Good video card to run SimCity 4 and Unreal 2?

[Yzzim]

I just got SimCity 4 and am looking at getting Unreal 2 and would like to know what a good video card for these games would be. Right now I've got a Radeon 64MB DDR and SimCity is pretty sluggish. I'm looking for a card for ~$100, so don't say R350 and 9700PRO or something.

Would like TV-out as well.

GF4 Ti-4200? ATI Radeon 8500? Which would be best? Any others?

Mods - not sure which forum to put this in as it had to do with Video cards and Software, sorry.

Thanks guys

Edit: Here's my system specs:

Athlon XP1600+
Abit KR7A
512MB PC2100 DDR
SB Live Value

 

[Dragoon42]

get a saaphire 9500 (around $150, if you can spare the extra $50), and see if the softmod will work for you, you might get lucky and end up with a 9700

 

[eliteorange]

unreal 2 is crazy... i have a p4 2.4ghz and a ti4600 and that thing still runs like crap...

 

[silverpig]

Right now SC4 + Radeon = buggy. It'll probably be fixed, but I can't tell you for sure that it will be.

Also, video and SC4 aren't really that big of a deal. SC4 is sluggish because you don't have a gig of ram (really). That game requires massive amounts of ram to run decently.

 

[Yzzim]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Right now SC4 + Radeon = buggy. It'll probably be fixed, but I can't tell you for sure that it will be.

Also, video and SC4 aren't really that big of a deal. SC4 is sluggish because you don't have a gig of ram (really). That game requires massive amounts of ram to run decently.

Are you serious?!

Ah hell

I thought it was sluggish due to my video card

 

[Reliant]

SC4 doesnt run to well on my 8500 either.

 

[SportSC4]

I have an xp2000+ (133mhz bus, no overclocking), 512 megs of ram (C2), and a Radeon 9500 (non-pro).
3dmarks of 10300 (12800 modded, slight pixelation problems though) and I have had absolutely no problems with simcity 4 or unreal 2. All details are on max and the screens are at 1024x768. The buildings dissapear and re-appear when scrolling on SC4 though (not the fault of the card, but the game).

hehe, BF1942 still starts to bog down when 64 people are battling though... THAT game must take an obscene amount of memory to run smoothly when planes, tanks and 30 peoples are on screen.

 

[FredFredrickson]

You might as well just ask for a new computer for around 100 bucks, because if you wanna play SimCity4 or Unreal 2 pretty good for that cheap, you're SOL!

 

[silverpig]

I'm dead serious. Check the ea.com BBS. Guys with 2.53 GHz P4s and Ti 4600's are getting massive slowdowns at ~70 000 people... cause they *only* have 512 MB ram.

I get major slowdowns at ~60 000 ppl on my XP @1900+, 512 DDR and GF2.

Guys with better processors and video cards than mine, but with 256 MB ram are getting unplayable slowness as low as 15 000 people.

All of my slowdowns are accompanied by massive disk churning -> swapping.

 

[Yzzim]

so "all" I need is a gig of memory and it'll run fine?

I can a 512mb stick for under $100 I believe...

 

[silverpig]

...and it'll run fine for a while yeah...

 

[PliotronX]

Originally posted by: Yzzim
so "all" I need is a gig of memory and it'll run fine?

I can a 512mb stick for under $100 I believe...

Sounds like a good plan

Have you overclocked anything?

 

[Yzzim]

Originally posted by: PliotronX

Originally posted by: Yzzim
so "all" I need is a gig of memory and it'll run fine?

I can a 512mb stick for under $100 I believe...

Sounds like a good plan

Have you overclocked anything?

nope

I do have an AGOIA core though

EMST or whatever memory chips on the memory as well, which, IIRC is faster memory then the "regular" Radeon cards.

 

[PliotronX]

Originally posted by: Yzzim

Originally posted by: PliotronX

Originally posted by: Yzzim
so "all" I need is a gig of memory and it'll run fine?

I can a 512mb stick for under $100 I believe...

Sounds like a good plan

Have you overclocked anything?

nope

I do have an AGOIA core though

EMST or whatever memory chips on the memory as well, which, IIRC is faster memory then the "regular" Radeon cards.

Go 4 it!

Unreal 2 might be a little brutal on the OG Radeon though, maybe a $68 R8500 and 256Meg stick of RAM would balance it out between the two games. Good luck!

 

[Yzzim]

Originally posted by: PliotronX

Originally posted by: Yzzim

Originally posted by: PliotronX

Originally posted by: Yzzim
so "all" I need is a gig of memory and it'll run fine?

