scaling articles, one showing how the cards behaved with both a 1 GHz and a 2700+ CPU.

It was interesting to see (comparing the midpoint) that for an XP 1700+ or faster, the video card helped more than a faster CPU: a 2700+ with Radeon 9500 Pro was slower than an (estimated) 1700+ with a 9700 Pro. So if you have a 1700+ or better buy a new video card now (preferably a 9700 Pro) and wait to upgrade the CPU later.

Toms big videocard chart

Thanks for the link. I tend to agree that vidcard is usually the way to go, but there are always some exceptions whcih I thought we might find from peoples experiences. 🙂