I can a 512mb stick for under $100 I believe...

Sounds like a good plan

Have you overclocked anything?

nope

I do have an AGOIA core though

EMST or whatever memory chips on the memory as well, which, IIRC is faster memory then the "regular" Radeon cards.

Go 4 it!

Unreal 2 might be a little brutal on the OG Radeon though, maybe a $68 R8500 and 256Meg stick of RAM would balance it out between the two games. Good luck!

$68 8500????? Where??????

 

[PliotronX]

Last I saw it was at $68, but here it is for $71. A stick of 256Meg PC2100 would put it just over $100 less shipping though. If you unlock your AGOIA you can overclock without stressing the rest of the system and both U2 and SC4 would benefit from the extra horsepower.

 

[manly]

Out of curiosity, how would SC4 run on a P3-800/1 GHz RAM/GF3 system? Historically, Sim-series games were designed to perform well on low-end systems, but I guess SC4 is different.

 

[vegetation]

The slowdowns are noticeable with the large city map heavily populated with a variety of buildings, full quality turned on, 32 bit, 1024x resolution. Try zooming in all the way to one part of your city and watch that hard drive go nuts (assuming you have 512 megs or less). Also, the complexity of such large cities makes the date change very slowly. Takes forever for just a month to pass by even on my 2.7 ghz system.

Turning to 16 bit mode and decreasing the eye candy helps the game move much more swiftly though.

 

[DanTMWTMP]

i'ts not the video card......simcity is cpu intensive...u just need an insane cpu to run sim city....

video card doesn't matter much in sim city 4.....as for UT....someone i knw has a 2.8 gighz oc'ed to god knws what...it's just insane...and he only has a gf 3 ti500.....me w/ my 2.0 gighz w/ ti4600 can't keep up w/ his system...........he runs everything way better than i can ..

also....

get ton lots more ram......

...for simcity 4....get the fastest AMD xp processor there is out there and oc it to the highest possible gighz mark.......then maybe..u can run sim city 4.......

for ut2....the cpu upgrade will be fine to run it w/ ur ti4200......unless u want godly fps....then of course..upgrde that too...

 

[DanTMWTMP]

Originally posted by: manly
Out of curiosity, how would SC4 run on a P3-800/1 GHz RAM/GF3 system? Historically, Sim-series games were designed to perform well on low-end systems, but I guess SC4 is different.

SC3000 was horrendous...i quit playing after my city went big......it was just too slow for my rig prior to the one i had b4....i had a 1ghz oc'ed to 1.4 gghz...gf3...512 SDRAM.....i couldn't run SC3000 @ all....(i mean, i couldn't run it at all when my city went big...)

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: DanTMWTMP

Originally posted by: manly
Out of curiosity, how would SC4 run on a P3-800/1 GHz RAM/GF3 system? Historically, Sim-series games were designed to perform well on low-end systems, but I guess SC4 is different.

SC3000 was horrendous...i quit playing after my city went big......it was just too slow for my rig prior to the one i had b4....i had a 1ghz oc'ed to 1.4 gghz...gf3...512 SDRAM.....i couldn't run SC3000 @ all....(i mean, i couldn't run it at all when my city went big...)

So what you're saying is my P3 rig is obsolete now. I guess I'll stick to playing Counter-Strike like I always do.

 

[Jugernot]

Originally posted by: manly

Originally posted by: DanTMWTMP

Originally posted by: manly
Out of curiosity, how would SC4 run on a P3-800/1 GHz RAM/GF3 system? Historically, Sim-series games were designed to perform well on low-end systems, but I guess SC4 is different.

SC3000 was horrendous...i quit playing after my city went big......it was just too slow for my rig prior to the one i had b4....i had a 1ghz oc'ed to 1.4 gghz...gf3...512 SDRAM.....i couldn't run SC3000 @ all....(i mean, i couldn't run it at all when my city went big...)

So what you're saying is my P3 rig is obsolete now. I guess I'll stick to playing Counter-Strike like I always do.

Your P3 rig was obsolete 1.5 years ago.... no offense.

 

[ChrisIsBored]

SC4 plays fine on my 1.47Ghz Athlon XP and Radeon 8500. I get occasional choppiness when zoomed in but only for like half a second.

UT2 demo played fine on my system too.

 

[spaceman]

both unreal 2 and sc4 run respectable on my geforce 3. *shrug*

 

[SilverThief]

where is everyone getting a demo for Unreal 2?